Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Pressin the 19th Century
Mohammad Magout

Any history of secularity in the Arab world needs to dedicate a special chapter to the Syro-Lebanese press in Beirut in the second half ofthe 19th century. Not only that the first explicit expressions of secularism in the region were articulated on its pages; it was the forum
in which the earliest debates in Arabic about the relationship between religion and other social spheres were conducted in universal,
abstract terms between members of different religious communities(as opposed to debating this relationship from within a particularreligious tradition).
The periodic press in Beirut had secularising effects on Arabthought and culture thanks to the combination of four interrelated
factors: (1) many of its journalists were supporters of Ottomanism1;(2) it articulated the ethos of a modern-liberal middle class in thecity of Beirut and its vision of a society that transcends religious
divisions; (3) the press adhered to the logic of print capitalism,
which necessitated a cross-confessional appeal; (4) it exposed Arabreaders to European secular thought and informed them about thesecularisation efforts by some European governments.

Crucial role of theSyro-Lebanese press inthe history of secularity
in the Arab world

Overview of the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century
The history of Arabic periodicals began in the first half of the 19th century, when authorities in regional capitals launched official bulletins toreport government activities and disseminate official announcements.2
1

2

Ottomanism was a political vision advocated by reformist officials and intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire, according to which all Ottoman subjects, regardless of ethnicity or religion, should be equal before the law. This vision
was inscribed in the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 (Article 17), “The Ottoman
Constitution, Promulgated the 7th Zilbridje, 1293 (11/23 December, 1876),” The
American Journal of International Law 2, no. 4 (1908): 369.
For an overview of the history of the Arabic press, see Ami Ayalon, The Press in the
Arab Middle East: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 11–49.
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1Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century

Emergence of a thriving
print media sector in
Beirut in the 1870’s

During the 1850’s and 1860’s a number of private newspapers andmissionary bulletins were launched in Beirut, Istanbul, and France,
but they were for the most part short-lived.3 It was only in the 1870’sthat one could speak of a thriving print media sector in the Arabicspeaking world, when more than twenty periodicals were launchedin Beirut alone. The most notable examples of these periodicals
were the literary-scientific journal al-Jinān and its weekly counterpart al-Jannah, both of which were established in 1870 by Butrus
al-Bustani4 – one of the most prominent figures of the Arab Nahḍa.5
Other significant periodicals of that era were Lisān al-Ḥāl, al-Muqtaṭaf,Thamarāt al-Funūn along with two missionary periodicals, al-Nashra
al-Usbūʿiyya (by American Presbyterian missionaries) and al-Bashīr(by the Jesuit mission).
Most of these periodicals were privately owned and financed
by subscriptions, sales, and advertisements, but they occasionallyreceived financial support from public officials and wealthy merchants. Periodicals at the time were individual rather than institutional efforts and journalism was not yet a full-time, specialised profession. Most of the people running these periodicals were active inother fields as civil servants, entrepreneurs, and local politicians. In
terms of censorship, the attitude of local Ottoman authorities to thepress initially ranged between supportive and apathetic, which gave
journalists a substantial margin of freedom at the time, even whencompared with contemporary European countries. However, in the
3
4

5

2

The two notable exceptions were Ḥadīqat al-Akhbār (1858–ca. 1909), founded
by Khalil Khuri in Beirut, and al-Jawā’ib (1861–1884), founded by Ahmad Faris
al-Shidyaq (a native of Mount Lebanon), in Istanbul.
Butrus al-Bustani (1819–1883) was a Maronite native of Mount Lebanon. He converted to Protestantism in the 1840’s while working for American missionaries
and diplomats in Beirut. However, by the end of the 1850’s he felt alienated frommissionaries and embarked on a distinguished intellectual career that gave birth
to the first modern Arabic dictionary, the first modern Arabic encyclopaedia, andtwo of the most influential early Arabic periodicals. For more details about Butrus
and other prominent members of his family, see Fruma Zachs, “Al-Bustānī Family,”Encyclopedia of Islam THREE, ed. Kate Fleet et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
The Nahḍa (renaissance) was a movement of cultural revival and social reform by
Arab literati in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the aim of which was to create an
Arab subject that is at once rooted in classical Arab culture and well-integrated
into the modern world. The following volume contains a collection of texts of
the Nahḍa, including extracts from periodicals, translated into English: Tarek ElAriss, ed., The Arab renaissance: A bilingual anthology of the nahda (New York:
The Modern Language Association of America, 2017).

