Egypt’s Arabism: Aḥmad Ḥasan az-Zayyāt: From Islam’s Community to the wide Pan-Arab Nation in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

Az-Zayyāt often felt strong supra-Arab Islamic community emotions in topical contemporary contexts and perpetuated themes about pristine classical Islam from the old pre-World War I type of political pan-Islamism in Egypt. He carried forward Al-Afġānī’s identification with the world-wide military conquests of the early Muslim Arabs, and the universalist Islamic states (empires) that they founded almost overnight. This supra-Middle Eastern scope of the classical Arabs’ role posed problems for the rigorous territorialization of an Arab nation indispensable for a viable Arab nationalism in Egypt.