Shakib Arslan: Two lectures in Damascus (1937)

Shakib Arslan (1870-1946) belongs to a period and generation of intellectuals who witnessed the collapse of the Ottoman-Islamic League and the formation of the period and generation of the idea, or identity, of Arab nationalism. Arslan started out as an Ottoman calling for the preservation of the Sublime Porte as a bastion against the risks of fragmentation and European colonialism that both loomed on the horizon at that historic moment. Consequently, he opposed the revolt of Sharif Hussein in 1916 from the outset and was also against the First Arab Congress held in Paris in 1913, and published his book “To the Arabs: A Statement to the Arab Nation on the Decentralized Party” in opposition to that Congress.

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Shakib Arslan (1870-1946) belongs to a period and generation of intellectuals who witnessed the collapse of the Ottoman-Islamic League and the formation of the period and generation of the idea, or identity, of Arab nationalism. Arslan started out as an Ottoman calling for the preservation of the Sublime Porte as a bastion against the risks of fragmentation and European colonialism that both loomed on the horizon at that historic moment. Consequently, he opposed the revolt of Sharif Hussein in 1916 from the outset and was also against the First Arab Congress held in Paris in 1913, and published his book “To the Arabs: A Statement to the Arab Nation on the Decentralized Party” in opposition to that Congress.

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