ABSTRACT
Muhammad Kurd Ali is one of those rare modern thinkers who can be referred to as a propagator of a synthetic Islamic-secular modernism (another is Muhammad Izzat Darwarzeh, from al-Istiqlal party). 1 Yet Kurd Ali is one of the least acknowledged pioneers of Arab modernist thought among late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thinkers, partly because he is seen, I believe falsely, as a compiler and encyclopedist rather than as an original writer. A quick glance at his towering achievements would challenge this assumption. Among these are his editorship in Damascus of al-Muqtabas (1908–14), which set the standard for all modern journalism in the Arab East for that period in terms of independent, critical, and informed reporting; his authorship of Khitat al-Sham (6 vols, 1925–8), an unparalleled work of historical geography of Greater Syria, and Islam and Arab Civilization (1934), containing possibly the earliest critique of orientalist thought on the subject; and his pioneering work in 1919 in founding the Academy of the Arabic Language in Damascus, which became a crucial instrument for the revival, modernization, and standardization of the Arabic language (he also served as its first president).
