From Muslim Umma to Arab Umma: The Islamic Tradition in the Thought of the Christian Intellectual Michel Aflaq

In the Arab world, the relationship between the Muslim and the Christian communities has been fundamental in defining the identities of both. As far as the Christian one is concerned, according to George Sabra, this encounter has led to two different ways of defining itself: on the one hand as Eastern Christians (thus finding more affinity with the Christian communities of the West) and on the other hand as Arab-Christians (thus emphasizing its connection with the Arab world). With the arrival of the concept of nationality, this second approach became stronger and gave many Arab-Christian intellectuals a way out of their marginal status. An attempt was made to overcome the concept of umma understood in religious terms and instead to resemantize it by connoting it at the ethnic-linguistic level, moving from the Muslim umma to the Arab umma. A key role was played by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian intellectual and founder of the Ba‘ath party. He, coming from a Greek Orthodox family, sought to interpret Islamic history as fundamentally Arab history through pan- Arabism and socialism. In this way, he succeeded on the one hand to keep firm ties with the Arab cultural heritage, making it possible for non-Muslim communities to see themselves in it as well, and on the other hand he depowered the religious burden of this tradition. This study, therefore, seeks to understand how boundaries between the different communities present in a Muslim-majority context were redefined during the 20th century through the intellectual and political work of Michel Aflaq