Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1 | Page 36

2/2/2016

Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

contemporary modernist binary modes of thought, which constructs modernity against tradition.
An article by Michelangelo Guida examines the founders of Islamism in Republican Turkey. The author argues that while the political and social
context of lslamism has changed, its main figures in Turkey today come from conservative religious and political circles that trace their origins to
Nacip Fazil Kisakurek and Nurettin Topcu. Guida argues that nowadays, Islamists in Turkey have become powerful elites in the media, politics,
and society at large. Their discourse is much more moderate on capitalism, democracy, and relations with minorities. By gradually incorporating
nationalism in their Islamist discourse, Kisakurek and Topcu have profoundly contributed to shaping contemporary Islamism in Turkey. Indeed,
with the rise of a new generation of Islamist thinkers in the Muslim world, nationalism has became a new component of Islamist political thought,
as the Muslim Brotherhood’s appeal to the Egyptian national sentiment in the current election illustrates.
The last article in the section comes from Fatma Tutuncu, who discusses Islamist intellectuals and women in Turkey. The author states that Islamist
women in Turkey—religiously committed individuals, once marginalized by the state—are now rising as organic intellectuals, involved in
sociopolitical matters, shaping public opinion. Tutuncu explains that in Turkey, where political activism and intellectualism have been expressed on
the left, and while religion has been articulated on the right, these women navigate the terrain where the principles of egalitarianism, and justice
advocated in leftist discourse are articulated in the language of a faith that had been aligned with conservatism. By exploding the binary of the
Islamist and the secular, Tutuncu’s work demonstrates the fluidity and complexity among the left and the right discourse, where, at times their
identities intertwine and at other times are inadvertently, purposefully, or artificially forced apart.
The third and concluding segment of this book is titled “Intellectuals as Migrants,” and includes two essays that address how exilic locations could
offer opportunities to new possibilities and perspectives. Thomas Brisson examines leading Arab intellectuals in the West. The two figures that are
the focus of this chapter, Mohamed Arkoun and Edward Said are used to exemplify Arab intellectuals in exile, and to illustrate how such
intellectual positions were shaped. The objective of this chapter is to show that sociological factors such as field structures must be taken into
account if one intends to understand how Arab scholars shaped their positions as public intellectuals. Similarly, Nedal al-Mousa’s article sheds light
on some of the distinctive features of Mahjar Arab intellectuals, such as Hisham Sharabi and Halim Barakat. The author suggests that Barakat and
Sharabi’s common attraction to modernism, especially in its celebration of freedom, independent thinking, and human progress is due to their
paramount concern for an Arab modernity. Most intellectuals in exile also share Sharabi and Barakat’s vision that citizens in the East and the West
should transcend binary thought and reductionist cultural categorizations as a way towards attaining better human understanding, and tolerance.
However the question which remains unaddressed is to what extent can a Muslim intellectual living in exile be a tool for the reform which they are
advocating?
Overall, this book is a welcome contribution to the subject, and particularly to the current debates about the role of intellectuals in the Arab Spring.
This book is a good source for both graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in understanding the social role of Middle Eastern
intellectuals. It is important to consider that Muslim populations have undergone tremendous change since the Arab Spring, which occurred after
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