Negotiating Conflict: Rifa’aRafi’ al-TahTawı and theTranslation of the ‘‘Other’’ inNineteenth-century Egypt

Myriam Salama-Carr

This paper analyses the role of the translator in the representation of alterity andthe construction of national identity, with reference to the work of a nineteenth-century Egyptian translator, essayist and educationalist, Rifa’a Rafi’ al-TahTawı(1801�/1874). The essay takhlıS al-ibrız fı talkhıS barıs (‘‘The Extraction of Goldin the Summarizing of Paris’’) includes numerous examples of constructivetranslation and representation, which familiarised and legitimised the ‘‘other’’through the identification of parallels, common values and experience. Al-TahTawı negotiated between conflicting discourses of modernism and tradition-alism, and it is argued that the issues of representation raised in his work are ofparticular relevance to contemporary concerns in the geo-political arena.

Keywords ‘‘Interculturality’’; ‘‘otherness’’; Arab Renaissance; nation-building

Introduction

Recent research in translation studies has tended to critically interrogate thenotion of the ‘‘interculturality’’ of the translator, and the associated metaphor of

the ‘‘in-between’’ space that translators are sometimes said to occupy. MariaTymoczko (2003), for instance, deconstructs the metaphorical and linguistic

association of ‘‘translation’’ with an in-between space, concluding that ‘‘theideology of translation is indeed a result of the translator’s position, but that

position is not a space between’’ (2003, 201). Mona Baker (2005) rejects thenotion of a neutral space that would be implied by ‘‘in-betweenness’’, andstresses the inevitability of political engagement.1 If anything, this ‘‘translation

zone’’, to borrow the title of Emily Apter’s collection of essays (Apter 2006), ismore likely to be a site of ideological conflict between competing interpretations

than a neutral space, and is thus ‘‘. . . a military zone, governed by the laws of

ISSN 1035-0330 print/1470-1219 online/07/020213-15# 2007 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/10350330701311496

1. See also Baker and Brownlie in this issue.

SOCIAL SEMIOTICS VOLUME 17 NUMBER 2 (JUNE 2007)

hostility and hospitality, by semantic transfers and treaties’’ (Apter 2006, 9).Moreover, it can be argued that the historiography of translation provides

numerous examples of the degree of committed intervention of translators andtheir role in the overt or covert promotion of national and political agendas.

Taking as its point of departure the agency of the translator in therepresentation of alterity in a nation-building programme, this paper will revisit

the travel account of a nineteenth-century Egyptian translator, essayist andeducationalist, Rifa’a Rafi’ al-TahTawı (1801�/1874). His takhlıS al-ibrız fı talkhıS

barıs (‘‘The Extraction of Gold in the Summarizing of Paris’’) is an exercise intranslation and representation that aims at sketching national identity. My paper

will focus on the ways al-TahTawı familiarises and legitimates the ‘‘Other’’through the identification of ‘‘sameness’’, in order to construct a nationalidentity that is itself grounded in a shared history and system of belief. The pa-

per will also argue that al-TahTawı’s iconic presence in studies of the ArabRenaissance, as a negotiator of conflicting discourses of modernism and

traditionalism, assumes a new significance when interpreted against the currentbackdrop of imagined ‘‘clashes of civilisations’’ and the deepening fault lines

that lie between secularism and religious revivals of all hues.

Translation and the Arab Renaissance

The role of translation in the construction of Modern Egypt is well documented,notably in Arabic works dealing with the nahDa or Arab Renaissance of

the nineteenth century, particularly so with regard to the transmission ofknowledge and the creation of genres, but also when discussing the importance

of language in shaping Arab and territorial nationalism (see, for instance, Hourani1983; Suleiman 2003). Existing studies provide a valuable source of information

and critical viewpoints, but they are located in disciplinary contexts that do notgenerally engage with translation studies. The formative role of translation is not

often problematised with reference to the effect on the target culture and to theways in which the source culture is used and represented. This is particularly true

for non-literary production, which is seen as less controversial. Moreover,empirical data that are available for nineteenth-century translation intoArabic*/the paratexts that translators wrote and the comments that ‘‘obser-

vers’’ and ‘‘users’’ made about translations, which are valuable supplements toactual translations*/remain largely ignored and invisible in contemporary

discourse on Translation Studies. The lack of visibility of the Arabic tradition inmainstream translation studies, and conversely the prominence today of Arabic

data in overtly ideological/conflictual contexts, the ‘‘otherness’’ that Arabic isassociated with in much of western discourse, are undeniable. The former can be

explained, in part, by the inaccessibility of sources, and by the ‘‘absence’’ ofArabic as a source corpus language among researchers. As for the ‘‘otherness’’ ofArabic, this has been discussed extensively within critiques of orientalism, and it

is exacerbated today by polarised discourse and narratives.

