_Desiring Arabs_ is, at heart, a work of [[Postcolonial Theory]] and also draws from queer theory. # Introduction >Desiring Arabs will venture to show that modern and contemporary Arab historiography developed to a considerable extent around the repudiation not only of men’s love for boys but also of all sexual desires it identified as part of the Arab past and which the European present condemns and sometimes champions. (Massad, 2008, p. 1) Since the 19th century, Europe’s colonial powers have exerted dominance not only through political and military means but also by imposing definitions of “culture” and “civilization” onto the Arab world. This intellectual battle aimed to reshape Arabs’ understanding of their history and self-conception. >An intellectual and scholarly battle has raged since the nineteenth century in the shadow of the political, economic, and military conquests that colonial Europe unleashed on what came to be called the “Arab world.” This battle was fought over modern European concepts that defined the colonial conquest, namely, “culture” and “civilization”; how these related to the modern significance of the past of the Arabs; how the latter compared to the present of Europe, and the weight that this excavated Arab past would register on the modern European scales of civilizations and cultures. This battle was not unrelated to the political, economic, and military battles being fought; on the contrary, it was in large measure constitutive of them. (Massad, 2008, p. 1) All components of "culture"—social institutions and cultural expressions—interact within a socioeconomic system that shapes them. Trying to study one without considering the others would give only a partial and potentially misleading view. For instance, studying sexual desire without considering societal norms, laws, or economic conditions risks oversimplifying what is actually a complex and interconnected cultural phenomenon. >kinship ties, religious institutions, marriage and divorce rituals, burials, specific forms of nationalism, laws and rules, forms of societal and economic organization, and styles of political engagement and governmental regulation cannot be studied separate from the overall socioeconomic system within which they exist any more than poetry, songs, and music, oral and written traditions, myths and superstitions, cinema and theater, religious beliefs, gender roles, sexual roles, and indeed sexual desire itself can be studied in isolation from the institutions within which they are enveloped and the overall socioeconomic system that makes them possible.(Massad, 2008, p. 2) In the 19th century, "civilization" began to imply a hierarchy— "civilized" versus "barbaric." Orientalist and Arab nationalist scholars tended to view culture and civilization as static and essential, inherently different from Western civilization. (Arab nationalists, in reacting to colonial narratives, tried to define a stable, unique Arab identity that resisted Western influence.) >\[Williams] located the modern meaning of civilization in English as having emerged in the 1830s. Its use in the plural would come about in the 1860s, when it would be contrasted with barbarism and savagery. Such a historicized notion of culture and civilization was, however, mostly absent from Orientalist scholarship as well as from Arab nationalist scholarship (some Arab Marxist works excepted). Instead, culture and civilization were posited as reified and timeless essences that were separate and separable from the economy, politics, and social and power relations, which they constituted. Thus culture and civilization were both categories in terms of which one thought and objects of thought and scholarship to be investigated and studied. (Massad, 2008, p. 3) Two opposing dichotomies came to define the history and culture of Arabs, reflecting a simplified and bias European interpretation: - decadence / renaissance - Implying decline versus innovation - tradition / modernity - Implying static versus progressive >As civilization was the operative evaluative criterion, two antinomies would determine the representation and self-representation of the history and culture of the Arabs. German scholar Reinhard Schulze has argued that the binaries of decadence/renaissance and tradition/modernity would govern all such representations as 'the basis of a concept of cultural history which, of course, reflected the \[European] political interpretation of historical development current in the nineteenth century.' (Massad, 2008, p. 3) Napoleon justified his 1798 invasion of Egypt by claiming the country had been driven to barbarism and decline by the Turks. The French saw themselves as carrying the liberatory banner of the Enlightenment. Islam was seen as the cause of decadence. Orientalism caused Arab intellectuals to reflexively adopt European frameworks of understanding, including notions of "civilization," "culture," social Darwinism, "decadence," and "renaissance." Arab intellectuals accepted the 18th century as a period of cultural decadence and reactively advocated for Arab cultural production and the discovery of a "classical" period and a "Golden Age" of Islam. European introduction of the printing press and modern book in 1821 altered Arab appreciation of knowledge production. Pre-1821 Arab scholarship (exemplified by hand-copied Medieval manuscripts) and culture came to be viewed as outdated and "decadent." >Arab intellectuals also internalized the epistemology by which Europeans came to judge civilizations and cultures along the vector of something called “sex,” as well as its later derivative, “sexuality,” and the overall systematization of culture through the statistical concept of “norms,” often corresponding to the “natural” and its “deviant” opposite. (Massad, 2008, p. 6) Foucault and Raymond Williams overlooked how European concepts (particularly sexuality, power, and identity) were products of and for colonialism. European racial and sexual norms were profoundly