THE OTHER FRONTIERS OF ARAB NATIONALISM: IBADIS, BERBERS, AND THE ARABIST-SALAFI PRESS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

An article published by the wonderful Dr Amal Ghazal of Dalhousie University, Halifa, Canada will be of interest to Omani scholars and others interested in the history of Oman.

Here is the abstract published in the International Journal of Middle Easter Studies (IJMES): International Journal of Middle East Studies (2010), 42:105-122 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010
doi:10.1017/S0020743809990559

Articles
THE OTHER FRONTIERS OF ARAB NATIONALISM: IBADIS, BERBERS, AND THE ARABIST-SALAFI PRESS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD
Amal N. Ghazal c1

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ghazal an Google Scholar

The historiography of Arab nationalism has tended to concentrate on the secular press from the Mashriq, especially the Cairo–Beirut axis, at the expense of the religious nationalist press and the non-Mashriqi one. There is often an assumption that reliance on the secular press from the Mashriq alone can provide a clear picture of Arab intellectual life and that a proper analysis of that thought can be confined to a few intellectual centers in the eastern Arab world. Although there has never been an explicit claim that such a focus is the end of the story, there have not been enough attempts to look beyond the Cairo–Beirut axis and beyond its secular press organs in search of a broader story of the depth and breadth of Arab nationalism. This article addresses this imbalance by examining an Arabist-Salafi press network that operated between Algeria, Tunisia, Zanzibar, and Egypt and involved members of two sectarian communities, Sunnis and Ibadis. This Arabist-Salafi press network created a public sphere of intellectual engagement in which Salafism and nationalism were interwoven, producing a nationalist discourse transgressing post World War I borders of identity and linking the three layers of nationalism—the territorial, the Pan-Arab, and the Pan-Islamic—together. These layers not only intersected but also legitimized one another.

Correspondence:

Amal Ghazal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; e-mail: amal.ghazal@dal.ca