This book is about one of the most important periods in the development of Arabic thought and culture. The later part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Arab world is generally associated with the nahḍah: the ‘Renaissance or Awakening’ of Arabic literature and thought under Western influence. The actual origins and development of the nahḍah movement remains a matter of controversy, but what is clear is that the broad use of the term implies an awareness of the dynamic process of social, cultural and political change that the Arab region underwent during the nineteenth century. One may also talk in broader terms about other modes of reform (işlāḍ) in the Arab and Muslim world in this period. There were parallel movements of resurgence (Wahhābīyah, Sanūsīyah, Mahdīyah) in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa that operated within the Islamic historical tradition of non-modern renewal (tajdīd) and revival (ḍyā’), and vibrant reform movements in the Maghreb and elsewhere linked to Ottoman central power and its intellectuals. In contrast to movements of Islamic resurgence, however, the nahḍah: can be understood as a vast intellectual and cultural movement of renewal, involving both Christians and Muslims, secular and religious reformers. Geographically, moreover, the countries mainly associated with the nahḍah, at least in its early phases (early to mid-1800s), are Egypt and Greater Syria, including Lebanon. Although there is no rigid date marking the end of the nahḍah, sources generally concur that it had ended by the First World War or at the latest by 1920.