shaped by colonial encounters, especially bourgeois identity. Foucault's history of European sexuality neglected the mutually constitutive relationship between European sexual discourse and colonialism, particularly the eroticized, racialized savage. European anthropologists, via "ethnopornography," sensationalized Arab lives and sexuality, viewing them as decadent and backwards. Arab intellectuals were shaped by this view, especially the idea that Arab culture degenerated under Ottoman rule, and sought to renew Arab culture through nationalism and reform. >As early as 1859, Butrus al-Bustani (1819–83), one of the central first-generation intellectuals of the Arab “renaissance,” described the present of the Arabs as one of “decadence,” existing as it did in a “fallen state.” (Massad, 2008, p. 23) >Sex was always an important feature of Orientalist fantasy and scholarship. Said explained how Orientalists described the Orient “as feminine, its riches as fertile, its main symbols the sensual woman, the harem, and the despotic—but curiously attractive—ruler.” (Massad, 2008, p. 24) Race and social Darwinism were central elements to the Orientalist, anthropologist, and sexologist analysis. Orientals were thereby viewed in a framework of biological determinism and moral admonishment. The **Arab Nahda ("Awakening" or Enlightenment)** was a complex, varied cultural movement from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century that aimed to revitalize Arab societies. Emerging under the influence of European colonialism and modernity, it sought to reform and modernize Arab culture, language, and governance while balancing inspiration from both Islamic tradition and Western ideas. Prominent figures like Butrus al-Bustani, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Muhammad Abduh emphasized rationality, education, and nationalism. The movement played a key role in fostering Arab nationalism and early anti-colonial thought. While the Nahda was transformative, its reliance on European frameworks often marginalized indigenous traditions and knowledge systems, reinforcing Orientalist narratives of Arab “decadence.” The Nahda should thus be viewed critically. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani agreed with Ernest Renan that Islam had stifled scientific progress in Muslim countries. However, he rejected the racialized idea that Arabs were inherently opposed to science. Instead, al-Afghani refuted Renan with a social Darwinist argument, claiming that religion was a necessary phase in the evolution of all societies from barbarism to civilization. Just as Christianity transitioned to modernity through developments such as the Protestant Reformation, so too did Islam. This religio-social Darwinist idea was shared by most Arab intellectuals of the late 19th century. >Al-Afghani’s universalism was central: “It is by this religious education, whether it be Muslim, Christian, or pagan, that all nations have emerged from barbarism and marched toward a more advanced civilization. (Massad, 2008, p. 28) Since the late-19th century to the present, Arab writers and Orientalists have engaged in an intellectual battle to produce _the_ account of the Arab "cultural" past and Arab "decline." This debate has been civilizational in nature and therefore has focused on history rather than epistemological, and therefore has not questioned the conceptual tools to analyze the past. Influenced by social Darwinism, Arab intellectuals adopted Victorian morality of appropriate sexual behavior. Arab intellectuals adopted an assimilationist approach, arguing that Arab sexuality was not all that different from European sexuality and condemning Arabic deviations from Victorian ethics. Arab intellectuals thus struggled between asserting cultural uniqueness and conforming to hegemonic European, liberal humanistic standards, a recurrent dynamic of colonized people. ### The Time of the Arabs Echoing European Orientalists, Arab intellectuals and politicians described the 1798 Napoleonic invasion of Egypt as the "challenge" the West posed and how they must "catch up." >Ever since Arab intellectuals and politicians, echoing European Orientalists, coded the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798 as the inaugural “shock” or “trauma” that “woke” them up, “alerted” them, or “spurred” and “goaded” them from their “torpor” and long “sleep,” ushering them into a world wherein the “challenge” of the West had to be faced, the task they set themselves was to meet this challenge by “catching up” with Europe. (Massad, 2008, p. 31) **Shakib Arsalan's** infamous 1906 question encapsulates this ongoing challenge: "Why have Muslims regressed \[been delayed] and why have others progressed?" Debates have revolved around a dyadic **tension regarding "progress" and "advancement": _turath_ (heritage) and modernity / contemporariness.** **In this section, Massad will explore how contemporary Arab intellectuals navigate the role of turath (heritage) in modernity, demonstrating the continuing influence of Orientalist and colonial taxonomies on Arab intellectual production.** >In the forthcoming pages, I will limit my discussion to the contemporary intellectual debates on the role of turath and modernity, or more specifically, the role of turath in modernity in order to demonstrate the continuing influence of Orientalist and colonial taxonomies on Arab intellectual production. (Massad, 2008, p. 32) Today, _turath_ refers to the civilizational legacy passed from the Arab past to the Arab present. Despite this association with the past, turath as "heritage" is a modern construct. Until the late 19th century, turath referred primarily to financial inheritance or legacy. Turath is a product of modernity and a link between present and past, deeply tied to progress (_taqaddum_, "in frontness") and backwardness (_takhalluf_, "behindness"). From the onset of colonialism, for the "Arab" collective psyche (as well as Asia and Africa), **the "West" has been the "other" by which to measure themselves.