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1880’s censorship became more restrictive and arbitrary, which was
one of the factors behind a mass migration of Syro-Lebanese journalists to other countries, especially Egypt.6
Social and Historical Context: Ottoman Beirut
The history of the Syro-Lebanese press, including its relationship tosecularity, is closely linked to the transformation of Beirut over thecourse of the 19th century from a minor coastal town to the main commercial port in the eastern Mediterranean and an important administrative and cultural hub in the region. In fact, Jens Hanssen considers
the vibrant press as an integral part of fin de siècle Beirut that was woven
into its urban fabric.7 Beirut owed its remarkable growth to the integration of Syrian territories into the capitalist world-economy dominatedby Europe, which necessitated the infrastructural, legal, and economic
development of the city. The rise of Beirut is also related to the social turmoil that shook the neighbouring region of Mount Lebanonin the middle of the century. The collapse of the old feudal order that
had prevailed in the Druze- and Maronite-dominated Mountain8 forcenturies was marked by violent sectarian conflicts between the tworeligious communities, which culminated in a civil war in 1860 thatclaimed some 10,000 victims, mostly Christians. Shortly afterwards,
violence erupted against Christians in Damascus claiming thousands
more victims.9

6

7
8

9

Rise of Beirut in the 19th
century amid sectarian
conflicts in Greater Syria

There were economic factors behind this migration as well, since the Egyptian periodicals market was larger and less exploited compared with the Syrian one. Regarding censorship, see Donald J. Cioeta, “Ottoman Censorship in Lebanon and Syria,
1876–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10, no. 2 (1979): 167–86.
Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The making of an Ottoman provincial capital(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 213–35.
The Druze is a religious community that broke away from Ismaili Shi’ism in the
11th century. The Maronites, on the other hand, are members of an autonomous
Syriac Church that is in union with Rome. In addition to Maronites and Druze,
there were Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Shi’i, and Sunni communities inMount Lebanon and surrounding areas.
For a detailed study of the 1860 civil war in Mount Lebanon, see Ussama Makdisi,
The culture of sectarianism: Community, history, and violence in nineteenth-century
Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). For the massacres in Damascus, see Leila Tarazi Fawaz, An occasion for war: Civil conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 78–100.
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Formation of a Christianbourgeoisie and theidea of Syrian patriotism

Support by
Ottoman authorities

4

The large influx of Christian refugees boosted the economy of
Beirut and its cultural life. Syrian Christians generally enjoyed ahigh economic and educational standing thanks to the Tanẓīmāt
reforms,10 which granted them legal equality with Muslims, and increasing European influence (economic, diplomatic as well as missionary), which benefitted them more than, or even at the expenseof, their Muslim counterparts. Consequently, a Christian bourgeoisie
consisting of entrepreneurs, salaried clerks, intelligentsia, and practitioners of liberal professions emerged as core players in politicaland economic life in Beirut. This Christian middle class resented thesectarianism that prevailed in Mount Lebanon along with its traditional social order dominated by feudal families and Christian clergy,
especially the Maronite Church, which was one of the biggest landowners. They envisioned instead a modern society encompassing all
the inhabitants of Greater Syria, regardless of religion, who were held
together by bonds of a shared land and a common Arab culture.
This Syrian identity, it should be asserted, was not conceived in
opposition to the Ottoman Empire but in support of its reformist
project and its political ideal of Ottomanism.11 Beirut, in fact, wasdescribed as a model city of the Tanẓīmāt, embodying its project of
economic and urban development as well as state expansion and administrative integration.12 Furthermore, the Muslim community ofBeirut, which was dominated by merchants rather than traditional
notables (large landowners and military elites) or the ‘ulamaʾ,13 were
not isolated from these developments, as they took part actively in
10 The Tanẓīmāt were a series of modernising reforms undertaken by the Ottoman state, which began with the Gülhane Edict of 1839 and culminated in the
proclamation of the Constitution of 1876 and the election of the first Ottoman
parliament in the following year. This constitutional era, however, proved to be
short-lived, lasting only until 1878, when Sultan Abdülhamid II dissolved the parliament and reinstated absolutist rule.
11 Ottoman officials themselves were supportive of a Syrian regional identity, which
they saw as a counterweight to attempts by colonial powers to nurture Christianseparatism, as they did in the Balkans. Fruma Zachs, “Pioneers of Syrian Patriotism
and Identity: A Re-evaluation of Khalil al-Khuri’s Contribution,” in The Origins of
Syrian Nationhood: Histories, Pioneers and Identity, ed. Adil Beshara (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2011), 102.
12 Samir Kassir, Beirut (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 131–33;
Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut, 236–63
13 Donald J. Cioeta, “Thamarat Al Funun, Syria’s First Islamic Newspaper: 1875–
1908” (PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1979), 39–40

