Associational Life, Print Culture and Political Thought in Najaf, 1905-c.1941

This thesis analyses Najafi intellectual and political activity in the first half of the twentieth century. One of the most important Shi’i religious and scholarly cities in the world, Najaf was transformed by the momentous political and social changes wrought by the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the Iraqi nation state. Despite increased interest in Iraqi intellectual and political life during this period, the Najafi Nahda remains a poorly understood phenomenon, especially in English language scholarship. This thesis addresses this shortfall by asking how Najafi public life was transformed by modern political and technological developments, as well as how its inhabitants responded to the seismic political, social and cultural challenges which accompanied imperial decline and quasi-colonial national integration. Drawing from journals and newspapers published in Najaf, other published material such as memoirs and pamphlets, as well as the British diplomatic and colonial archive, it explores Najafi ideas about social reform, constitutionalism, religious renewal, colonialism and nationalism. It pays special attention to the institutional settings for these debates, specifically the city’s majālis, its print culture and political parties. The principal argument of the thesis is that the full-scale transformation of the Najafi public sphere during this period created the political conditions for a number of locally produced ideologies and modernity projects, which had important implications for the development of anti-colonial nationalism, Islamism and, later still, leftist radicalism in Iraq. Recentring the political and intellectual history of Iraq on a peripheral city such as Najaf engenders a more holistic interpretation of Iraqi history in the twentieth century. It avoids some of the pitfalls of Baghdad-centred or elite/colonial-based histories, which tend to dismiss peripheral voices as non-nationalist, extremist or sectarian.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Cooper-Davies, Christopher

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Arsan, Andrew

• British Mandate
• Iraq
• Najaf
• Ottoman Empire
• Shi'a

Licence

• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.93162

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/345741