214 M. SALAMA-CARR

Much emphasis is placed on al-TahTawı’s seminal role in the Egyptian and Arab

Renaissances, both as a translator of French scientific and legislative texts, and

as a reformer in his own right who paved the way for nationhood in the Egyptian

context. The fact that fully fledged translations of his much-quoted essay (later

editions of the Arabic text appeared in Beirut in 1973, and in Cairo in 1975) were

made available only recently is all the more surprising, and is noted by the

translators*/the late Anouar Louca for the French translation (planned as early

as 1950 and only published in 1988), and by Daniel Newman for the recent English

translation (Newman 2004). A partial German translation was also undertaken as

part of a research thesis in 1968.

Furthermore, within translation studies, the appropriative role of translation

has in the main been framed with reference to colonial and postcolonial

accounts, and the ‘‘Other’’ is primarily seen as a construct of the colonised by

the coloniser, the dominant language(s) and culture(s) domesticating the

foreign. The case of nineteenth-century Egypt as a site of European expansion

and covert conflict between imperial powers (France and Britain) provides a

mirror effect of the ‘‘Other’’. The dominant power and language were

appropriated, and the ‘‘domesticating’’ strategies used by translators played

their part in nation-building and language revival, in ways that recall and

contrast the translation movement into Arabic of the ninth and tenth centuries,

a comparison that should be of interest to translation historians in their search

for patterns.

The year 1798, when Napoleon set out on his expedition to Egypt, signals a

historical turning point for that country. In the same way, 1826, when al-TahTawı

voyaged to France and began writing his takhlıS al-ibrız fı talkhıS barıs, marks

the beginning of the nahDa and the considerable translation activity that

characterised the Arab Renaissance.Nineteenth-century Egypt saw its rise as a modern nation-state, following its

independence from the Ottoman Empire. The new ruler, the Viceroy of Egypt

muHammad ‘Alı, who ruled from 1805 to 1848, promoted the modernisation of

the country and its opening up to Europe, through a vigorous programme of

industrialisation and education. The latter part of the programme involved

sending ‘‘missions’’ of young men to Europe in order that they learn languages

and acquire knowledge of ‘‘foreign’’ sciences. al-TahTawı, a religious scholar,

who was a graduate of the prestigious al-Azhar university, participated in one

of the early missions to France. On his return to Egypt, al-TahTawı established

the first institution to train translators in Egypt, the dar al-alsun , which was

modelled on the Ecole des Langues Orientales in Paris, and oversaw the

translation of numerous texts in the fields of pure and applied science, history,

geography and technology. Technical texts dealing with legal and military

matters were also selected for translation.

NEGOTIATING CONFLICT 215

An Emblematic Figure of the nahDa

Hailed as a symbol of the nahDa (Hourani 1983), al-TahTawı neverthelessremains a muted voice in the history of translation. One reason, as mentioned

earlier, is the invisibility of the Arabic tradition in much of the historiographicalwork that is undertaken in translation studies. Another, which also illustrates

the lack of recognition generally granted to translation as an intellectual andideological activity, could be that al-TahTawı’s own writings*/the takhlıS

brought him fame and recognition*/overshadowed his considerable translationactivity and output.

Louis Awad (1986, 31) suggests that al-TahTawı ‘‘may be called the father ofEgyptian democracy, the father of Egyptian nationalism and the father of

Egyptian secularism or humanism’’, while Albert Hourani (1983, 54) refers to himas ‘‘the first considerable political thinker of modern Egypt’’. Anouar Louca, theauthor of the French translation of al-takhlıS, sees al-TahTawı as the symbol of

the Arab Renaissance (Louca 1988, 11). As argued above, the emphasis on hispolitical and cultural role goes some way towards explaining the lesser

importance that may have been accorded to his translation activity. However,it is through this very translation activity that his influence on political thought

and education was to develop.

takhlıS al-ibrız fı talkhıS barıs

In the preface to the takhlıS, the author frames the purpose of the journey withreference to the aims of the study mission, and he outlines the overall structure

of the book. In the introduction, al-TahTawı describes the geographicalboundaries of the world. The writing conventions of the time lead to the

inclusion of a number of religious references and tributes to the Viceroy,the patron of the mission. This section also includes general considerations

on the importance of the search for knowledge and enlightenment, an over-arching theme that was to be repeated throughout the book, and he presents a

classification of sciences. The six essays, or maqalat, which make up the bookare themselves subdivided into sections (fuSul). Essays one and two detail themission’s arrival in Alexandria from Cairo, the sea trip, the disembarkation at

Marseille and the description and history of the port city, followed by an accountof the land journey to Paris. The third essay covers the topography and

inhabitants of Paris, together with the organisation of the French state, adescription that tested the translation skills of the author. The fourth essay gives

us details on the work of the study mission, the author’s life in Paris, and providesexcerpts of correspondence with a number of French scholars, including the

eminent orientalist Silvestre de Sacy. The fifth essay is of particular interest withregard to the concepts that were to be appropriated in the Egyptian nation-building programme, as it offers an account of the 1830 Revolution against King

Charles X of France. The last essay, in line with the Arabic conventions of

216 M. SALAMA-CARR

chronicle writing, offers a nomenclature of sciences and arts, comparing the

ways French and Arabic traditions classify knowledge.