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Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century

its political and economic life. Overall a thriving cross-confessional
life developed in Beirut, which manifested itself in local politics,14
scientific societies,15 mixed neighbourhoods,16 and non-confessional
schools.17 It constituted an expression of the ideology of the city, toborrow Albert Hourani’s term.18 For this ideology, the press was not
merely an outlet, but an embodiment.
Nafīr Sūriyya: Secularism as an Antidote to Sectarianism
The first reference problem in light of which the issue of secularity
was discussed in the Syro-Lebanese press was, expectedly, sectarianism. In fact, what could be described as the ‘founding text’ of secularism in the Arab world, Butrus al-Bustani’s Nafīr Sūriyya (TheClarion of Syria), was composed in the immediate aftermath of the1860 sectarian conflict. Technically, Nafīr Sūriyya was not a periodical but a series of pamphlets (eleven in total) that were publishedbetween September 1860 and April 1861. Yet it is usually mentioned
in lists of early Arabic periodicals and it can indeed be considered
an early experiment in journalism. At any rate, the importance ofNafīr Sūriyya as the first
secularist text in the
Arab world

14 Politics based on class-interests rather than religious community are evident from thework of the Municipal Council of Beirut and from petitions to Ottoman authorities
made by the people of Beirut. See Jens Hanssen, “From social status to intellectual
activity: some prosopographical observations on the municipal council in Beirut,
1868–1908,” in From the Syrian land to the States of Syria and Lebanon, ed. Thomas
Philipp and Christoph Schumann (Würzburg: Ergon, 2004).
15 The Syrian Scientific Society (1868–1869), for example, had members from different religious communities including Sunni Muslims and Druze. See the listof its members in Yusuf Q. Khuri (ed.) Aʿmāl al-Jamʿiyya al-ʿIlmiyya al-Sūriyya:
1868–1869 (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra’, 1990), 218.
16 Jens Hanssen, “The Birth of an Education Quarter: Zokak el-Blat as a Cradle ofCultural Revival in the Arab World,” in History, space and social conflict in Beirut:
The quarter of Zokak el-Blat, ed. Hans Gebhardt et al. (Würzburg: Ergon, 2005).
17 Butrus al-Bustani founded in 1863 the first private non-confessional school in the
Arab world: al-Madrasa al-Waṭaniyya (The Local/Patriotic School). Its notable
graduates included Abd al-Qadir al-Qabbani – the first editor of Thamarāt alFunūn and a President of the Municipality of Beirut – and Suleiman al-Bustani – agifted writer, member of the Ottoman Parliament, and Minister in the Ottoman
government.
18 Albert Hourani used the term in his discussion of political orientations in postOttoman Lebanon, but he pointed out that it had its roots in Ottoman Beirut. He
contrasted it with the “ideology of the Mountain” (the romantic-Maronite-rural
idea of Lebanon) and summarised the difference between the two by his saying:“For the villager rural society is created by God, urban by man.” Albert Hourani,“Ideologies of the Mountain and the City,” in Essays on the crisis in Lebanon, ed.
Roger Owen (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), 37.
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Separating religion
from politics as aprecondition for
religious tolerance

