Zaki al-Arsuzi: Difference between revisions

Zaki al-Arsuzi was a Syrian philosopher, philologist, sociologist, historian, and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement. He published several books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Genius of Arabic in its Tongue (1943).

Al-Arsuzi's theories about society, language and nationalism, which are collectively part of Ba'athist thought, hold that the Arab Nation will be unified, when the Arab people reestablish the Arab identity they have lost over the past one thousand years. The key to Arab unification, according to al-Arsuzi, is through language. In contrast to the Latin language, al-Arsuzi argued, Arabic was far less arbitrary and far more intuitive. Despite his contributions to Ba'athist thought, al-Arsuzi is barely mentioned in Western or Arab scholarship. This omission may be linked to the fact that Sati' al-Husri, a contemporary Arab nationalist, had many of the same ideas as al-Arsuzi, but was better able to articulate them.

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