Nineteenth-century commentators in France generally viewed the takhlıS as

little more than an amusing travelogue, a sample of exotic literature, and they

failed to acknowledge its value as a view from the exterior. A translation of the

whole takhlıS was viewed as unrealistic, the book dismissed as too alien and

inaccessible for a French readership. Louca quotes Charles Didier, the nine-

teenth-century publisher, whose dismissive comments summarily categorise the

work as a piece of entertaining and exotic travel writing.2 Although extracts were

translated into French and used by Ernest Renan (1882), Louca (1988, 33)

contends that a short summary of the book misled Renan, serving to reinforce his

declared anti-clericalism. Guy Sorman (2004, 12) suggests that the misinterpre-

tation of al-TahTawı’s work by French journalists also led Renan to comment on

the ‘‘aversion of Muslims to science’’.

Both the translations proposed by Louca and Newman can be described as

belonging to the Orientalist scholarly tradition. This is particularly true of

Newman’s text, to which I am indebted because the English translations that I

cite in this paper are his. His wealth of footnotes provide precious lexicograph

ical, historical and literary information, unpacking the complex and rich

intertextuality of al-takhlıS. However, one could argue that this foregrounds

the ‘‘foreigness’’ of the Arabic text, which contrasts with the ‘‘domesticating’’

approach of al-TahTawı’s essay. The latter can be read as a domestication of the

foreign, or, to use Edward Said’s phrase when discussing orientalism, ‘‘domes-

tications of the exotic’’ (Said 1979, 60). In his ideological plea for Istighrab

(Occidentalism), the Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi (1991) argues that, in

any such project, and in response to the constructs of orientalism, the West

should be considered not only as a source of knowledge but also as an object of

inquiry.I suggest that al-TahTawı’s interest in the knowledge that could be gained from

his studies in France, together with the intellectual curiosity that he brought to

bear on his construction of the ‘‘Other’’, constitute an early form of occident-

alism. This contrasts with the reductive interpretation of occidentalism that has

found its way into a certain type of discourse, and which corresponds to a sense of

a war waged against a particular representation of the West, which the authors of

Occidentalism*/The West in the Eyes of its Enemies contend, has its roots in the

late eighteenth century, when it was a reaction to the Enlightenment (Buruma and

Margalit 2004).

2. ‘‘Une version complete de cet ouvrage serait impossible et fastidieuse, vu ses interminableslongueurs; mais il serait piquant d’en traduire au moins quelques fragments, ne fut-ce qu’a titred’echantillon, et pour se rendre compte des impressions de voyage d’un Arabe egyptien transplantetout d’un coup sur le boulevard des Italiens’’ (Charles Didier cited in Louca 1988, 32�/32).

NEGOTIATING CONFLICT 217

Representation and Translation Strategies in al-takhlıS

Al-takhlıS articulates issues of representation, selective foregrounding andneutralisation that are dictated by the image of France that al-TahTawı wishes

to promote. As it includes translated extracts drawn from different genres,ranging from key legislative texts and scientific writings to poetry and private

correspondence, it can be used to shed light on translation practices andstrategies.

Al-TahTawı explains and translates Paris, and by implication the whole ofFrance, through generalisations and analogies. He locates similarities between

France and Egypt; for instance, ‘‘Alexandria is both a sample and a model ofMarseilles’’ (al-TahTawı 1973, 39; Newman 2004, 131), in a bid to minimise

differences. For instance, he frequently draws comparisons between thecharacter of the French and that of the Arabs:

It is strange to find that among their soldiers there are men whose character issimilar to that of the pure Arabs in terms of their great courage [. . .]. And, as withthe Arabs, their war chants are mixed in with love poetry. I have indeedencountered many of their sayings, which are similar to the words used by anArab poet addressing his loved one. (al-TahTawı 1973, 162; Newman 2004, 256)

Or again: ‘‘I should like to say that after having investigated the morals of theFrench and their political system it appears to me that they more closelyresemble the Arabs than the Turks or other races’’ (al-TahTawı 1973, 256;

