Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Islam and Modern Science: The Colonial Era • 185Darwin’s ideas. Their responses to Darwinism were, therefore, shapedby a perceived view of Darwin’s ideas, rather than his actual work.Since books published in the Muslim world at that time sometimesomitted the date of publication, subsequent accounts of the Muslimreception of Darwinism has remained difficult to assess, with differentsurveys reporting different chronologies of events. Sometimes theseaccounts do not even distinguish between Muslim and Christian Arabwriters and treat them as if they are all Muslim responses. All of thesefactors have greatly clouded the discourse.The earliest traceable mention of Darwin’s theory in Arabic goesback to a book by Bishara Zalzal published in 1879 from Alexandria,Egypt, with the title Tanwir al-Adhhan (The Enlightenment of Minds),some twenty years after the publication of The Origin of Species andeight years after the publication of The Descent of Man. This 368 pagework was dedicated in both prose and poetry to the Ottoman SultanAbd al-Hamid, featured a handsome portrait of Lord Cromer as “atypical example of the Anglo-Saxon people[,] and praised him in twolines of Arabic verse” (Mohammad 2000, 246–47). Both the title ofthe book and the portrait of Cromer are telling signs of Zalzal’s apriori commitments. Lord Cromer, let us recall, had arrived in Egyptto take charge of its finances shortly before the publication of thebook, just after Britain and France forced the deposition of KhediveIsmail and installed a more compliant successor. Cromer was in Egyptfor only six months, but his measures created unrest in the army,leading to the formation of a nationalist government in 1881. This,in turn, led to the occupation of Egypt by Britain and the return ofCromer to Egypt in 1883. He was to remain in Egypt until 1907 asHer and later His Majesty’s Agent and Consul-General, purportedlyas “adviser” to a nominally autonomous Egyptian government but inreality as the country’s de facto ruler.Darwin also arrived in the Arab world through scientific journals,which mushroomed between 1865 and 1929. The three mostimportant scientific journals were al-Muqtataf (1876–1952), al-Hilal(1892–1930), and al-Mashriq (1898–1930). The case of al-Muqtataf isrepresentative: while its editorsand those in it were predominantly Christians, they neverthelessmanaged to identify themselves with the Muslim community by