This first edition focuses on  "Language and Identity in the Arab Homeland" and features the following papers: "Identity and Alienation in Arab Consciousness," (Hassan Hanafi); "Fusha [Classical Arabic]: Research into its Categorization and Features," (Ramzi Baalbaki); "The Language of Identity and Learning in Politics and Economics: A Cohesive, Pluralist, and Diverse Model," (Abdelkader Fassi Fehri); "Arabic Lexicon and National Identity," (Hassan Hamza); "Identity and Language in the Arab Nation: Between Intellectual Crises and Political Impasse," (Abdussalam al-Massadi); "Translation into Arabic: Strengthening Culture and Building Identity," (Bassam Baraka); "The Problem of Identity and the Language-Translation Duality in the context of Modern Arabic," (Fayez al-Suyyagh); "Two Forms of Cultural Materialism in Anthropology and in Cultural Studies," (Leonard Jackson); "The Post-Colonial State and Social Change in Libya," (Ali Abd el-Latif Ahmayda); "Modernity: An Unfinished Project," a new translation of the Jurgen Habermas text by philosophy professor Fathi al-Miskini.

In addition to the above research papers, this first edition of Tabayyun will also include a number of book reviews and critical discussions, including "From the Notion of Mark Bloch's Sad Societeis (Sociétés tristes to a Historiography of the Crisis of Transformation and its Age, by Wajih Kawtharani; "Why did Abdallah Laroui Translate Rousseau's Emile?," by Kamal Abdellatif; "A Reading of Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice," by Ahmad Baalbaki; "A Review of The Philosophy of World Civilizations: Theories and Interpretations of Truth," by Haytham Muzahim; and a review of Azmi Bishara's On the Arab Question: Foreword to a Manifesto by Jad Abdel-Karim al-Jaba'i. The first print issue of Tabayyun is illustrated with contributions from a number of Syrian artists, including Ali Arnaout, Michel Qarshah, Sarah Shamma, and Gulistan Hamo.