Search Results

Adab refers to the manners and ‘professional’ etiquette that Muslims should follow. Used as a greeting, adab signifies a sense of complete respect and deference. In both Lucknow and Awadh, caste- and community-neutral categorizations remained the social identifiers. Three individuals—Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari—exemplified the family code of right conduct. Without being formal interpreters of the Sharia, all three were wrapped in the folds of the banner of tradition, religion, and traditional morality. They argued that religion helped shape man’s conduct and ideas, but also believed in the political ideal consistent with the spirit of Islam. As exponents of the ‘liberal-humanitarian ideology’, they evolved an inclusive concept of adab without confining and twisting its application to a single national community.

This chapter investigates the role of anticolonial Egyptian nationalism in the sculptural works of Mahmoud Mukhtar (1891–1934). Government-funded schooling transformed this farm boy into a heroic nationalist artist. His monumental artworks reflect Egypt’s membership in transnational networks of nationalist ideology and post–World War I artistic classicism. Though distinctly nationalist on the surface, these forms are fundamentally international, echoing the synthesis of nationalism and classicism in parallel interwar modernisms. To explore this transnational phenomenon further, I establish connections between Mukhtar’s use of ancient Egyptian imagery, known as pharaonism, to trends in Egyptian literature as well as to histories of sculpturally depicting fabric. In Nahdat Misr (Egypt’s reawakening), Mukhtar pointedly references ancient Egypt through a monumental granite sphinx but pairs him with a proud female peasant who symbolically lifts her veil. He subtly adjusts the classical referents for a modern, transnational audience. The broad use of these forms exhibits the power of ancient Egyptian symbols as centerpieces for public formation worldwide.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb hastened the transformation of Egyptology into a scholarly profession open to Egyptians and accelerated the growth of pharaonism among the public. Led by Selim Hassan and Sami Gabra, the scant second generation of Egyptian Egyptologists came home from studying in Europe in the late 1920s to begin careers in the Antiquities Service and the new state-run Egyptian (now Cairo) University. The university's successful new school of Egyptology soon graduated Ahmad Fakhry and Labib Habachi, who both became prominent among the third generation of Egyptian Egyptologists. In the 1920s, pharaonism—interest and pride in ancient Egypt—became a prominent stand of Egyptian territorial nationalism, with King Fuad, Saad Zaghlul's Wafd, and Liberal Constitutionalist Muhammad Husayn Haykal all competing in utilizing pharaonic themes. In the visual arts, Mahmoud Mukhtar's granite sculpture Nahdat Misr (Revival of Egypt) marked the pharaonist highpoint of the 1920s. Pharaonist themes were also prominent on Egyptian postage stamps but not yet on coins, which are usually a more conservative medium.

Italian imperialism in the early twentieth century left behind a legacy that is seldom far below the surface in postcolonial Libya. The ability to trace a lineage of resistance conferred political legitimacy in the formation of a national identity. In Italy today the legacies of imperial expansion are less accessible but no less important. The decision to occupy Libya occurred at a pivotal moment in the development of Italian national identity in the decades after Italian unification. Debates over an Italian approach to expansion in Muslim North Africa served as an opportunity to define the nature of religious identity in the nation as Italy attempted to join the ranks of the European imperial powers.

Idris al-Sanusi’s departure and the rise of the fascist regime in Italy introduced a new phase in the Italian occupation of Libya. The Sanusiyya came to be redefined as an anticolonial Islamic force rather than an intermediary of state authority. Under the leadership of Mussolini’s first minister of colonies, Luigi Federzoni, the Italian colonial administration moved away from attempts to negotiate authority through Sanusi mediation, though this shift occurred gradually. At the same time, Federzoni introduced a firm commitment to a Catholic identity in Italian imperial expansion. This hardening of divisions culminated in the military campaign known as the reconquest of the Libyan interior in the late 1920s. The symbolic end of the campaign occurred with the capture and execution of the Sanusi military leader ‘Umar al-Mukhtar in 1931. Declaring Libya open for mass colonization, the fascist colonial administration imagined a territory that would become fully Italian and fully Catholic.

The chapter reconstructs the story of the Indian Medical Mission to the Balkan Wars from the beginning until the end as reported by Dr Ansari to the Indian Muslims through his letters in 1912–13. The chapter starts by discussing the motivations and personalities of the main members of the Mission including Mohammad Ali Jauhar and Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari as well as their interlocutors in Turkey such as the ground-breaking obstetrician Besim Ömer Akalin and the charismatic leader of the Young Turks İsmail Enver Bey. It will argue that the personalities involved in the endeavour have been the main reason why this particular Mission and not the other two missions recorded in Turkish archives had generated interest among both the Turks and more importantly on the Indian Muslims. The chapter chronicles the medical, humanitarian and political activities of the mission.