Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950 / Marwa Elshakry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elshakry, Marwa, 1973- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.

Darwin, Charles.

Evolution--Religious aspects--Islam.

Evolution.

Islam and science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2013]

Summary:

In Reading Darwin in Arabic, Marwa Elshakry questions current ideas about Islam, science, and secularism by exploring the ways in which Darwin was read in Arabic from the late 1860s to the mid-twentieth century. Borrowing from translation and reading studies and weaving together the history of science with intellectual history, she explores Darwin's global appeal from the perspective of several generations of Arabic readers and shows how Darwin's writings helped alter the social and epistemological landscape of the Arab learned classes. Providing a close textual, political, and institutional analysis of the tremendous interest in Darwin's ideas and other works on evolution, Elshakry shows how, in an age of massive regional and international political upheaval, these readings were suffused with the anxieties of empire and civilizational decline. The politics of evolution infiltrated Arabic discussions of pedagogy, progress, and the very sense of history. They also led to a literary and conceptual transformation of notions of science and religion themselves. Darwin thus became a vehicle for discussing scriptural exegesis, the conditions of belief, and cosmological views more broadly. The book also acquaints readers with Muslim and Christian intellectuals, bureaucrats, and theologians, and concludes by exploring Darwin's waning influence on public and intellectual life in the Arab world after World War I. Reading Darwin in Arabic is an engaging and powerfully argued reconceptualization of the intellectual and political history of the Middle East.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

ONE. The Gospel of Science

TWO. Evolution and the Eastern Question

THREE. Materialism and Its Critics

FOUR. Theologies of Nature

FIVE. Darwin and the Mufti

SIX. Evolutionary Socialism

SEVEN. Darwin in Translation

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226378732

022637873X

9780226001449

022600144X

OCLC:

1058332736