A new weekly series about Egypt 

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spent
the first twenty years of his life in Cairo, then moved to Beirut where he studied at the American University. He later completed his studies at Mc Gill University, in Montreal. 

André's long career as professor exclusively at the "Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean" was only interrupted when that institution closed it's doors in 1995. 

Egyptian Frescoes part (6 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptians Frescoes (6): Still on the Trail of Muhammad ‘Abduh and Jamal Al-Afghani.

Meet the main authors of the mood which ushered the twentieth century for Egyptians.

It is as if the world immediately surrounding Egypt had been shattered by the Great War. The Ottoman Empire existed no longer. It had lost its Arab and European provinces, West of Istambul, and had turned in desperation against its Armenian population causing havoc amongst hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians; many Armenians who survived this genocide fled to Egypt where they took refuge. The Russian Empire collapsed and the Bolsheviks faced separatist currents over the entire territory while they preached tirelessly that their revolution would end the wrongs afflicted against those who were oppressed and exploited. The Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved into independent entities. And Britain, France and Germany were in tatters. Egypt, on the other hand, had prospered from the war. Immigrants brought new energies and skills to the Nile Valley. And, to the Egyptians themselves, the scents of freedom were in the air and were finally reaching their shores for the first time.

King Fuad I

The political and ideological configuration of the country had not stopped evolving ever since Muhammad ‘Ali had created his modern kingdom. This time, the British tightened their grip on the Suez Canal. Their troops would remain stationed for much longer in the country. This was confirmed by the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. The ruler of Egypt now became yet another son of Isma’il Pasha, Fu’ad (1868-1936) who was crowned King in 1922. Fu’ad 1st was a constitutional monarch who rapidly learnt, with the help of the British, to curtail the powers of the Legislature which the Nationalists controlled, as in 1923 when he abrogated the Constitution. Riots in Cairo forced him to re-instate it.

Fu’ad had previously been Rector of the first Egyptian university named after him. The Secretary of the Fu’ad University, Qasim Amin (1863-1908) was a jurist who had studied Law at the University of Montpellier. He was a friend of ‘Abduh and Zaghlul. He was influenced by Darwinism and proclaimed that, unless Egypt embraced modernity, it would cease to be fit to survive. Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill were his mentors and made him a liberal. Amin is today celebrated for his works on the advancement of women. His Tahrir al-Mar’ah, (The Liberation of Woman) deplored the status of women in his time. Only through education and work could a woman liberate herself from the domination of men. He had applauded Rifa’a al-Tahtawi - the Shaykh who had accompanied two dozen youths to Paris in the early nineteen century - for having, he himself, drafted his marriage contract in all fairness to his spouse. In Huquq al-Nisa fil Islam (The Rights of Women in Islam), he urged that hers be rehabilitated if Egypt were to join the civilized nations. Amin created girls’ schools. He was an inspiration to two prominent feminists, Huda Sha’rawi and Doriyya Shafiq, who would lead an Egyptian Feminist Movement  

Hoda Shaarawi

When the Ottoman State collapsed and surrendered, the Young Turks fled. Tal’at Pasha was assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian patriot seeking revenge. The hero of the Battle at Galipoli, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, assumed control of Turkey’s destinies. He confronted the Greeks and the Italians in Smyrna, faced the French in Alexandretta and the British in Constantinople. The Sultan-Caliph ‘Abd ul-Mejid had sided with the British. Kemal Pasha simply abolished both Sultanate and Caliphate, by a stroke of his pen from his new capital, in Ankara. In British India, a shocked Muslim community reacted swiftly under the leadership of Mohamad Ali and Shaukat Ali, two brothers who founded the Khilafat Movement and published a Khilafat manifesto calling upon Britain to protect the Caliphate.

In Cairo, Shaykh ‘Ali ‘abd al-Raziq, a student of ‘Abduh, now a Shari’a Judge, published al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm (Islam and the Foundations of Governance) in 1925. Shaykh ‘Ali supported the separation between State and Religion. He argued that the prophet Muhammad had been both prophet and statesman during his lifetime. His role as prophet was that which had made Him be chosen by Allah. The Prophetic Verses of the Coran were meant for all times. Not so his role as a statesman who belonged to seventh century Arabia. This was a most revolutionary statement on the part of one from al-Azhar. It could well have initiated what happened in Christianity when literary criticism was applied to the Scriptures. Instead, political events were occurring in Egypt whereby King Fu’ad was toying with the idea of claiming the Caliphate for himself. A fake genealogy had been fabricated by which Fu’ad, the Albanian who spoke better Italian than Arabic, would be a Qurayshi, from the tribe of the Prophet. The learned at al-Azhar forced ‘Ali ‘abd al-Raziq to recant his profound thoughts publicly.