Religious elementsin the secularism ofNafīr Sūriyya

6

its writer as a main figure of the early Arabic press and the “revolutionary” nature of the views it advocated19 warrant its inclusion in a
discussion about secularity in the Arabic press.
In the eleven texts of Nafīr Sūriyya, al-Bustani exhorted his fellow countrymen to abandon sectarian infighting and unite together
under the umbrella of one Syrian homeland. Al-Bustani consideredsectarianism to be a new expression of primordial, irrational, andbarbarian instincts, albeit one that is more destructive, because it
invokes “sacred old names”, such as Christian, Druze, or Muslim.20
A precondition for resolving this social crisis and realising religious
tolerance, in al-Bustani’s view, is the separation between political andreligious matters.21 For al-Bustani, religions concern the relationshipbetween man and his Creator, whereas civic matters (madaniyyāt)
concern the relationship between man and his fellow countrymen
or between him and his government.22 Without a barrier separating these two distinct principles, as achieved by “civilised countries”(i. e. Western countries), both are doomed to failure, according to
al-Bustani.23 Finally, it should be pointed out that al-Bustani’s plea forreligious tolerance was not only grounded in the bitter experience ofcommunal strife and the ideals of civilisational progress and patriotism, but also in religious – particularly, but not exclusively, Christian– morality, since he appealed more than once to “true religion” thatshuns fanaticism and violence.24

19 Al-Bustani’s “call for an explicit removal of religion from civil affairs was genuinely revolutionary” and “far more explicit than anything Ottoman statesmen
had envisioned”. Ussama Makdisi, “After 1860: Debating Religion, Reform, andNationalism in the Ottoman Empire,” International Journal of Middle East Studies
34, no. 4 (2002), 605–07.
20 Butrus Al-Bustani, Nafīr Sūriyya (Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1990), 27. The text has recently
been translated into English: Butrus Al-Bustani, Clarion of Syria: A patriot’s callagainst the civil war of 1860, transl. Jens Hanssen and Hicham Safieddine (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019).
21 Al-Bustani, Nafīr Sūriyya, 27.
22 Al-Bustani, 49.
23 Al-Bustani, 57–59.
24 Al-Bustani, 20, 42–43, 68.
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Al-Jinān: Secularism as a Mode of Governance of Religion
Less than a decade after the publication of his Nafīr Sūriyya, Butrus
al-Bustani launched the first literary-scientific journal in the Arabworld, al-Jinān (1870–1886), which proved to be another milestone
in the history of Arab secularism. Al-Jinān, however, was managed
and edited by his son Salim al-Bustani (1846–1884), who wrote
much of its contents. While many of the secularist themes articulated
in Nafīr Sūriyya, such as patriotism and religious tolerance, can also
be found in the writings of Salim, he went further than his father in
his secularism and focused on a different reference problem, namely,
the governance of religion, specifically in Christian communities in
the Ottoman Empire. The Tanẓīmāt reforms, which sought to integrate the administration of non-Muslim communities into state bureaucracy, and the parallel rise of a modern Christian middle class,
not to mention active interventions by foreign powers, often resulted
in power struggles within these communities. These struggles generated debate on the boundaries of religion and which authorities had
the legitimacy to resolve conflicts inside or outside these boundaries:
the head of the Church (e. g. the Pope), the Porte, or the local community? And on what basis should it be resolved: political sovereignty, spiritual hierarchy, or representation of local community and its
ethnic character?
For the most part, Salim did away with references to religious
morality, relying instead on positivist notions of progress and theconcept of the ‘new age’ (al-ʿaṣr al-jadīd). Salim maintained that
this ‘new age’ has a distinctive ‘spirit’ or ‘Zeitgeist’ (rūḥ al-ʿaṣr) thatentails a new relationship between religion and politics.25 Secondly,
Salim preached a brand of secularism that places emphasis on thesupremacy of the state over religious communities or politics over religion rather than on separation between the two. As a member of thegeneration born under the aegis of the Tanẓīmāt reforms, Salim wasa firm believer in the project of state-building and modernisation,
unlike his father in Nafīr Sūriyya, whose confidence in the Ottomanstate was shaken after its failure to prevent the massacres of 1860.

Al-Jinān: a second
articulation of secularism
in the Arab world

Secularism as a
response to conflicts
within Christiancommunities

Secularism as the‘Zeitgeist’ of themodern age
Supremacy of thestate over religious
communities

25 See for example, Salim al-Bustani, “Rūḥ al-ʿAṣr,” al-Jinān 1, no. 13 (1870): 385–88.
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The two aspects ofreligious communities:
purely religious
and political

References to contemporary events in Europe
as examples for thesupremacy of the state