Newman 2004, 361).References to Ancient Egypt, the glorious past that the French expedition of

1798�/1801 had been instrumental in rediscovering and visiting, are also madeand used to mask the ‘‘foreignness’’ of the French model. For instance, in his

epilogue to al-takhlıS, the author comments on the engraved names found onmonuments that ‘‘serve as a reminder of the return of the Bourbons to France’’

(al-TahTawı 1973, 254; Newman 2004, 357), telling the reader that ‘‘it iscustomary among the Franks to write such inscriptions, after the fashion of

the ancient Egyptians and other peoples. Look at how the Egyptians built thetemples and pyramids of Giza’’ (ibid.). The signalling of similarities serves twopurposes in al-TahTawı’s translation and representation project. As stated

earlier, it helps render France less foreign, and it also paves the way for alegitimisation of an Ancient pre-Islamic past, as a legitimate constituent of the

nascent national identity. The role of the past in the construction of the presenthas been articulated in different ways by studies of nationalism (Zuelow 2002),

and al-TahTawı’s selective appropriation of a shared Egyptian and Islamic culturalheritage corresponds to the task of ‘‘political archaelogists rediscovering and

reinterpreting the communal past in order to regenerate the community’’ (Smith1994, 19).

In the same vein he strives to explain, if not necessarily condone, some of the

more surprising customs of the French. For instance, he writes that ‘‘Everyone in

218 M. SALAMA-CARR

France loves dancing, which is considered something distinguished and elegant,

instead of morally depraved. By the same token it never departs from the rules of

decency, whereas in Egypt the dance is one of the specialities of women since it

arouses desires’’ (al-TahTawı 1973, 122; Newman 2004, 231).al-TahTawı does not fail to comment negatively on some of the customs of the

French but, in the main, he attempts to make the ‘‘Other’’ acceptable. The

‘‘extraction of the gold’’ is legitimised by invoking the religious requirement to

seek knowledge, and by hinting at similarities and parallels between the

‘‘Franks’’ and the Arabs. The construction of the ‘‘Other’’ undertaken by al-

TahTawı through translation is noted by his French mentor, the orientalist

Silvestre de Sacy, who commented on the fact that al-TahTawı brought along his

own prejudices (cited in Newman 2004, 281). Mediation takes place on the

strength of the translator’s involvement in his own culture, which allows him to

venture, as a culturally situated agent and with the obligatory biases and

assumptions of any theological position, into the new space of French culture and

knowledge. His mediating agency is at the heart of an encounter between

seemingly competing and mutually exclusive ideologies.

To negotiate this conflict, al-TahTawı needed to reassure his readers at home,

and to pre-empt criticism by the religious and political establishments. The

appropriation of foreign science could be legitimised by showing that a new

context need not necessarily be an alien one, and by invoking the religious

legitimacy of the quest for knowledge, particularly when some of the foreign

works encountered were likely to be viewed with a degree of suspicion. The

reference to the past*/be it to the Muslim heritage or to Egypt’s privileged

connection with ancient civilisation in the context of al-TahTawı’s project*/and

the role it is likely to play in the creation of the present is an issue that theorists

of nationalism have debated (see, for instance, Smith 1994).

In order to gain acceptance, the ‘‘Other’’ must be familiarised. Thus, al-

TahTawı highlights resemblances and draws analogies, as exemplified earlier in

my paper. Moreover, the use of Arabic writing conventions and forms such as the

inclusion of eulogies and rhymed prose (saja’), together with the references he

makes to the Golden Age of Islam situate his own text within the same lineage.

‘‘’Zaman al-khulafa’’ (the era of the califs), their interest in science and their

promotion of translation work (al-TahTawı 1973, 17; Newman 2004, 106) all

feature. These are more than rhetorical conventions. The link with tradition is at

the core of most Islamist narratives. Writing in 1970, Anouar Abdel Malek argues

that the goal of the modern current of Islamic fundamentalism ‘‘is a restoration

of past glory by means of a reworking of the historical legacy in terms of the most

urgent and inevitable requirements of modern times, rather than by progressive

transformation of present realities’’ (Abdel Malek 1983, 5). In contrast, al-

TahTawı’s position includes this possibility of transformation and, as discussed

below, is echoed in some of the contemporary trends of Islamism. The

connection with classical Islam is a familiar theme of Muslim reformists who

frequently argue that the sciences needed to modernise the Umma originate in

medieval Islamic and Arab Science. The significance of the connections

NEGOTIATING CONFLICT 219

established by al-TahTawı lies in the legitimisation process that they entail andconfirms the relationship between power and knowledge (Foucault 1969).

