Online Published on 13 June, 2023.
The demise of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War led to the fragmentation of Arab lands. Under the treaties signed with local rulers of local principalities and the Mandates granted by the League of Nations, Great Britain and France directly or indirectly established their control over Arab territories. To unite and get rid of foreign control Arabs were in need of a nationalist narrative; it was enunciated and propagated through education by Sati al-Husri, the foremost scholar of Arab nationalism. Al-Husri borrowed the postulates for his conception of Arab nationalism from the writings of nineteenth-century ideologues of German nationalism. He was particularly influenced by three German thinkers: Johan Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Ernst Moritz Arndt. This paper retraces the difference between French and German notions of nationalism. The rationale behind the embrace of german nationalism by Al-Husri is studied in detail.
