What is the Renaissance?

“What is the Renaissance?” by Salama Moussa: A Critical Analysis of Modernization Efforts

The Author and the Book
First published in 1935, What is the Renaissance? appeared at a decisive moment in Egypt’s modern history, when the country was caught between British colonial rule and the struggle between tradition and modernity.

Salama Moussa (1887–1958), one of Egypt’s most outspoken intellectuals, wrote this work as an analytical project that examined the conditions for an Arab renaissance through a comparative lens—measuring the European model against the Arab experience. His views were shaped by formative years spent in Europe (1906–1910), where he absorbed the ideas of Voltaire, Marx, and Darwin.

The book was also a response to the Arab intellectual crisis that deepened after the collapse of Muhammad Ali’s ambitious modernization project—an effort that had achieved “astonishing progress in just a few decades” but ultimately faltered due to colonial intervention and internal weaknesses.

Defining the Renaissance: Moussa’s Vision

A Dynamic Concept
Rejecting fixed definitions, Moussa described the renaissance as an ongoing process of comprehensive transformation built on:

Rebellion against decay: resisting both “what has grown obsolete” and “what was corrupt from the beginning.”
Intellectual liberation: freeing the mind from religious dogma and superstition.
Material foundations: recognizing that “the primary cause of decline or progress is economic.”

The European Renaissance as a Model

Moussa presented the European renaissance as a three-stage process:

Stage	Time/Place	Key Thinkers	Core Themes	Achievements
First	15th century (Italy)	Thomas Aquinas	Reconciliation of reason and faith	Revival of Greco-Roman heritage
Second	18th century (France)	Voltaire, Rousseau	Rationalism, social contract	Collapse of Church authority, French Revolution
Third	19th century (England)	Charles Darwin	Empirical science, evolution	Foundation of modern scientific method

Italian stage: marked by rebellion against the Church through the revival of Greco-Roman culture, aided by the transmission of Arab knowledge via al-Andalus.
French stage: led by Voltaire and Rousseau, who dismantled “the corrupt authority of the Church” and laid the foundations for a society based on the social contract, igniting the French Revolution.
Darwinian stage: crowned by scientific thinking rooted in observation and experimentation, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution.

The Arab Contribution to Europe’s Renaissance

Moussa highlighted four crucial elements transmitted from the Arab-Islamic world to Europe:

The Hindu-Arabic numeral system, which enabled advances in mathematics.
Chinese papermaking, carried westward through the Islamic world.
Translations and commentaries on Greek texts, preserved by philosophers like Ibn Rushd (Averroes).
Experimental methods in chemistry and physics, developed by scholars such as Jabir ibn Hayyan.

Diagnosing Arab Decline

Structural Obstacles

Religious-political despotism: the fusion of religious and political authority to suppress free thought. “The worst fate of a nation,” Moussa wrote, “is the union of religion with tyranny.”
Intellectual stagnation: reliance on rote traditions while rejecting rationalism and science.
Neglect of science and industry: clinging to traditional agriculture while ignoring industrial progress.
Linguistic isolation: insistence on an overly complex classical Arabic that excluded the wider public from access to knowledge.

In contrast with Europe: While Europe liberated thought and embraced science after breaking free from ecclesiastical control, the Arab world—according to Moussa—remained trapped in its own “dark ages,” locked in by the alliance of conservative religious forces and political authoritarianism.

Conditions for an Arab Renaissance

Moussa proposed a comprehensive renewal project:

Liberating the mind: combating superstition and promoting a “scientific culture accessible to all” as the key to solving social problems.
Social justice: embracing Fabian socialism (gradual, non-violent reform) to ensure fair wealth distribution and improve the conditions of workers and peasants.
Cultural revolution: simplifying Arabic to democratize knowledge, and emancipating women so they could fully participate in nation-building.
Alignment with secular West: consciously adopting the rational and scientific aspects of Western civilization while resisting colonial domination. His call was to “turn our face toward Europe—philosophically and methodologically.”

Criticism and Controversy

Moussa’s ideas sparked fierce debate:

Accusations of atheism: from religious circles, for rejecting scriptural interpretations and advocating separation of religion and state.
Literary critique: writers like Abbas al-Aqqad and Ibrahim al-Mazni attacked his call for colloquial Arabic, accusing him of weak mastery of classical Arabic.
Nationalist critique: Arab nationalists objected to his emphasis on Pharaonic identity rather than Arab unity.

Yet he found support among secular rationalists such as Shibli Shumayyil and Farah Antun, who saw in his project a genuine path to renewal.

Intellectual Legacy

Impact: The book became a cornerstone of mid-20th century rationalist thought and inspired generations of Arab intellectuals.
Influence on writers: Moussa directly encouraged figures like Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz to focus on pressing social issues.
Limitations: His linear model overlooked the darker side of Europe’s renaissance, including colonialism; it also neglected the specific social and cultural contexts of Arab societies, and leaned heavily toward Eurocentrism—criticized later by postcolonial studies.

The Renaissance as an Ongoing Journey

What is the Renaissance? remains a foundational text grappling with the intertwined problems of backwardness and progress in modern Arab thought.

Despite postmodern critiques of his linear vision, Moussa’s analysis of “religious despotism” and the centrality of science remains strikingly relevant, particularly in light of the Arab uprisings of the 21st century.

His project—blending intellectual emancipation with social justice—offered a roadmap for escaping what he called the “darkened Enlightenment,” where modernization risks becoming a matter of technology without thought.

“The renaissance is not the transfer of machines; it is the liberation of the human mind from illusions, and the establishment of social justice that allows man to be the master of his destiny.”
—Salama Moussa (summary of his vision)

The brilliance of the book lies in its dialectical link between intellectual freedom and social transformation, making it a guide for anyone seeking to understand the conditions of renewal in our contemporary world.

For the original summary in Arabic