Binaries denoting
the religious domain
and its other(s)8For Salim, religious communities have two aspects: the first one
is related to doctrines and worship, which he considered to be aninternal issue within each religious community that is not of public concern; and the second one is related to power and authority. Since conflicts frequently arise between different social groups
or authorities within religious communities, the administration of religious communities for him is a matter of public interest (hence it islegitimate to discuss it in the press) and also of political interest to
the state, the task of which is to protect the civil rights and welfare ofits subjects. Accordingly, the principle of separation between religion
and politics is valid only when it is related to the first, not the second
aspect of religious communities.
To support his opinions, Salim frequently referred to contemporary events in Europe, such as the measures undertaken by German
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to force the Catholic clergy to submit to
the authority of the state instead of the Vatican (the so-called Kulturkampf during the 1870’s), or the subjugation of Rome by the Kingdom
of Italy in 1870. For Salim, a “war” was raging in Europe between the“folk of the spirit of the age” and the “clergymen”, which was going toshape the position of religion in the world for centuries to come.26
Distinctions, Terminology
The different schemes of secularism advocated by the two Bustanis
were reflected in their terminology when distinguishing between religion and its other(s). Salim continued to use terms similar to thoseused by his father in Nafīr Sūriyya, such as maʿābid (places of worship), iʿtiqād (belief), akhlāq (ethics), ḍamīr (conscience), dīn (religion), madhhab or tāʾifa (denomination, religious community), andrūḥī (spiritual) to refer to various aspects of the religious domain;and siyāsa (politics), madaniyyāt (civil matters), ʿumūm (the public),and ʿālamiyyāt (worldly matters) to refer to the other domain, whichat the time had not yet had a general name in the sense of ‘secular’(ʿalmānī in contemporary Arabic). However, since he distinguishedbetween the two aspects of religious communities – one purely religious and another political/public – Salim occasionally resorted to

26 Salim al-Bustani, “Jumla Siyāsiyya,” al-Jinān 5, no. 1 (1874): 1–3.
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Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century‘double binaries’ – that is, combining a term that refers to the religious domain with one that is often deployed in the secular domain.
For example, in a response to criticisms by al-Majmaʿ al-Vātikānī (apredecessor of the Jesuit periodical al-Bashīr) that al-Jinān was intermingling in the religious affairs of the Armenian Catholic community, Salim asserted that he was not discussing their “religious beliefs” (al-iʿtiqādāt al-dīniyya) but their “religious politics” (al-siyāsa
al-dīniyya).27 Not all of these distinctions and binaries became established widely over time,28 but the very act of making distinctions
repeatedly reinforces the notion that there are certain social spheresthat are not subject to religious imperatives.
It should be mentioned that al-Jinān’s contributors not only distinguished between religion and other social spheres, such as politics
or the economy, but also between religion and other dimensions ofidentity, such as ethnicity or political allegiance. As the Greek Orthodox Church disintegrated into several ethno-nationalist churches in
the Balkans over the second half of the 19th century, Christian communities in Syria were faced with the question whether their respective religious identities or liturgical languages (Greek, Armenian, or
Syriac) entailed by definition distinct ethnic identities. The matter
was a frequent subject of debate in the Arabic press in Beirut.29 Salim,on his part, indicated in two editorials that one may be at once Greek
Orthodox (by religion), Arab (by ethnicity and language) and Ottoman (by political allegiance).30

Use of double binaries
to denote the politicalaspect of religious communities

Distinctions between
religious, ethnic, andpolitical dimensions ofidentity

Other Periodicals
The secular orientation of al-Bustanis’ periodicals was shared bysome other periodicals, such as al-Muqṭataf and Lisān al-Ḥāl, but
27 See “Al-Asitāna al-ʿUlyā,” al-Jinān 1, no. 7 (1870): 195–96; “Al-Arman al-Katholīk
fī al-Asitāna,” al-Jinān 1, no. 8 (1870): 228–29; “Al-Majmaʿ fī Rūmiya,” al-Jinān 1,
no. 9 (1870): 262–68. These articles were unsigned, but there is no reason to thinkthey were written by someone other than Salim.
28 This is an era when the modern social and political vocabulary of the Arabic language was still relatively fluid.
29 Al-Janna published a supplement to its issue no. 280 containing several letterssent by Greek Orthodox readers expressing different views about the relationshipbetween religion, ethnicity (jins), language, and political allegiance. Al-Janna 4,
no. 280 (1873).
30 Salim al-Bustani, “Jumla Siyāsiyya,” al-Jinān 3, no. 23 (1872): 793–96; al-Jinān 4,
no. 1 (1873): 1–4.
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Thamarāt al-Funūn: first
periodical published by
Muslims in Beirut