** Islamists argue that Arabs and muslims must "return" to Islam as _the turath_. Secularists, such as **Abdallah Laroui**, advocated for a historicist approach, arguing that Arabs must abandon their ideological history for a positivist (scientific, evidence-based) history and linked cultural progress to industrialization. **After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Arab intellectual debates shifted from economic underdevelopment by the West to cultural causes of "backwardness" and "progress."** This coincided with the failures of "Arab socialism" and rise of capitalist-favoring elites. **_Takhalluf_ (retardation) and _nukus_ (regression, retreat)** dominate discussions on _turath_ and modernity. **Jurj Tarabishi** critiques the regression in Arab thought as a historically specific symptom of post-1967 psychoanalytic neurosis, contrasting with Muhammad **Abid al-Jabiri’s** view of a timeless intellectual “disease.” The trauma of 1967 exposed Arab developmental “lateness” (_ta’akhkhur_) and induced an intellectual arrested development. Tarabishi then partakes in a colonial medical discourse that once labeled the Ottoman Empire "the sick man." Tarabishi believes modernization requires sequential stages: theological revolution → philosophical revolution → political revolution. Arab revolutionary movements failed because they tried to skip these stages. Al-Jabiri advocates for a contemporary reinterpretation of _turath_ that rejects both traditionalist and European frameworks, aiming to establish an independent Arab-specific modernity grounded in rationality, democracy, and Arab identity. Echoing Tarabishi's evolutionary model, al-Jabiri states that Arab Renaissance, Enlightenment, are not sequential stages but interconnected and synchronous tasks spanning the last century. Syrian Marxist **Yasin al-Hafiz** identifies culture, backed by capital from petroleum production, as the main driver of backwardness. Wealthy oil-producing regions, with traditional Bedouin ideologies, have exerted pressure on less backward regions. Jurj Tarabishi and similar culturalist thinkers argue that Arab progress toward Western-style democracy depends on developing a democratic culture. Tarabishi claims that Arabs are currently lacking a democratic culture, likely to resist a "Muslim Martin Luther" or "Arab Voltaire." Tarabishi controversially advocates for a limited democracy based on literacy that would prevent populist Islamists from dismantling democracy. **Culturalist debates view the Arab world's "lateness" to modernity as rooted in cultural deficits, not economic or structural causes. Thus, Arabs must develop a culturalist schema that can accelerate Arab development alongside, rather than behind, Europe.** These ideas are not unlike those espoused by American neoconservatives. >These are culturalist debates that allow no place for the economy or capital. The reasons why Europe “modernized” are found in an immanent cultural realm, as are the reasons for why the Arabs “have not.” What we discern in the above examples is a central temporal schema whereby the Arabs are currently “late,” “delayed,” and “behind.” They are late in their movement toward modernity, seen as the time of “democracy,” and are located behind “Europe” and its American extension, seen as the site of “democracy.” The reasons for this distressing temporal and spatial location are cultural in origins, and the only way to transcend them is by transcending them culturally. (Massad, 2008, p. 42) **Mahdi Amil** critiques the culturalist framing, arguing that the present causes the past to remain, not vice verse. For Amil, the crisis is not one of Arab "civilization" by of the Arab bourgeoisie who obstruct genuine progress. Arab intellectual discourse has consistently framed progress through evolving stages—Nahdah, revolution, and now Western-style democracy—without challenging the deeper structures of global capitalism. **A critical shift is needed to break free from the binary of _turath_ and modernity and their entrapment within an evolutionary, colonial schema.** Contemporary Arab intellectual discourse, like global intellectual discourse, increasingly aligns with capitalist narratives that recode capitalism as "civilizing mission" (imperialism), "development" (neocolonialism), and "democracy" (globalization.) >All the same, these temporal notions are being deployed, like the theories that postulated them in the first place, without providing a narrative history of international capital. Instead, there is now a new and hegemonic practice that has pervaded contemporary Arab intellectual discourse as well as other intellectual discourses across the globe: recoding capitalism as “civilizing mission” (“taqaddum” and “tamaddun”), otherwise known as imperialism, or as “development” (“tatawwur” or “tanmiyyah”), otherwise known as neocolonialism, or finally as “democracy,” otherwise known as globalization. For Arab intellectuals... - In imperialist times, progress meant Nahdah (renaissance). - In the necolonial era, progress meant revolution. - In the age of globalization, progress means Western-style "democracy." **The enduring issue in Arab intellectual debates is the fixation on a binary framework of _turath_ (heritage) and modernity, rooted in an evolutionary temporal schema.** A new perspective is needed that transcends this dualism, aligning with critiques of Enlightenment-as-myth by thinkers like Adorno and Horkheimer. >What remains constant then is a commitment to an evolutionary temporal schema that recognizes change only within the dyad of turath and modernity. Contra al-Jabiri and in line with Theodor Adorno and Max Horheimer’s view of Enlightenment as myth, what is needed—not only for Arab intellectuals but especially for their European counterparts—is a view of turath and modernity that is located outside this dualism, one that is not subject to their temporal peregrinations. (Massad, 2008, p. 44)