Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950.

Varisco, Daniel Martin

Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950. By Marwa Elshakry. Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 2013. Pp. viii + 439. $45.

No scientist has had a more profound and contentious impact on the modern world than Charles Darwin, whose writing on evolution has made him a global icon--a hero for biologists, an apostate for creationists. In her meticulously documented study of the reception of Darwinian evolution in Arabic, Marwa Elshakry traces the genealogy of his admirers and detractors from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. The first translation of parts of Darwin's work into Arabic was made in 1876 by Ya'qub Sarruf and Faris Nimr. who were Syrian Christians with ties to the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut. It appeared in their journal, al-Muqtataf which was a major conduit for European scientific ideas. The journal had a circulation of perhaps only 500 subscribers maximum between 1876 and 1885, after which it was moved to Cairo; however, the translation introduced what were to become the standard Arabic terms for "evolution" (tatawwur), "struggle for life" (tanazuc al-baqa'), and Darwinism {darwiniyya). The first six chapters of Darwin's On the Origin of Species were only fully translated in 1918, by Isma'il Mazhar; four more chapters were added in 1928, but the complete translation was not published until 1964.

Commentaries on Darwin were available before his work in translation. One of the earliest was the Syrian Christian Shibli Shumayyil's 1884 translation of the 1869 French translation of Ludwig Buchner's Sechs Vorlesungen uber die Darwin 'sche Theorie von der Verwandlung derArten und die erste Entstehung der Organismenwelt. From the start, most Arab Christian and Muslim authors assumed that Darwin was a materialist, but there was a spirited debate. In her nuanced overview Elshakry notes that Darwin himself was ambiguous in this respect: he "captured and captivated the world--not by ridding it of the forces of enchantment, of faith, or even of God, but by revitalizing traditions of belief and reenchanting them" (p. 7). An example is the Syrian Husayn al-Jisr's argument in 1888 that evolution could be compatible with creation as presented in the Quran. Ironically, the inspiration for al-Jisr's harmonization was Isaac Taylor, an English cleric, who argued that evolution could be reconciled with the Christian faith. Indeed, it was through a--largely Protestant--Christian lens that Muslims encountered Darwin.

Elshakry's text provides a chronological history of Darwin in Arabic, starting with the 1882 "Lewis affair" in which a professor at the Syrian Protestant College was fired for defending Darwin. This occurred during what Elshakry notes was a "gospel of science," both as a draw by Christian missionaries (p. 50) and a belief by Arab intellectuals that Western progress in science, rather than politics, was the key to social progress (p. 74). Thus, Darwin's theory of biological evolution was blended with Herbert Spencer's ideas about "social" evolution (pp. 81, 195). Both figured in the debate over the linkage of materialism with evolution. The most prominent defender of Darwin was Shibli Shumayyil, whose brand of materialism was dismissed as unbelief by his critics (p. 128). Two notable critics of Darwinism as materialism were Jamal al-DIn al-Afghani and Muhammad 'Abduh, both of whom Elshakry discusses at length. 'Abduh believed that there was no contradiction between true scientific findings and the Quran. Others argued that Darwin's ideas had been articulated by several classical Arab authors, including al-Jahiz.

The chief value of Elshakry's analysis is her thorough examination of both well-known texts by Arab authors and a range of local journals and lesser known writers. Especially valuable is her focus on the issue of translation, in particular the work of Isma'il Mazhar, who found a way to justify evolution without losing his belief as a Muslim (p. 267). "So while science may have emerged in the nineteenth century as a global category," she observes, "it was nevertheless discussed and debated in very local terms" (p. 16). Elshakry's book is not just about Darwin; it examines changes in the pedagogy and politics of al-Azhar, the role of magazines in disseminating scientific information to a popular audience, Egyptian reaction to British colonialism, and the educational role of missionaries in the region, demonstrating also, contra Edward Said's theory on Orientalism as discourse, that Muslim authors engaged in extensive critique of disparaging Orientalist bias (p. 183).

A brief afterword discusses an apostasy case brought in the late 1990s against the Egyptian professor 'Abd al-Sabur Shahin for his claim that the Quranic usage of bashar could refer to earlier hominids with insan reserved for our species (pp. 307-8). It would have been useful to note more recent approaches. There is a 2004 Arabic translation of Darwin's Origin of Species by Majdi al-Malljl, which, comprising some 855 pages with a glossary of Arabic terms used for English evolutionary terms, ignores the controversy over the text; indeed, the foreword by Samir Sadiq argues that Darwin's ideas are essential for modern science. The anti-evolution internet empire of Harun Yahya merits an endnote, but there is hardly any information on the widespread current debates in Arabic over evolution; nor are the few surveys of Muslim attitudes about belief in evolution consulted.

Elshakry is to be commended for providing a careful reading of the early debate in Arabic over Darwin's ideas. A volume on the impact of Darwin in Turkey and Iran would be a welcome companion, as would research on the current role of the internet in fueling the debate over evolution and creation among Muslims.

Daniel Martin Varisco

Qatar University