Neo-Patriarchy in Arabian Middle East; An Introduction to Hisham Sharabi's Thought

Following the crucial transformations happened in the Arab world through the last 2 centuries, Arab scholars and intellectuals have attempted to know the basic elements of the western civilization and the roots of its prosperities and successes. Thus, they have to learn about the relation between the “self” and the “other”, besides reviewing their own Islamic-Arabic heritage. Hisham Sharabi (1927-2005) is among the intellectuals who introduce the concept of “Neo-Patriarchy”, through which we could see a realistic image of the Arab political systems. Noe-Patriarchy, as he has seen, is neither a modern state nor the traditional, but is the paradoxical combination of modernity and patriarchy; and thus just a mimic of Modernity. Therefore, the now middle class which emerges is a kind of sub-Bourgeois Neo-patriarchy as the comprador capitalism. However, while the Secularist and Fundamentalist discourses have emerged as the potential alternatives for the status quo, their backward ideological attitudes –and especially the patriarchic essence of Fundamentalism- have caused them to fail. According to Sharabi, it is only through the critical discourse and approaching to the gradual transformation, rather than sudden one, that the Neo-Patriarchism could be destructed.