Reason and Religion in Ottoman Syria

世俗主义和宗教认同之间的两极经常被视为现代中东的定义。但它是从哪里来的呢？我的项目追溯了世俗和宗教复兴思潮相互交织的根源，追溯到19世纪上半叶的阿拉伯-奥斯曼帝国世界。通过对一位杰出个人的微观历史研究，它将揭示长期被忽视的关于宗教信仰与理性或批判性思想之间正确关系的辩论，以及参与其中的鲜为人知的社区和阿拉伯文人网络。这些辩论后来形成了倾向世俗的阿拉伯“复兴”运动，以及中东地区萨拉菲斯特和基督教复兴运动的出现。米哈伊尔·米沙卡在黎巴嫩山统治者的宫廷中被培养成天主教徒。但在18岁时，他在第一次接触到欧洲启蒙运动著作的阿拉伯语翻译后，对所有启示的宗教失去了信心。在接下来的四分之一个世纪里，他以自然神论者和怀疑论者的身份，在此期间接受了博学多才的知识教育，并在复杂的、往往是暴力的当地政治场景中扮演了重要的幕后角色。然而，在他40多岁的时候，他阅读了由美国传教士翻译成阿拉伯语的新教书籍：最初他持怀疑态度，后来他相信了这些书的真相，并重新成为他新采用的福音派信仰的小册子捍卫者。他的个人轨迹，以及他留下的大量手稿、印刷品和信件档案，为进入更广泛的阿拉伯语网络提供了一个独特的切入点，这些网络热衷于辩论信仰和理性之间的关系。通过对米沙卡本人的皈依和他所经历的不同社会环境的详细、微观的描述，我的研究将揭示在欧洲影响力日益增长和奥斯曼帝国中央集权时期，此类辩论中的关键问题以及塑造这些辩论的社会和政治因素。从早期现代欧洲信仰和怀疑的微观历史学家的工作中获得灵感，该项目将结合社会和文化史的档案方法，重点放在文本细读和关键字的共鸣上。米哈伊尔·米沙卡和他的对话者站在手稿和印刷文化、神职人员和世俗权威、早期现代和殖民现代性之间，参与了宗教信仰合理化的转变，这最终将奠定阿拉伯世界世俗主义和宗教复兴主义传统的基础。对他们历史的描述不仅可以为历史学家提供信息，而且可以为那些通过宗教和批判性思想在当今阿拉伯世界中各自的作用进行思考的人提供信息。

The polarity between secularism and religious identities is often seen as defining the modern Middle East. But where did it come from? My project traces the intertwined roots of both secular and religious revivalist currents back into the Arab-Ottoman world of the first half of the nineteenth century. Through a close microhistorical study of one remarkable individual, it will reveal long-neglected debates over the proper relationship between religious faith and 'reason', or critical thought, as well as the little-known communities and networks of Arab literati who took part in them. These debates later went on to shape both the secular-leaning Arab 'revival' or Nahda, and the emergence of both Salafist and Christian revivalisms in the Middle East.Mikha'il Mishaqa was raised as a Catholic at the court of the ruler of Mount Lebanon. But at the age of eighteen he lost faith in all revealed religion after encountering the first ever Arabic translations of writings of the European Enlightenment. He would spend the next quarter-century as a deist and sceptic, during which time he educated himself in a polymathic range of knowledge and played a major, behind-the-scenes role in the complex, often violent local political scene. In his forties, however, he read Protestant tracts translated into Arabic by American missionaries: initially sceptical, he became persuaded of their truth, and re-emerged as a pamphleteering defender of his newly-adopted Evangelical faith. His personal trajectory, and the voluminous archive of manuscripts, printed tracts, and correspondence he left behind, provides a unique entry-point into a wider set of Arabic-speaking networks who were avidly debating the relationship between faith and reason. Through a detailed, microhistorical account of Mishaqa's own conversions and the varied social milieux through which he moved, my study will uncover both the issues at stake in such debates and the social and political factors which shaped them, in a period of growing European influence and Ottoman state centralisation. Taking inspiration from the work of microhistorians of faith and doubt in early modern Europe, this project will combine the archival methods of social and cultural history with a focus on textual close reading and the resonances of 'keywords'. Poised between manuscript and print cultures, clerical and lay authority, the early modern and colonial modernity, Mikha'il Mishaqa and his interlocutors partook of a shift towards the rationalisation of religious belief which would ultimately underpin both secularist and religious revivalist traditions in the Arab world. An account of their history has the potential to inform, not just historians, but those thinking through the respective roles of religion and critical thought in the Arab world of today.