After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when the Arab (and Persian) world was set to reach a new age of political modernity, discussions erupted mostly between the factions backing “Arabism” and “Islamism,” respectively. Sati al-Husri (1880-1967), the father of Arabist ideology, believed that Islamism was not able to guarantee national unity because of the strong cultural and linguistic differences throughout the Arab world. Arabism was conceived to guarantee a reliable mix of authoritative independence and political participation, which would be capable of delivering modernization.
looking beyond borders 