Modernity without Society? Observations on the term mujtamaʿ in the Islamic Journal al-Manār (Cairo, 1898–1940)

Zemmin, Florian (2016). Modernity without Society? Observations on the term mujtamaʿ in the Islamic Journal al-Manār (Cairo, 1898–1940). Die Welt des Islams, 56(2), pp. 223-247. Brill 10.1163/15700607-00562p04

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It is characteristic of modernity that people conceive of their social affairs as ordered in and by society. While the evolution of the idea of society is well-researched in Europe, it remains an open question how this idea evolved within the Islamic context. This article analyzes the contemporary Arabic term for society, mujtamaʿ, as it was used in the mouthpiece of Islamic modernism, the journal al-Manār (Cairo, 1898–1940). I show that “society” was already the dominant meaning of mujtamaʿ in the first issue of al-Manār. However, few of the authors tackle mujtamaʿ as a central concept of their texts; and the journal’s editor, Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, predominantly used mujtamaʿ to mean some- thing other than society. These findings, combined with Riḍā’s interest in social ques- tions, suggest that the idea of society was expressed from within the Islamic tradition in terms other than mujtamaʿ, most conspicuously umma.

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