ABSTRACT
In The Green Book Mu‘ammar al-Qadhdhafi is addressing an essentially non-Muslim audience. There the subjects of religion and national identity are treated so broadly and simply that many questions are left unanswered. Qadhdhafi’s ideas on nationalism and religion as the two essential frameworks within which human history moves were, although original, not born in a vacuum. Muhammad ‘Abduh’s disciple and successor, Muhammad Rashid Rida, grew up in Syria, where religious pluralism is far more pronounced than in Egypt. For many Arab nationalist thinkers, the Arab people are a single nation. But while for most contemporary thinkers religion is to be ignored, or at least subordinated to Arabism, for Qadhdhafi religion is an integral part of Arab identity. Colonel Qadhdhafi begins his discussion of the Qur'anic basis of Arab nationalism with another important Qur’anic concept, namely the diversity of cultures, languages, colours and religions in human society. Unlike other eastern Arab countries, Libya has a religiously homogeneous society.
