ABSTRACT
The intellectual and social life of the East is undergoing a process of transformation at the close of an historical epoch in which religion and a religious moral code dominated the whole inner life and nationalism is destined to succeed to the role of religion. The cumulative effect of Christian missionary activity and Ibrahim’s reform policies was unprecedented educational activity in Syria, which would benefit Syria as a whole. Indeed, al-Bustani believed that religious fanaticism and its attendant spirit of revenge were destroying Syria. The privileged position of the Christians associated with foreign influence and outright intervention pitted the Ottoman millets against one another. The Egyptians, like the Syrians, knew immediately they were not Europeans, but that brought them to question what they really were. Al-Afghani is quoted as saying the goal of Islamic reform was to “end political disunity by reconstituting religious unity.”.
