He stressed the urgent need to transform stagnant Arab society utilizing rational thought and radical modification of the methods of thinking and acting.

He was a strong proponent of the intellectual reformation of Arab society, emphasizing the need for rationalism and an ethical revolution.

Zurayik is credited with coining the term Nakba (Arabic for "the catastrophe") to refer to the flight of Palestinians in his 1948 book Maʿna an-Nakba.

[1][2] Constantine Zurayk was born in Damascus, Syria Vilayet on April 18, 1909, during the waning years of the ruling Ottoman Empire, to a Greek Orthodox Christian family.

Alongside his work as a tenured professor, Zurayk experimented as the 1st Counselor to the Syrian Legation of the United States in 1945, and acted as the delegate to the UN Security Council and to the UN General Assembly in 1946.

Zurayk noted that the turning away from the "ideas of unity, loyalty, and the universal outlook led to the replacement of the spiritual motivations with material ones".

One of the external contributors, which Zurayk believed played a significant role in demanding change in Arab society, was "Western" or modern civilization.

[9] Although science and technology were of utmost importance, Zurayk considered ideals of citizenship, nationalism, and unity as additional, necessary requirements for the modernization of Arab society.

[12] In this regard, Zurayk was inspired by the prominent Egyptian intellectual, Taha Hussein, who sternly believed that the advancement of Arab society was dependent on the education of every individual.

Zurayk focused on encouraging the Arab people to access their hidden human powers which would enable them to work toward a just and moral society.

[13] For Zurayk, Arab nationalism was a "civilizational project rather than a defensive obsession with identity boundaries in need of protection".

[17] Zurayk's first notable publication, based on a lecture that he gave in 1938, was entitled The Arab Consciousness (al-Wa`i al-`Arabi).

He was a man of conviction who put up with persecution and humiliation all for the sake of inspiring and transforming his fellow companions to broaden their horizons and access their potentials to build a new civilization.

[24] For Zurayk, the role of intellectuals remained crucial in efforts to "raise the level of the masses" and bring Arab society out of its weakened condition.

Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate".

He called for a national Arab unity based on a "secular democracy in which diverse individuals and communities can fulfill themselves in a framework of tolerance and mutual respect".

In order to have a unified and sufficient Arab society, Zurayk asked for openness to interfaith dialogue and conflict resolution with such communities as the Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

This unity, for him, [was] not the telos of an inexorable ethnic or religious destiny, but a form of solidarity for mutual empowerment by democratic means aimed at serving both individuals' and communities' dignity and freedom".