Secularism

Secularism is a concomitant issue, as a product of the Enlightenment in Europethat al-TahTawı had to negotiate in his encounter with France and her

institutions. In his ‘‘conquest of the hearts and minds of the Egyptians’’, whichparadoxically played a ‘‘motivating role in stirring the beginning of a political

consciousness in the country’’ (Suleiman 2003, 169), Napoleon had astutelydissociated himself from Christendom, positioning France in a somewhat neutral

context of secularism, as inseparable from liberal democracy. In the context oftheir expedition to Egypt, the French succeeded to some extent to shift awayfrom the Islam/Christendom dichotomy. ‘Abd al-RaHman al-Jabartı (1754�/1825),

an Egyptian chronicler who witnessed the Expedition, declares that ‘‘the Frenchare not associated thus with the crusaders’’ (Hussein 1988, 320), and argues

that the French expedition has served to ‘‘foster two cardinal principles: Egyp-tian nationalism and democratic government’’ (cited in Awad 1986, 10). This

seemingly neutral positioning can be overwritten with contemporary concerns,when secularism is a contested narrative in a number of modern claims for

national identity, and when it is often misconstrued as being anti-religion, and isviewed as a foreign import. This was illustrated by the (often ill-informed)debate that raged following the high-profile banning of ostentations religious

symbols in French state schools, and which hinged more on the symbolic value ofthe move than on its rather limited practical implications, together with the civil

unrest of some of the more disadvantaged French ‘‘banlieues’’ that led many toquestion the French model of integration and to overlook that ‘‘secularism is

the separation of church and state, but is also the respect of differences’’ (Stasi2006).

What al-TahTawı perceives as the lack of religiosity of the French who ‘‘are notconcerned about what their religion forbids, imposes, etc.’’ (al-TahTawı 1973,

155; Newman 2004, 249) is foregrounded and the author appears to make adeliberate effort to ‘‘neutralise’’ the Christian allegiance of the French, to theextent that Sylvestre de Sacy responded to al-TahTawı by suggesting that

his statement ‘‘that the French do not have any religion at all and that theyare Christians only in name is subject to revision’’ (ibid.). al-TahTawı included de

Sacy’s response in his essay, but comments that de Sacy is ‘‘one of those who arereligious. However, there are so few of them that they are of no consequence’’

(al-TahTawı 1973, 156; Newman 2004, 249). This can be used to illustrate theprocess of representation that is at work which selects what aspects to

foreground and what to erase. In this context, a more ‘‘secular’’ France isdeemed less threatening and more acceptable to the target culture.

My discussion, so far, has focused on the features that al-TahTawı chose to

highlight or to neutralise. The linguistic strategies he used to achieve

220 M. SALAMA-CARR

representation range from transliteration of the French terms to reappropriation

of the lexicon of Arabic. The transliteration of terms and words referring to new

objects or concepts that he came across through his readings of French texts was

normally preceded by descriptions and or explanations of the object, anchored in

possible resemblance with something with which his Egyptian readers would be

familiar. In a number of instances, lexicalisation meant that the borrowed term

was subject to the rules of Arabic grammar (e.g. the plural form), or adapted to

facilitate its pronunciation. This ethnocentric process of familiarisation, through

specific linguistic practices, is consistent throughout the book and a number of

the terms thus created were to remain in Modern Standard Arabic, while others

would be replaced by more ‘‘indigenous’’ coinages.More interesting is his revisiting of existing Arabic terms that take on a more

generic or a new meaning through semantic shifts. An example is provided by the

term ‘‘Hurriyya’’ to translate ‘‘liberte’’. Newman comments on its use as being

‘‘the first use in Arabic literature of Hurriyya in the European sense of personal

freedom, as previously it was simply the opposite of ‘enslaved’’’ (Newman 2004,

195�/6, note 7; see also 2004, 206, 312). ‘‘Freedom’’ is yet another ideal that the

French share with the Arabs ‘‘Their [the French and the Arabs’] affinity manifests

itself most strongly in things like honour, freedom and pride’’ (al-TahTawı 1973,

256; Newman 2004, 361). To ‘‘explain’’ the concept of freedom, the translator

writes that it is what we call ‘‘justice and equity’’, which are two cornerstones of

Islamic political theory (al-TahTawı 1973, 102; Newman 2004, 206). As a translator,

al-TahTawı struggled with consistency*/he also used the term ‘‘Hurriyya’’ to refer

to the Liberal Party in France (al-TahTawı 1973, 201). Newman (2004), 312, note 3)

comments on the ambiguity of the term when referring to the ‘‘flag of freedom’’

(of the Liberal Party?) (al-TahTawı 1973, 208).

