Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi

Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
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Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1855 - 1902) was an Arab Nationalist writer who helped popularize the movement in the 1890 in a campaign to attempt to revive the Arab caliphate. He was one of the first Muslims to support the Arab Nationalist movement, a campaign generally accredited to Christian Arabs at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. He argued that the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire had no right to claim to be the caliph for all Muslims, and that the caliphate should be awarded to an Arab prince. The Arabic-speaking subjects of the Ottoman Empire owed no allegiance to the sultan and should revolt against its tyranny. His ideas did not win support during his lifetime, but later on he would be recognized as a forerunner of the Arab nationalist movement. Essentially his campaign to gain "freedom from Turkish rule mattered more as a power ploy for diplomats, khedives, and Amirs than for its popular following." (Goldschmidt et al 2005) He also wrote several books (like "طبائع الاستبداد" "the nature of despotism" and "umm al-Qura" the "mother of villages," meaning Mecca)