Summary
Arab historian/intellectual who, in Ma’na al-Nakba, written and published in late summer 1948, coined the term al-Nakba for the Arab defeat in Palestine, in Manna’s account at the opening of Chapter 1 of Nakba and Survival (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.32, 48).
Details
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Zurayk monitored the events and results of the war as they unfolded and then wrote and published Ma‘na al-Nakba [Meaning of the Catastrophe] (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.32).
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In that book he defines the conceptual parameters of the Palestinian tragedy, introduces the term al-Nakba, and warns it could turn into a greater disaster if its causes were not addressed quickly; the American University of Beirut’s intellectual freedom and Beirut as a safe publishing place made the critical work possible (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.48).
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He mentions five other terms at the start of his book before selecting al-Nakba for the title (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.48).
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Manna’s Chapter 1 (part 2) gives Zurayk’s biography and quotations: AUB history professor from the early 1930s and vice-president in the 1940s, committed to diagnosing internal weakness rather than merely blaming others; under ‘The Oppressiveness of al-Nakba’ he wrote that seven states set out to invalidate partition and emerged having lost a considerable portion of Palestine, and that ‘Four hundred thousand or more Arabs are expelled from their homes’ (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.49).
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Zurayk points first to Arab responsibility — ill-preparedness, disunity, underestimation of a well-prepared enemy — and warns against being satisfied with cursing the Jews, ‘the British, the Americans, the Russians, and the Security Council’; his book’s August 1948 first print run sold out and it was reprinted in October without revision (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.49).
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Manna also notes Zurayk finished the book during the second cease-fire of summer-fall 1948, absorbing the meaning of a moment when the Arab armies’ defeat was already clear (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.77).