The conceptual mapping that is taking place through the process of

translation can be usefully contrasted with the discussion of the term

‘‘Hurriyya’’ in a recent ideologically loaded article on the importation of

US-style democracy into the Arab World (Metraux 2004). In her article the author

makes a somewhat curious distinction between the ‘‘positive view [of freedom]

of the East’’ and the ‘‘negative perception of the West’’. Her argument is framed

in terms of Isaiah Berlin’s seminal discussion of positive liberty as related to the

concept of self-fulfilment and the ability to make informed choices, and of

negative liberty that can protect individuals from interference and intrusion.

Metraux follows on with a discussion of the conception of freedom in Arabic in

relation to the Muslim faith. Such essentialist pronouncements on the ‘‘mis-

conception of freedom’’ can only obfuscate the complex overlapping of cultures,

and promote spurious claims of clashes of civilisations, which the article

succeeds in doing. It can be argued of course that in Arab nationalist discourse

the term ‘‘Hurriyya’’ can be often interpreted as referring to negative freedom

in the struggle for self-determination and independence from foreign dominance

or occupation (Palestine being a case in point), and that the increasing influence

of religion in the sphere vacated by failed forms of Arab nationalism can

constrain freedom to what is not seen to contradict the faith. However,

NEGOTIATING CONFLICT 221

revisiting etymology and ancient meanings*/Metraux finds it useful to inform the

reader that ‘‘Hurriyya’’ referred to ‘‘disorder’’ in pre-Islamic times*/is nottenable from the points of view of language evolution3 and studies of ideology.Meaning is not static, and ‘‘Hurriyya’’, independently of the historical and

political contingencies that will inevitably colour its use in discourse, can denotea whole range of freedoms and is by no means restricted to demands for social

justice and equity, although these might well be more pressing in the currentgeopolitical context. In any case, a more inclusive definition of the term is given

by al-TahTawı in a later work, al-murshid. A more fruitful approach to theconceptualisation of ‘‘freedom’’ would be underpinned by a careful reading of

the uses and interpretations of the term ‘‘Hurriyya’’ in past and presentdiscourses of Arab nationalism4 and political Islam, from the viewpoint of

language and ideology as dynamic and unstable elements.al-TahTawı encounters what can be said to constitute key ideological concepts

in contemporary discourse. An example of a loaded term that was to be somehowappropriated is the Umma, the Muslim community of the faithful. This was to

become, in the secularist discourse of Arab nationalism, a collocate of‘‘arabiyya ’’ (Arab). The ‘‘Arab nation’’ was to refer to a collective grouping of

people sharing the same culture and history.5 Returning home after five years, hediagnosed the illness of the Umma (community) as being due to lack of freedom

and suggested multi-party democracy as a remedy. This concept of the Umma isused by al-TahTawı within the nascent national identity that independence from

the Supreme Gate was promoting. However, the concept of the Umma, firstmodernised by nationalism, when restored to its initial meaning of the Islamic

community, and revisited by political Islam, is precisely what threatens thenation-state and its geographical boundaries.

The issue of citizenship, which has been the focus of recent studies (Benhabib

2000), and is currently challenged by both globalisation with its implications forthe nation-state and the increasing claims of religious or ethnic allegiance, is

raised in al-TahTawı’s essay when he proceeds to translate and explain the Frenchconstitution. The concept of citizen, which al-TahTawı translates as ‘‘muwwa-

Tin’’, contrasted with the more familiar notion of the subjects and the absolutepower of the ruler. The translator here had to proceed with caution as conflict of

ideologies could ensue. How was the notion of citizenship made to fit theabsolute power yielded by the ruler of Egypt, who happened to be al-TahTawı’s

patron? The author of al-taklıS is not the detached observer who occupies aneutral in-between space, but he is firmly positioned in the target culture and

3. The same criticism can be made of Metraux’s assertion that ‘‘Disturbingly, there is no distinctlyArabic word for democracy [. . .]. When speaking of democracy, Arabs have borrowed the Greek worddimuqratiyya ’’ (2004). One can certainly wonder to what extent ‘‘democracy’’ is a ‘‘distinctly’’English word!4. For instance, in the discourse of Michel Aflaq (1910� 1989), the political thinker who wasinstrumental in the establishment of the Ba’th party and its basic principles of ‘‘unity, freedom andsocialism’’ (‘‘waHdah, Hurriyya wa-ishtirakiyya ’’).5. One example is Abdel Malek’s dedication of his anthology to ‘‘[. . .] the Palestinian resistance whichpreserves the honour of the nation’’ (Abdel Malek 1983).

