Al-Kawakibi: From Political Journalism to a Political Science of the “Liber…

This article engages al-Kawakibi’s Taba’i‘ al-istibdad (The Characteristics of Oppression) as an instance of how Nahda writing dealt with the anxieties and ambivalence inherent in Ottoman Arab modernity. The Aleppine author was a political philosopher who universalized the Arab Muslim as a political subject. The article examines how al-Kawakibi defined “oppression” and “tyranny” a…