Missionary periodicals

Formation of atransregional andtransreligious Arabpublic sphere10

there were other orientations toward religion in the Syro-Lebanesepress. Thamarāt al-Funūn (est. 1875) – the only periodical of the
Muslim community of Beirut at the time – was Ottomanist during
its first decade, when it was still under the editorship of Abd al-Qadir
al-Qabbani. It included calls for unity between Ottomans regardlessof religion31 and featured contributions by prominent Christian writers, such as Adib Ishaq and Ya’qub Sarruf. However, starting from the
1890’s, it gradually transformed into an Islamic-reformist periodical
thanks to the influence of figures such as Mohammad Abduh, who
contributed articles to the newspaper during his stay in Beirut from1884 until 1888, and Ahmad Tabbara, who succeeded al-Qabbani
in editing the periodical in 1898. Consequently, Islamic themes andnews about Muslims around the world became more prominent in
the discourse of Thamarāt al-Funūn.32
The Jesuit al-Bashīr was the most vocal anti-secular periodical in
Beirut. It frequently asserted that religion (represented by the Catholic Church) should be the guiding framework for all personal, social,and cultural spheres, including politics. Al-Bashīr was for the mostpart concerned with European politics and the issues of Catholic denominations in the region. It defended the Catholic Church against
any perceived attacks by other periodicals, asserting the rights of thePope to temporal power and rejecting any claims that the authorityof the Church is limited to spiritual matters only.33 Its Protestant rival
al-Nashra al-Usbūʿiyya, on the other hand, acknowledged the needto separate religion from politics (mostly in its polemics against theJesuits),34 but it still considered public morality as subject to religious
imperatives.
The Logic of Print Capitalism
The secularising effect of the Syro-Lebanese press was not only due toits secularist content but also to its capitalist modus operandi. Before
the development of the press, knowledge production and circulation were largely undertaken within the confines of each religious
31 See for example, “Al-Ittiḥād,” Thamarāt al-Funūn 1, no. 3: 3; also no. 5: 2–3.
32 Cioeta “Thamarat Al Funun,” 271–82.
33 See, for example, its criticisms of Ḥadīqat al-Akhbār and al-Jinān in this regard
in “Fī shawka nabatat muʾakhkharan fī Ḥadīqat al-Akhbār,” al-Bashīr 2, no. 22(1871): 169–72.
34 For example, see al-Nashra al-Usbūʿiyya 1, no. 23 (1871): 8.

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Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century

community. This pattern began to change in the first half of the
19th century,35 but only with the appearance of an active periodical
market starting from the 1870’s one may speak of the formationof a transregional and trans-confessional communication-based public sphere36 or reading public.37 The owners of periodicals in Beirut
naturally wanted to reach the widest audience in order to make aprofit or at least to cover the costs of production. Hence, even though
the vast majority of them were Christian (of different denominations), they tried to appeal to members of other religious communities, including Muslims, not only as consumers but also as contributors. One popular section in al-Jinān that attracted contributions frompeople of diverse backgrounds were riddles, mostly mathematical or
linguistic. Readers sent solutions to riddles published in previous issues or sent their own riddles to be published in later issues. Furthermore, readers contributed literary pieces, translations, commentaries
on current events, or responses to materials published in the same orin another periodical.
This cross-confessional appeal38 demanded that the authors avoided references to specific creeds, an overtly sectarian language, or topics that may have incited religious controversies.39 Religious topics
and contributions by clergymen were not absent, but they tended to
be formulated in an ecumenical language that appealed to religious
people from different denominations focusing on non-doctrinal

Appealing to membersof different religious
communities

Use of cross-confessional
language and argumentsin the press

35 Hala Auji documents how the American Missionary Press in Beirut (established in1834) gradually oriented its production of books toward a cross-confessional audience by toning down its Evangelical message and avoiding overtly confessional
themes, both in text and visual layout. Hala Auji, Printing Arab modernity: Visual
culture and the American press in nineteenth-century Beirut (Leiden/Boston: Brill,2016), 35–63.
36 Hanssen, “The Birth of an Education Quarter”, 148.
37 Elizabeth M. Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public in 1870s Beirut,” Journal of
Arabic Literature 40, no. 1 (2009), 37–40.
38 The relationship between print capitalism and cross-confessional appeal is notstraight-forward. Print capitalism may as well capitalise on religious strife, whichis evident from the proliferation of polemic pamphlets during the Protestant Reformation. A. Johns, “Printing as a Medium,” in International Encyclopedia of theSocial and Behavioral Sciences, ed. Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, (Amsterdam:
Elsevier, Pergamon, 2001), 12053.
39 This does not apply to missionary periodicals al-Bashīr and al-Nashra al-Usbūʿiyya,
which contained a wealth of sectarian polemics, in particular against each other.
But even in these periodicals, there were articles that defended religious positions
using relatively neutral vocabulary.
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11Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century