Appears Rashid Rida (1865-1935). He was born in Tripoli, near Beirut and died in Cairo. He was trained as a ‘Alim, had gotten acquainted with the publication by ‘Abduh and Afghani of al-‘Urwa al-Wuthqah, which they issued while in Paris. Rida was ‘Abduh’s most prominent disciple and they both published al-Manar (The Lighthouse), a monthly magazine which delved into Coranic Commentaries when ‘Abduh returned to Egypt.

Rashid Reda

Eventually, Rida’s political philosophy became that of begging for an Islamic State in which Creed would be purged of all its impurities and Western influences. He wished to rejuvenate the notion of the Caliphate and called upon Muslims to follow the guidance of the Salaf, the early converts to Islam. To the Faithful, ‘Ibadat dealt with religious practice while Mu’amalat concerned social relations. For Islam and for Muslims, Shari’a Law was fundamental towards leading a righteous life; Rashid Rida would not tamper with that principle. In his later days, Rida defended Wahhabism which Egyptians remembered had been defeated by their own Muhammad ‘Ali Basha when his son Ibrahim led the Egyptian armies to Hijaz, in Arabia, in 1803, to wrest the holy cities of Makkah and Madina from the marauding heretics from Najd.

Enters Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872-1963). He was known as the Teacher of his Generation. He was Fu’ad University’s first Principle. al-Sayyid was born in the countryside and went to Coranic School. He was then sent to Cairo to acquire his secondary education at the Khidawiyyah, one of a handful of schools established to provide a solid Arabic and Islamic education alongside all the modern sciences as well as French and English. All my Ma’adi Sporting Club friends went to the Ibrahimiyyah, a similar school. Their teachers were impeccable. I envied them for that school but could not convince my father that there was where he should have sent me. al-Sayyid was a lawyer and a friend of ‘Abduh, and of Zaghlul whom he accompanied to the Paris Peace Conference. He worked under Cromer, also edited at the same time, in 1907, al-Jarida, a nationalist newspaper. He finally founded the Umma Party with Zaghlul. His translation of Aristotle from French is still visited till this day. al-Sayyid was, furthermore, an admirer of British Liberalists and French Encyclopaedists. While heading Fu’ad University, the first batch of women graduating from this institution made history thanks to him and to Qasim Amin. al-Sayyid was an Egyptian Nationalist who preached that Egyptians were not Arabs although they spoke Arabic. He would become the champion of Secularism and Liberalism in Egyptian politics. And, when it was decided to build a Mausoleum to the memory of Sa’d Zaghlul , the Father of the Nation, his arguing that it should reflect the Pharaonic past of Egypt, won the day. It was built of pink granite as a replica of the Mamisi at the Temple of Kom Ombo, along the Nile, in Upper Egypt.

Ibrahim Al-Yaziji

The intellectual ferment which readers in the cities were being exposed to would receive, after the World War, yet another dimension. It came from the shores of Lebanon and dealt with Arabic philology. Its exponents were Christian. They had been trained by Butrus al-Bustani (1819-1883) and Ibrahim al-Yaziji (1847-1906).

The century was maturing and the Egyptian elites were being exposed to several possible avenues as to how they wanted to rule themselves. They could now turn to Egyptian or Arab Nationalism, or to separation of Religion and State, or to a modern form of the Islamic State. These elites were modernists in that they were critical of the rigidity (jumud) of traditional, medieval ways which they blamed for their decadence. As the political scene, in Egypt, witnessed the constant fluidity in alliances between the British High Commissioner, the King and Parliament, new perspectives for the future were being forged within the country or were caused from without in the wider world. After all, is constancy in history not about change and does not our future result from the synthesis which contradiction of the opposites brings about? Contradiction of ideas. Opposites in interests. Cairo’s cafés hummed with theories and ideologies. 

Yet the Shishas bubbled as if to spell that the time for radicalism and totalitarianism had not yet come. A few more frescoes will have to appear before the name of Hasan al-Banna and the organization he will create, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Ikhwan, become habitual café-talk.

A new weekly series about Egypt 

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spent the first twenty years of his life in Cairo, then moved to Beirut where he studied at the American University. He later completed his studies at Mc Gill University, in Montreal. 