222 M. SALAMA-CARR

‘‘political economy’’. He is required to bring back the modern concepts that may

explain the dominance of Europe, at the risk of offending muHammad Ali, and

having to contend with the authority of al-Azhar’s ulemas.al-TahTawı’s belief in the validity of his own cultural and religious background

underpins his representation of France. As a translator steeped in the tradition of

Classical Arabic and traditional religious training, through his own ancestry and

his studies at al-Azhar, his profile is at odds with the traditional depiction of the

translator as a hybrid, occupying an ‘‘in-between’’ space. However, the feature

of hybridity, in this sense, was true for the subsequent communities of translators

within the context of the Arab Renaissance*/I am thinking particularly of the

Lebanese and Syrian translators who had moved to Egypt to escape Ottoman rule

and were negotiating a Francophone heritage together with their knowledge of

standard Arabic and of a different vernacular. Moreover, al-TahTawı’s stay in

France, as part of a mission sent by the ruler of Egypt, was highly controlled in

terms of his study schedule and the environment in which he was operating*/

for instance, his fellow students and network of orientalist scholars, and an

acquaintance with France that was largely limited to Paris. His ‘‘will to truth’’

and ‘‘will to knowledge’’, to draw on Foucault’s terminology, were backed up by

institutional support and constrained by sponsorship and allegiance, and he had

vested interests in the successful completion of the mission he has been

entrusted with, through negotiating cultural and ideological encounters. When

Louca compares the archbishop of Paris’s statement made in response to the

occupation of Algiers by the French ‘‘une victoire de la chretiente sur l’Islam’’

(‘‘a victory of Christendom over Islam’’), cited in al-takhlıS, with al-TahTawı’s

dismissal of the event as ‘‘Umur siyasiyya’’ or ‘‘political matters’’ (al-TahTawı

1973, 219; Newman 2004, 327), he does so to highlight al-TahTawı’s rationalism

(Louca 1988, 27). But it can also be argued that the author of al-takhlıS, as a

representative of the ruler of Egypt, and with the domestic audience in mind, is

careful not to condemn an operation in which Egypt may have been involved

should muHammad ‘Alı eventually agree to provide land forces (Julien 1986

quoted in Newman 2004, 74) to support the French attack on Algiers.Alain Roussillon (2001, 145�/6) argues that different readings of al-TahTawı’s

work have been elaborated. Interpretation of al-takhlıS has focused on either

the aspect of authenticity, with regard to the combined references to the

Egyptian, Ottoman, Arab and Muslim cultural sites, or on the quest for

‘‘modernity’’ as a power to be harnassed for the good of the nation. Cultural

authenticity and modernisation are at the heart of most nationalist projects. In

virtue of his work as a translator and an educationalist promoting social and

intellectual change, I would argue that al-TahTawı is a mediator who, to

paraphrase Pierre Bourdieu’s reference to intellectuals, is both an observer

and a social agent. His essay does not convey a sense of rupture between the

Islamic tradition and European culture, but, as mentioned earlier, needs to

be read in the context of the Reformist movement to which he belongs and the

relationship that the movement was striving to establish between Islam and

Modernity. This is a key issue if the Egyptian Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd’s view is to be

NEGOTIATING CONFLICT 223

agreed with; that is, that the struggle we witness today is not so much betweenIslamists and secularists but rather between those striving for a modern Islam,

and those who would wish to ‘‘islamise’’ the present times (Abu Zayd 1995). Itremains, however, essentially ‘‘descriptive’’ and, as argued by Newman (2004,

90�/1), this descriptive slant rules out the identification of al-TahTawı with someof the more controversial views put forward by the thinkers of the Enlight-

enment, although Lewis Awad argues that ‘‘from his writings it is clear that heidentified with the French liberals of his time’’ (Awad 1986, 26). While Arab

nationalism and its correlate pan-Arabism did peak in the 1950s, it has beenargued that its roots go as far back as the nineteenth century. Much has been

written recently on Muslim responses to modernity, and one such response,where again conflicting trends compete, how to engage with the other, isforegrounded in the discourse of liberal islamism.

The rather optimistic outlook of this project needs to be framed in itshistorical context. Hourani argues that ‘‘Tahtawi lived and worked in a happy

interlude of history, when the religious tension between Islam and Christendomwas being relaxed and had not yet been replaced by the new political tension of

East and West’’ (Hourani 1983, 81), and Wendell speaks of a ‘‘brief recess [. . .] ina thousand-year contest’’ (Wendell 1972, 78). However, in a Europe that was still

a model and not yet an adversary, the ideological conflict between Enlight-enment and late-eighteenth-century reactions to its universalist and rationalistmessage that were to play a part in the construction of nationalisms was already

present. Further, within the Muslim community itself, traditionalists andmodernists were competing for visibility, and it is this conflict that al-TahTawı’s

careful syncretism addresses. Such syncretism, brought about through transla-tion would be articulated more forcefully in one of his later works, manaheg al-

albaab al-miSriyya fir mabaahij al-adab al-‘asriyya (‘‘The Egyptian Hearts’ Roadto the Joys of Contemporary Mores’’), where al-TahTawı outlines a nationalist

project such as that ‘‘all the virtues which the faithful must manifest towardstheir brothers in faith are also incumbent between those who share a mother-

land, in terms of their reciprocal rights and the patriotic fraternity which unitesthem’’ (quoted in Abdel Malek 1983, 29). Echoes of al-TahTawı’s syncretism canalso be found in the political pragmatism of new Islamist intellectual move-

ments, expressed in the new WasaT party (‘‘Centrist Party’’) in Egypt, whoseproject claims to engage with inclusion and universal rights.

