Abdul Rahman Al-Jabarti - The Egyptian Intelligentsia in the Era of Nationalism

Author: Salah Issa

In his important study of Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti and the educated Egyptian class in the era of nationalism, Salah Issa says: “To some extent, the problem of awareness of our Arab heritage is almost a model for the problem of our awareness of the present, our comprehension of it, and consequently the validity of our interaction with it. We rarely look at the past in a way that sees the comprehensiveness of its economic, social, and intellectual phenomena. While some immerse themselves in memorizing texts and repeating them mechanically, transforming them into categories that transcend time and space, others approach these texts completely abandoning the method of sanctifying them. At the same time, they are unable to re-understand them as part of a comprehensive, holistic phenomenon that explains them and is explained by them.”