Adib Ishaq

1856 - 1885

Arab intellectual.

A Syrian Christian by birth, Adib Ishaq was educated in French schools in Damascus and Beirut. Emigrating to Egypt, Ishaq became the editor of the noted journal Misr. While he has been described as an early promoter of Arab nationalism, Ishaq avidly supported the Ottoman Empire as a viable political community. Inspired by liberal thought of France, Ishaq wrote extensively about the nature of freedom and society. In his view, there were several layers of social organization in the Middle East, each of which defined itself differently. There was an "Arab" identity shared by those who spoke Arabic, an "Ottoman" identity shared by those who acknowledged the sultan as sovereign, and even an "Eastern" identity shared by those who felt besieged by the West. These layers were not mutually exclusive; they overlapped, and it was possible for one individual to hold to more than one of these identities.

Bibliography

Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 - 1939. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Vatikiotis, P. J. The History of Modern Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak, 4th edition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

— ZACHARY KARABELL