Herbert Spencer had long-lasting appeal in the Arabic-reading world. One can find references to his work well into the mid twentieth-century. Even as late as the 1930s, when Talcott Parsons could ask 'Who now reads Spencer?,' his works were being cited by Arabic leftists, Islamists and even feminists. In fact, Spencer was put to use by a surprising range of Arabic writers and intellectuals. This paper will consider what lay behind Spencer's broad appeal for Arabic readers, examining how he was read and whom he was read alongside, over the period from the 1890s to the late 1940s.