Conclusion

I have argued that al-takhlıS was a complex work of appropriation that can beseen as a symbol of a national translation programme in nineteenth-century

Egypt. For the historian of translation, it provides illuminating data on translationpractices and discourse, and shows how translation can be a process of writingabout other cultures. The process of interpretation (Geertz 1973) and interlingual

mediation are central to the construction of nationhood and national identity.

224 M. SALAMA-CARR

Drawing on Homi Babha’s discussion of ‘‘cultural engagement’’ (Babha 1994, 3),

I have suggested elsewhere that al-TahTawı’s project was indeed an example of

‘‘consensual’’ rather than ‘‘conflictual’’ engagement (Salama-Carr 2006, 401). It

may be argued, when armed with the benefit of retrospective analysis, that the

‘‘arts and science of the Franks’’ that he so admired would be put to use not only

by the National project, but by the imperial powers. al-TahTawı was writing

before the time that modernisation was seen by many as inseparable from

European colonialism and imperialism.Al-TahTawı’s account of his voyage to the land of the Franks is a fascinating

sample of translation and representation. The issues mapped out in the essay

resonate with contemporary debates around cultural interaction and the place

and scope of secularism in a world that is both increasingly globalised but also

fragmented. It indirectly engages with concerns such as universalism and

nationalism, as Egyptian identity is defined through increased contact with the

West, but also with reference to its Arab and Muslim cultural heritage. In an age

of polarisation, when the inordinate focus of the media on the more radical

forms of Islamism conveys an image of worlds locked in intractable conflicts, it is

also an essentially tolerant view of the ‘‘Other’’. The legacy of al-TahTawı’s

negotiation is claimed by the proponents of a modernist islamist discourse, those

‘‘children of Rifaa’a’’ (Sorman 2004) who argue that the reconciliation between

Islam and modernity is not only ‘‘[. . .] possible and desirable, but that it

corresponds to the most faithful reading of the religion and the most accurate

reading of history’’ (Charfi 2005, 13). Interestingly, his name is also invoked by

those who rightly lament the increasing restriction of freedom exercised in the

name of religious values. In the case of Egypt in the 1990s, Karim Alrawi, the then

deputy Secretary General of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights,

analyses the increasing weight of censorship on literary and artistic output and

notes that ‘‘it will be as though Rifaa el-Tahtawi and the generations of the

Enlightenment had never been’’ (Alrawi 1994, 116). Gilbert Delanoue’s sums up

neatly the legacy of syncretism left by al-TahTawı, who presented his fellow

citizens with ‘‘une synthese entre une fidelite religieuse et morale qui les liait a

toute la nation et qui leur rappelait le passe glorieux du pays, et une franche

ouverture a tous les progres modernes dont ils etaient alles apprendre les

secrets a l’etranger’’ (Delanoue 1982, 487) [‘‘a synthesis of religious and moral

allegiance which linked them to the whole nation and reminded them of the

glorious past of their country, and of a frank openess to all the modern advances

the secrets of which they went abroad to learn’’ (my translation)].

Michael Cronin aptly reminds us that ‘‘In taking translation as a central

paradigm of political thinking and practice it is possible to go beyond the cultural

holism of identity politics (cultures as unified, hermetically sealed wholes) and

the cultural hegemony of universalist idealism (we are all the same so

differences do not matter’’ (Cronin 2006, 71). Al-TahTawı’s negotiating project,

which addresses the inevitable tension that exists between the universalist trans-

national nature of translation and the exclusiveness of nationalism, takes on an

unsettling relevance to contemporary concerns. It challenges and counters the

NEGOTIATING CONFLICT 225

claim of clashes of civilisations, which has been given new currency and has

become a dominant discourse that widens the gap between secularists and

religionists. Such a discourse pits Islam against the West and obliterates the

‘‘authentic Islamic voices of moderation’’ (Baker, 2006). Monolithic constructs of

dogmatic and militant secularism conflict with multiculturalism and religious

pluralism, and can only promote future antagonisms. Reading al-TahTawı’s book

reminds us that the clash is not inevitable.

University of Salford, UK

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