This study is based on the hypothesis that, despite not using the term themselves, the pioneers of the Arab Nahda were aware of the content of the concept of citizenship. Those pioneers discovered the means of social modernity which enabled the civilization of «the other», and did so through direct contact with Western countries, through evangelist missions and the modern schools that these missions founded, and through translated books. They wanted to use these means to produce an Age of Enlightenment and reached out to borrow them; not blindly, but on their own terms. In promoting modern ideas, these pioneers benefited from the crucial juncture of the nineteenth century, which provided the policy of the reformist «organisations» adopted by the Ottoman Empire as well as reform policies followed by the governments of Egypt and Tunisia. Their openness to the content of citizenship was made possible by their belief that modernity, born in the West and which paved the way for Latin Averroism, was transformed over time into an achievement of mankind that was open to non-European contributions from an objective point of view. They were also convinced that if Arab Muslims adopted these ideas they would not be pushed towards «Westernisation», nor would they lose their identity.
Nahda and Age of Enlightenment, modernity, nationalism, rule of law, rights and obligation, gender equality, political education.