issues such as personal morality. Even when scriptures were cited,some authors (Muslim or Christian) made sure to cite both the Qur’an
and the Bible.40 Abd al-Qadir al-Qabbani, the editor of Thamarātal-Funūn, requested from contributors to avoid lengthy Qur’anic andhadith citations in their letters, because newspapers were not suitablein his opinion for holy words.41

Syro-Lebanese press’
influence extended
to other countries

12

Influence
In a population where literacy rates most probably did not exceeded
10%, the Arabic press at the time was certainly an elite phenomenon.42
Yet this does not necessarily mean that its influence was limited to its
immediate readership. First, these periodicals were often read in public spaces and social gatherings.43 Secondly, the ‘elites’ that consumed
these periodicals were spread all over the Arabic-speaking world. Theyin turn – later in the beginning of the 20th century – launched theirown periodicals, founded schools, and emerged as leading intelligentsia in their own countries. In addition, thanks to the geographic
and social mobility of Syro-Lebanese journalists, the influence of theSyro-Lebanese press extended to many other countries. In Egypt,roughly 20% of all periodicals founded between 1800 and 1914 belonged to the small Syro-Lebanese community that did not exceed
0.3% of the population of the country.44 In Morocco, Syro-Lebanesejournalists, who founded Lisān al-Maghrib, the first national newspaper in the country, were at the forefront of the constitutionalist
movement of 1908.45 More importantly perhaps, the Syro-Lebanesepress laid the grounds for the development of a standardised, deterritorialised, and secularised version of the Arabic language along with
40 For example, see the following articles of Ahmad Wahbi Effendi (a writer from Aleppo):“Nūr al-Maʿrifa,” al-Jinān 2, no. 20 (1871): 698–700, where he used both Christian andMuslim names when referring to generic individuals, and “Al-Ṣabr,” al-Jinān, no. 14(1871): 481–82, where he cited both Islamic and Christian scriptures.
41 Cioeta, “Thamarat Al Funun”, 73–74.
42 For a discussion of literacy rates in Syria and Egypt in the 19th century, see Ami
Ayalon, The Arabic Print Revolution: Cultural Production and Mass Readership(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 154–76.
43 Ayalon, Arabic Print Revolution, 177–93.
44 Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt: 1725–1975 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1985), 97–98.
45 Odile Moreau, “Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in
the Muslim Mediterranean World Prior to World War I,” in The press in the Middle
East and North Africa, 1850–1950: Politics, social history and culture, ed. Anthony
Gorman and Didier Monciaud (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 156.

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Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century

its modern political and social vocabulary, that is Modern Standard
Arabic,46 which is the language of politics, culture, and science in the
Arab world till today.

Influence on Modern
Standard Arabic

Conclusion
The Syro-Lebanese press had tangible secularising effects on Arabthought in the final decades of the 19th century. It contained theearliest arguments in the region for separation between religion andpolitics or for the subjugation of religion to political authority. It
functioned, moreover, as a forum for the first debates in the Arabworld about the relationship between religion and other social spheresin abstract, universal terms. Within this forum, a variety of positions
were articulated (secular, anti-secular, reformist, among others), butthey all tended to be expressed in a neutral language that appealed topeople with different religious affiliations. While one may not speakof a self-conscious secularism nor of an explicit religious-secularbinary in that era, the Syro-Lebanese press had arguably contributed
to their fuller articulation in the opening decades of the 20th century.

