Friday, June 28, 2013

The first Arab socialist: Shibli Shimayyil

I have been re-reading him.  Shibli Shimayyil was the first Arabic promoter of Darwin in the Arab world (and possibly among Muslims worldwide).  He also was the first socialist and he even wrote about anarchists.  Yet, he represented the crisis of Arab intellectuals: 1) he supported the British colonization of Egypt and spoke about its contributions; 2) he fiercely opposed equality between men and women and spoke about the size of the skull and the weight of the brain.