Separazione tra stato e religione: le proposte di riforma di ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī tra utopia e concretezza

This paper deals with the ideas and opinions of the Syrian reformer ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī, one of the pioneers of the Arab Renaissance in the 19th century, and one of the founders of Arab nationalist thought. He expressed his ideas and reformistic proposals in two books Umm al-qurā and Ṭabāʾiʿ al-istibdād wa maṣāriʿ al-istʿbād. Both al-Kawākibī’s works are very peculiar ones. In Umm al-qurā al-Kawākibī imagines a gathering of all Arab and Muslim political leaders trying to find solutions to solve social and political problems affecting the Umma. In Ṭabāʾiʿ al-istibdād al-Kawākibī not only shows how bad could be a despotic power, but he also tries to mobilize the entire society and its collective conscience, suggesting strategies and methods to get rid by the despot. This article tries on one hand to highlight the realistic and concrete dimension of the Syrian intellectual’s proposals, and on the other hand to show the limits of those ideas through a detailed analysis of the above-mentioned books.