46 Stephen Sheehi, “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahḍah: Epistemology, Ideology
and Capital,” Journal of Arabic Literature 43, no. 2-3 (2012), 293–96.
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13Companion to the Study of Secularity – Mohammad Magout: Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century

Quoted and Further Reading
Periodicals cited
Al-Bashīr
Al-Janna
Al-Jinān
Al-Nashra al-Usbūʿiyya
Thamarāt al-Funūn

Secondary literature“The Ottoman Constitution, Promulgated the 7th Zilbridje, 1293 (11/23 December,1876).” The American Journal of International Law 2, no. 4 (1908): 367–87.
Al-Bustani, Butrus. Nafīr Sūriyya. Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1990.
Al-Bustani, Butrus. Clarion of Syria: A patriot’s call against the civil war of 1860.
Translated by Jens Hanssen and Hicham Safieddine. Oakland: University ofCalifornia Press, 2019.
Auji, Hala. Printing Arab modernity: Visual culture and the American press innineteenth-century Beirut. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016.
Ayalon, Ami. The Arabic Print Revolution: Cultural Production and Mass Readership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Ayalon, Ami. The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995.
Cioeta, Donald J. “Ottoman Censorship in Lebanon and Syria, 1876–1908.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10, no. 2 (1979): 167–86.
Cioeta, Donald J. “Thamarat Al Funun, Syria’s First Islamic Newspaper: 1875–1908.”
PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1979.
El-Ariss, Tarek, ed. The Arab renaissance: A bilingual anthology of the nahda. New
York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2017.
Fawaz, Leila Tarazi. An occasion for war: Civil conflict in Lebanon and Damascusin 1860. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Hanssen, Jens. “From social status to intellectual activity: some prosopographicalobservations on the municipal council in Beirut, 1868–1908.” in From the
Syrian land to the States of Syria and Lebanon. Edited by Thomas Philipp andChristoph Schumann, 59–76. Würzburg: Ergon, 2004.
Hanssen, Jens. “The Birth of an Education Quarter: Zokak el-Blat as a Cradle ofCultural Revival in the Arab World.” In History, space and social conflict inBeirut: The quarter of Zokak el-Blat. Edited by Hans Gebhardt et al., 163–94.
Würzburg: Ergon, 2005.
Hanssen, Jens. Fin de Siècle Beirut: The making of an Ottoman provincial capital.
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Arabic Literature 40, no. 1 (2009): 37–70.
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Dar al-Hamra’, 1990.

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Makdisi, Ussama. “After 1860: Debating Religion, Reform, and Nationalism in
the Ottoman Empire.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 4(2002): 601–17.
Makdisi, Ussama. The culture of sectarianism: Community, history, and violencein nineteenth-century Ottoman Lebanon. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2000.
Moreau, Odile. “Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks
in the Muslim Mediterranean World Prior to World War I.” In The press in the
Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950: Politics, social history and culture.
Edited by Anthony Gorman and Didier Monciaud, 153–75 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.
Philipp, Thomas. The Syrians in Egypt: 1725–1975. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1985.
Philipp, Thomas. “Identities and loyalties in Bilād al-Shām at the beginning of theearly modern period.” in From the Syrian land to the States of Syria and Lebanon. Edited by Thomas Philipp and Christoph Schumann, 9–26. Würzburg:
Ergon, 2004.
Sheehi, Stephen. “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahḍah: Epistemology, Ideology
and Capital.” Journal of Arabic Literature 43, no. 2–3 (2012): 269–98.
Zachs, Fruma. “Pioneers of Syrian Patriotism and Identity: A Re-evaluationof Khalil al-Khuri’s Contribution.” In The Origins of Syrian Nationhood:
Histories, Pioneers and Identity. Edited by Adil Beshara, 91–107. Abingdon:
Routledge, 2011.
Zachs, Fruma. “Al-Bustānī Family.” In Encyclopedia of Islam THREE. Edited by
Kate Fleet et al, 30–35, Leiden: Brill, 2018.

This text is part of the Companion to the Study of Secularity. The intent of the Companion is to give scholars interested in the concept of Multiple Secularities, who are
not themselves specialists in particular (historical) regions, an insight into different
regions in which formations of secularity can be observed, as well as into the key
concepts and notions with respect to the study of secularity.
It is published by the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Multiple
Secularities − Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”. For as long as the HCAS
continues to exist, the Companion will be published and further expanded on the
HCAS’ website. Towards the end of Multiple Secularities project, all entries will
be systematised and edited in order to transform the Companion into a completed
Open Access publication.
Please cite as:
Magout, Mohammad. “Secularity in the Syro-Lebanese Press in the 19th Century.”
In Companion to the Study of Secularity. Edited by HCAS “Multiple Secularities –Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities.” Leipzig University, 2019. www.multiplesecularities.de/media/css_magout_syrolebanesepress.pdf

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