Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal’s anti-Enlightenment modernity (1916-1925)

In public discourse and scholarly literature alike, the notions of “modernity,” “Enlightenment” and “the West” are often associated. This article underscores the problems inherent in these associations by focusing on the Egyptian context of the second and third decades of the twentieth century, and in particular on several nationalist articles published by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal. The article contends that Haykal’s writings contributed to the shaping of a modern worldview, the unifying elements of which are represented by the tenets of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. Reference to this intellectual tradition, which the eminent historian of ideas Zeev Sternhell theorized almost exclusively in relation to European intellectual debates, proves to be a far more accurate approach to Haykal’s ideological orientations than the paradigms traditionally employed in the critical analysis of his writings.