Book Reviews 111 Book Review The Challenge of Modernity: The Quest for Authenticity in the Arab World Louay M. Safi. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994, pp. 211. The question of modernization in the Arab world remains an inex­ haustible subject for debate precisely becau e it has not yet been resolved. This inconclusive outcome continue to put the issue at the heart of con­ cerns in these lands. The Arab world is in turmoil: its political elites are divided and at war with each other, social and economic problems con­ tinue to affect and trouble the masses, basic democratic rights are still a dream. In short, things are not at all well. The acute awareness of this problem dates back to the setbacks suf­ fered by the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century. Intellectuals have since been trying to diagnose and offer solutions for the ailment. In try­ ing to contribute to the debate, Safi thus joins an illustriou line of "doc­ tors" from Khayr al D" tn al TOnis1 through al Afgha.n1 and down to Malik Bennabi and ijassan I:Ianafi, to mention but a few of the valiant souls who attempted to rise up to the challenge. Safi's approach departs from the right point. He tries to synthesize western and Arab views on the modernization and to keep his discussion as "scientific" as possible. But he makes no secret of his "ideological" commitment, based on a conception of modernization as a "rationalization process, i.e., an emancipatory project, aiming at eliminating the supersti- 112 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 2 1 tious and irrational elements of cuhre.” With such an attitude, it is no sur- pfise that he rejects the h;lanrist approach to modernization in favor of the Weberian orthodoxy currently dominant in western universities. Nevertheless, the author is aware of some basic contradictions in this orthodoxy, namely, its tendency t6 fall back on a purely Marxian positiofi to anafyze nonwestern societies. In such an anaiysis, the cultural dimen- sion of these societies are completely cted and only economic r e a soning dominates. Safi concludes by pointing to the “Wehrian pambx,” meaning that the progressive rationalization of society leads to its frag- mentation and the subsequent loss of an overall meaning in life, l’his compartmentalization of life into separate spheres, each the con- cern of a particular discipline, deprives life of the overall significance pro- vided in the past by religion. Rationalization also brings a loss of freedom through the progressive bureaucratization of social functions. This frag- mentation, also referred to as the “eclipse of substantive reason,” makes the western experience of modernization irrelevant to the Third World, since it does not present those who want to replicate this experience with a constitutive principle to orient the desired change. As a inatter of fact, the western modemizatiow experience is incapable of self-regenemtion, and collapses into fragmentation and nihilism. In order for nonwestefn communities to confront their own challenge of modernization, they have to fall back on their own values and history. For change to occur, there must be first a recognition of the problem of disorder, then a critical examination of the heritage to reinterpret it in rel- evant terms. This is a task for the individual whom Safi, following Fou- cault, calls the “universal intellectual,” the committed, principled man of ideas, who can lend his moral authority to new interpretations and could engineer a consensus around them. attempts to test his theoretical model of mod- conditions in the Arab world. He examines briefly the Arab encounter with modernity, discussing the various reactions to the shock of the encounter with the West and the realization of its mate- rial and organizational superiority as it crystallized in the ideas of selected thinkers and movements. Whaf united all of these early thinkers, from a l Ta??awl and aI AfgMii to al Kaw&B and d HUeari, was their revolt against m d i t i o d s m and of blaming old ideas and ways for the ptedica- men& of the modem-day h b s . But while they agreed on condemning the present, their prescriptions for a cure differed. ‘Abduh and al AfW called for a reformulation of Isfmic thought without abandoning orthodoxy, while al Tal#awi advocated the adoption of western ways, at Ieast in part, and al Kawi&i& called for a liberal Arab nationalism. This set the stage for the subsequent &vision of Arab society into two major antagonistic blocs: the liberal nationalist and the Islamic. Each distrusted the other, and they b a d y c m e c a t e d . The subsequent conflict that stated btween the two blocs in Nasser’s Egypt in the 1950s was thus inevitable. By the late lBOs, as the modernization process in the Arab world entered its second phase, the supporters of westernization had attained Book Reviews 113 dominance in the struggle. The revolt against the domination of these forces came in the shape of the Islamic reassertion. Safi presents two manifestations of this phenomenon, the radical stance of Sayyid Qu.tb in Egypt and the rationalistic position of Malek Bennabi in Algeria. While Qutb’s ideas gained wider influence, Bennabi’s were rather limited in their impact. But the general climate of Islamic reassertion forced even the nationalistic intellectuals to face the necessity of confronting tradition and reinterpreting it, rather than ignoring it completely as they tended to in the past. Safi discusses two examples of attempts to perform this task, that of the Marxist Tayib Tazini and the liberal Hassan Hanafi. In his opinion, the “search for authenticity’’ by liberal and leftist trends is an important development, which heralds a dialogue between these trends and the Islamic camp, thus creating the right frame for social cooperation and a possible advancement of the process of rationalizations. This conclusion brings Safi backs to his basic thesis: Modernization is essentially a process of rationalization and its failure in the Arab world is a failure to grasp its essence. The modernizing elite thought it could achieve modernization by implanting imported institutions and ideas that were not “an integral part of a meaningful world.” They failed because they did not appreciate the need for coming to terms with their past and cultural heritage and did not understand that social change must start in the realm of culture and ideas, i.e., as a result of a meaningful dialogue and persuasion. Modernization could not be imposed. He concludes: No social group can ever modernize by renouncing its past. Mod- ernization must be attempted from within the realm of tradition and heritage . . . modernization (innovation) and authenticity (originality) are not only compatible with each other, but they are two integral parts of the process of modernization qua rational- ization. The author’s general conclusions are difficult to reject, even if he does not depart from the right premises. His treatment of such a profound and daunting topic is rather sketchy and provisional. The identification of modernization and rationalization is rather simplistic, considering the criticisms of capitalism by Marx and others as the ultimate in irrational- ity, to say nothing of the fact that rationality as a concept is a hotly con- tested one. Even his discussion itself accepts that modernization actually leads to “the eclipse of substantive rationality” through the fragmentation of consciousness. S d i also fails to pursue some intriguing consequences of his own assertions. If modernization, as he a f f i i s , has ended in a fragmented and very partial rationality, then the “problem” he set out to explore does not exist in the first place. As far as the Arab world was concerned, the crisis was how to reconcile the Arab heritage with a cohesive worldview pre- sented by the West as an integral aspect of technological modernization. 114 The American Journal of I lamic Social Sciences 12:1 But if no such coherent and overarching view exists in the later stages of modernization, then everything and every point of view is reconcilable with modernization, including the totality of Muslim heritage, and every possible interpretation of it. So where is the problem then? This is actually not a merely theoretical conclusion. The rapid mod­ ernization processes brought under the acceleration of the oil shock has cau ed many Muslim countries to bypass completely the cultural compo­ nent of modernization, reaping its technological and material benefits without having to offer any concessions to cultural modernity. Safi's book is an interesting contribution co the debate on moderniza­ tion in the Arab world and the Muslim world at large. It is hoped that his book will stimulate further debate and raise it to a higher, more informed, and sophisticated level. Abdelwahab El-Affendi London, UK