Book Review: Marwa Elshakry: Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950
This ground-breaking work on the reception of Darwin in the Arab world opens several windows to the complex process of the making of Darwin’s image in the Arab world; it also situates “Darwin’s dangerous idea” in a broader context by exploring attitudes and ideas of a diverse and influential minority including Free Masons, missionaries, colonial agents, officials of the fledging Ottoman Empire, Arab propagators of the new science, and religious scholars (ʿUlamāʾ) who were not equipped to deal with the brave new world of modern science. The opening chapter of the book is a fascinating narrative about the milieu in which Darwin arrived; this is followed by a thorough exploration of the attitudes of chosen individuals and institutions responsible for the spread of Darwin’s views in the Arab world via translations, discussions, and interactions, which were also intertwined with the broader discourse on science and religion in the Arab world.
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Muzaffar Iqbal
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