Al Liwa (newspaper)
Founder(s) | Mustafa Kamil Pasha |
---|---|
Founded | 2 January 1900 |
Political alignment | Nationalist (1900–1908) Pan-Islamist (1908–1910) |
Language | Arabic |
Ceased publication | 31 August 1912 |
Headquarters | Cairo |
Country | Egypt |
|
Al Liwa (The Standard in English) was an Arabic language newspaper which was published in Cairo, Egypt, in the period 1900–1912. It was the first mass circulation newspaper in the country.[1] The paper was founded by Mustafa Kamil Pasha. From its start in 1900 to the death of its founder in 1908 Al Liwa adopted a nationalist political stance. Between 1907 and 1910 it was the official organ of the Nationalist Party which was also established by Mustafa Kamil Pasha. The paper adopted a pan-Islamist political stance between 1908 and 1910. Al Liwa was not affiliated with the Watani Party from 1910 to August 1912 when it was closed down.
History and profile[]
Mustafa Kamil Pasha launched Al Liwa in 1900 when Al Muayyad, a newspaper in which he published articles, was shut down by the British.[2] The first issue of Al Liwa appeared on 2 January that year.[3][4] The paper published a biweekly supplement entitled Majallat Al Liwa.[3] Al Liwa became popular among young men and one of the most read newspapers in the country.[5][6] It had the largest readership of 14,000 in the period 1900–1908.[7]
Kamil's articles published in the paper mostly contained his call to resist British existence in Egypt.[3] In March 1907 the French and English language editions of Al Liwa were launched, namely L'Etendard Egyptien and The Standard Egyptian, respectively.[3] In 1908 one of the contributors of the paper was Salama Moussa.[8]
Kamil established a political party, al-Hizb al-Watani party (mostly known as Watani party; the National Party or Patriotic Party in English), in Alexandria on 22 October 1907, and Al Liwa became its official organ.[2][9] Following the death of Mustafa Kamil on 10 February 1908 Mohammad Farid took over the leadership of the party which reshaped the ideological approach of the paper.[10] Farid fired Mahmud Izzat who had been the executive director of Al Liwa and who was close to Ali Fahmi Kamil, brother of the Mustafa Kamil.[11] In addition, Farid appointed a new editor-in-chief to the paper, Abdulaziz Jawish, who was a religious conservative figure.[10][11] In 1909 The French and English editions of Al Liwa ceased publication.[3]
Jawish published articles in the paper which contained a critical approach against the Khedive and his Coptic Prime Minister Boutros Ghali[12] and radical conservative views which led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1909.[10] However, Jawish's actions produced much more significant consequences for both Muslims and Copts in that Prime Minister Boutros Ghali was assassinated by Ibrahim Al Wardani on 21 February 1910.[10] Wardani was close to the Watani party.[13][14] The British authorities demanded that the paper should change its editorial stance, but Farid did not obey their request.[11] Instead, he announced that Al Liwa was not affiliated to the Watani party anymore.[11] Farid and other party members established another paper, Al Alam, which was made the official organ of the Watani party.[11] The last issue of Al Liwa was published on 31 August 1912.[3]
References[]
- ^ Israel Gershoni (Summer 1992). "The Evolution of National Culture in Modern Egypt: Intellectual Formation and Social Diffusion, 1892-1945". Poetics Today. 13 (2): 344. JSTOR 1772536.
- ^ a b Haggai Erlich (2011). "Kamil, Mustafa (1874–1908)". In Henry Louis Gates; Emmanuel Akyeampong; Steven J. Niven (eds.). Dictionary of African Biography. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001. ISBN 9780199857258.
- ^ a b c d e f Majid Salman Hussain (2020). British Policy and the Nationalist Movement in Egypt, 1914-1924: A political study. Basel; Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 82, 84. ISBN 978-3-11-220916-5.
- ^ Nadia Fahmi (1976). Mustafa Kamil. Nationalism and Pan Islamism (MA thesis). McGill University. p. 32. Archived from the original on 4 December 2021.
- ^ Helen A. Kitchen (April 1950). ""Al-Ahram": The "Times" of the Arab World". Middle East Journal. 4 (2): 167. JSTOR 4322163.
- ^ Michael Laffan (1999). "Mustafa and the Mikado: A Francophile Egyptian's turn to Meiji Japan". Japanese Studies. 19 (3): 278. doi:10.1080/10371399908727682.
- ^ Relli Shechter (Fall 2002). "Press Advertising in Egypt: Business Realities and Local Meaning, 1882-1956". The Arab Studies Journal. 10–11 (2–1): 46–47. JSTOR 27933831.
- ^ Stephen Sheehi (2005). "Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals: Precedence for Globalization and the Creation of Modernity". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 25 (2): 439. doi:10.1215/1089201X-25-2-439.
- ^ Fawaz A. Gerges (2018). Making the Arab world: Nasser, Qutb, and the clash that shaped the Middle East. Princeton, NJ. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-4008-9007-1. OCLC 1022845920.
- ^ a b c d Ziad Fahmy (2011). Ordinary Egyptians. Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. pp. 101, 103, 105–106. doi:10.1515/9780804777742-007. ISBN 978-0-8047-7774-2. S2CID 242288608.
- ^ a b c d e Eliezer Tauber (2006). "Egyptian Secret Societies, 1911". Middle Eastern Studies. 42 (4): 606, 608. doi:10.1080/00263200600642290. JSTOR 4284478. S2CID 143221110.
- ^ Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. (1993). "The Butrus Ghali Family". Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. 30: 185. doi:10.2307/40000236.
- ^ Malak Badrawi (2014). Political Violence in Egypt 1910-1925: Secret Societies, Plots and Assassinations. London; New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-136-83229-1.
- ^ Beth Baron (2000). "The making of the Egyptian nation". In Ida Blom; Karen Hagemann; Catherine Hall (eds.). Gendered Nations. Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century. Oxford; New York: Berg Publishers. p. 147. ISBN 978-1859732649.
- 1900 establishments in Egypt
- 1912 disestablishments in Egypt
- Arabic-language newspapers
- Arab nationalism in Egypt
- Defunct newspapers published in Egypt
- Newspapers published in Cairo
- Newspapers established in 1900
- Publications disestablished in 1912
- Pan-Islamism