抄録
While Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935) is widely perceived as an Islamic reformer who greatly contributed to the theoretical development of the so-called Islamic revivalism today, many scholars debate that he also had aspects as a Arab and Syrian nationalist in either concordance with or contradiction to his Islamic trait, because of his active commitment to the Arab and Syrian independence movements in the Interwar period. (In this paper, "Syria" does not indicate Syrian Arab Republic, but al-sham / bilad al-sham, the region composed by "the Lesser Syrias" such as Republican Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine/Israel, and parts of Iraq and Turkey.) These multiple fractionalised perceptions of Rashid Rida seem to arise from the fact that the methodological approach towards the study of Rida has from 1960s onwards been divided into the two tracks; the study of Islamic political thought and historiography (particularly on the Arab nationalist movements). There is no doubt that this methodological estrangement became conspicuous with the rise of secular nationalism in the 1950-60s Arab Middle East. As a result, only few attempts have so far been made at Rida's commitment to the Syrian independence movements. The aim of this paper, therefore, is (1) to explore Rashid Rida's political thought and activities concerning the Syrian independence movements in the Interwar period (e.g. the Ottoman Decentralisation Party and Syrian Union Party), to which little attention has been given, and (2) to reconsider the said established understanding and methodological approach towards Rashid Rida from the "third" point of view.
