Al-Balāghah Legacy in Modern Secular Journalism: A Digital Humanities Study of Aḥmad Ḥassan al-Zayyāt and al-Risālah (1933-1953),

Contemporary studies have already explored al-Risālah magazine (1933 - 1953) contributors and Aḥmad Ḥassan al-Zayyāt’s (1885 - 1968) charisma in standing as champions of a far-reaching secular-grounded educational mission - which has been made more urgent by the encounter with Western innovations. Still, poor attention has been devoted to their strong linkages with Arabic classical heritage. This study plans to demonstrate al-Risālah and al-Zayyāt’s writings have been alternatively informed by accurate, controversial, or innovative employment of al-balāghah concepts and terminology and how this use enriched the spectrum of its applicability also to the discussion of modern scientific subjects, such as psychology. While accounting for the thought-provoking works of the Tāhā Ḥusseyn, Al-bayān al-ʽArabī min al-Jāḥiẓ ilā ʽAbd al-Qāhir (The Arabic Bayān, from al-Jāḥiẓ to ʽAbd al-Qāhir, 1931), Amīn al-Khūlī, Al-balāgha wa-ʽilm al-nafs (Balāghah and Psychology, 1939), and al-Zayyāt, Difāʽun ʽan al-balāghah (In Defense of al-Balāghah, 1945) as steppingstone studies towards the discipline’s new conceptualizations up to the mid-half 20th century, my study draws upon tracing the presence of al-balāghah in al-Risālah’s articles in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Thus, while mapping the ontological shifts that occurred in traditional language and concepts employment as according to both contrastive and continuative perspective – the present inquiries aim to demonstrate a profile of modern Arab culture’s secularism and dialectics as self-standing, culturally embedded, compelling phenomena and not as the mere result of Western codes’ influence.