Abstract
While the intertwinement of Indian anti-colonial politics and Theosophy is well-known, the entanglement of esotericism and anti-colonial endeavors in the modern Arab world remains understudied. The article contributes to this area of research by demonstrating how certain strands of "Western"and "Eastern"esotericisms found resonance among early twentieth-century Arab intelligentsia and provided a useful global ideational backdrop for anti-colonial politics. Focusing on "Easternist"Egyptian intellectuals and their engagement with the French esotericist René Guénon, Theosophy, Sufism and Vedanta, the article shows how these esotericisms - and René Guénon's in particular - provided valuable ammunition to the anti-colonial Easternist construction of a perennially united East. In doing so, the article proposes to nuance the existing interpretation of Guénon (living in Cairo from 1930) as "on the margins"of the Egyptian scene and, on a general level, to reevaluate the position of global esotericism in modern Arab thought.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Aries |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-31 |
| Number of pages | 31 |
| ISSN | 1567-9896 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub / Early view - 2024 |
Keywords
- Egypt
- Perennialism
- René Guénon
- Sufism
- Theosophy
- Traditionalism
- al-Marifa
- anti-colonialism