‘Translating’ the 1814 French Charter: Al-Ṭahṭāwī’s New Semiotics of Law and Governance

The contribution looks at how the language of Islamic law and Empire has been re-articulated when rendering the text of the 1814 French Charter in Arabic. The author, the kuttāb-then-Azhar-trained Egyptian scholar al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801-1873), heavily employed both while laying the foundations of what became the semiotics of Egyptian law of the 19th century (and beyond). Al-Ṭahṭāwī’s linguistics was only instrumental to his final goal: rallying his audiences behind ‘his’ idea of hegemonic legal modernity, which he later summarised as manhaj al-sharʿ (rule of law). Through Islamic law, al-Ṭahṭāwī aimed at speaking to his fellow traditional intellectuals (already on the verge of marginalisation), and through Empire at his patron and his circle (not too keen on listening in this area). He also had something to say to French Orientalists: Arabic can be bent to modernity just as easily as French has. The ‘translation’ of the Charter offers a privileged observation point on al-Ṭahṭāwī’s group and class politics, because it allows us to appreciate what he decided to translate, what to emphasise, what to omit, and what to add.