Al-Husry, Khaldun Sati. Three Reformers: A Study in Modern Arab Political Thought. (Beirut, Khayats, 1966) *Al-Tunisi, Al-Kawakabi, and Al-Tahtawi
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Sati al-Husry’s (1880-1968) Three reformers: a study in modern Arab political thought (1966) is the contribution of an Arab nationalist, educational reformer, and intriguing intellectual in his own right. In Three Reformers he briefly analyzes the reformist thought of three nineteenth century Ottoman intellectuals, Tunisian Vizier Khayr ad-Din al-Tunisi (1882-1890), Syrian Abd-al Rahman al-Kawakibi (1849-1902), and Egyptian cleric Rifa’a al-Tahtawi (1801-1873), addressed at length in the other nahdah essay. Al-Husry argues that all three men felt a keen sense of Western superiority and called for the assimilation of Western ideas within an Islamic traditional framework. Though they were religious men, they nevertheless were open to ideas which would later be called secular Arab nationalism. In this sense, al-Husry argues, diversity of opinion and openness to a wide range of innovative ideas that characterized Arab thought at the dawn of the twentieth century were also present among the earliest nahdah thinkers.