André's long career as professor exclusively at the "Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean" was only interrupted when that institution closed it's doors in 1995. 

Egyptian Frescoes part (5 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (5): War in the Desert and War at the Paris Peace Conference. 

It shall be noted that, under the stewardship of Lord Cromer, Egypt had greatly changed. Its bureaucracy was sound. Its infrastructure had been expanded. The Suez Canal was profitable. Irrigation projects were tended to. Light industries were being established. Housing was on the upsurge as new neighbourhoods were developed to accommodate civil servants and immigrants. This was in Cairo. In Alexandria, the harbour’s basins were expanded and the city grew with increased commercial activities. The towns of Port Said, Isma’iliya and Suez also came of age. The same trend could be witnessed, in the villages, from the Mediterranean to Aswan, on the First Cataract.

Preparation for war had meant that huge investments in military installations were allocated. Egypt was not spared. Camps, stores, hospitals, roads and railroads were built in preparation for the days ahead. The presence of foreign soldiers, also, brought new livelihood to Cairo and the Canal towns. Stella Beer had been locally brewed since 1897 and bars mushroomed. Also, apprehension which the war was causing pushed emigrants to chose Egypt as a safe heaven. Mainly from the shores of the Mediterranean came individuals and families who either found employment locally or started their own businesses. This trend exploded during and especially after the war. Syrians and Lebanese, Armenians, Greeks, Serbs and Croats, and Italians, French and English were boarding ship for Alexandria.

Savoy Hotel

At the eve of the war, the British military sequestered the Savoy Hotel, located on Midan Soliman Pasha where the Behler Building now stands. The Head Quarters of the military operation to come were located there. At the fall of Jerusalem to General Allenby, this HQ was moved to that liberated city. I shall not get into the operations of the campaign but look at how the defeat of the Ottomans in Palestine and Syria and how the Arab Revolt which TE Lawrence made possible would influence Egypt. One shall remember that the Egyptian public remained a witness to events outside and around the country. Although censorship was imposed on information and martial law kept tight control over the Nationalists, discussions and opinions were shared in those new establishments one now called al-Qahwa, the Café, where coffee, Indian and Mint teas and Karkadeh, Hibiscus infusion from Aswan, were served. The most famous cafés were located around al-Azhar and al-Husayn. They also had spread to ‘Abdin, al-Sayyida Zaynab, al-Daher and Shubrah.

Cemal Pasha

The Young Turks had many fronts to defend. To the West were Greece, Bulgaria and Rumania. North of the Black Sea was Russia. And, south along the Suez Canal was Britain. Cemal (to be pronounced Djemal) Pasha, the third member of the Triumvirate had been Minister of the Navy. He now assumed command of the forces in Syria with Head Quarters in both Beirut and Damascus. Cemal’s government was brutal. Dissidents were hung, arrested and jailed or shunned from society. The major waves of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria who fled to Egypt, those who came to be known as Shawam (Damascenes) or from Barr al-Sham (the Coast of Damascus) owe their flight to Egypt to Cemal. Amongst them were disciples of Butrus al-Bustani and Nasif al-Yaziji, the initiators of al-Nahda, the Renaissance in the Arabic Language.

News of Allenby’s War reached Egypt’s cafés daily through the grape vine. For instance, Sharif Husayn of Makkah had been negotiating with the British in Cairo and considered revolt against the Sultan-Caliph in Istambul. One al-Awrans, an Englishman, had been sent to Hijaz to assist the Hashemite Sharif carrying gold and weapons. At the outset of the war, Allenby was successful against the Ottomans along the Palestinian Coast. Let it here be said  that he had  revised his tactics during the Second Boer War, using mobility and transforming his cavalry as mounted infantry. This was also the time when British soldiers would trade their Scarlets, their red coats, for a uniform whose colour borrowed that of the Indian Kahki fruit which made them blend into the desert sand. Allenby had inched towards Jerusalem till, on December 9^th, 1917,

Amir Faisal

he entered the Jaffa Gate on foot, his horse by his side, exactly as Godfrey de Bouillon had, during the First Crusade, in 1099, when he conquered Jerusalem for Christendom. The symbolism could not have escaped learned Egyptians. Finally, Allenby rendez-vous-ed with al-Awrans who had conquered ‘Aqaba and reached the outskirts of Damascus: on October 2^nd , 1918, they marched alongside Amir Faisal, the son of Sharif Husayn, into the Syrian metropolis. A different page would now be written for the Arabs.

Rumours of a secret agreement between Britain and France to partition the conquered Arab lands had also reached Cairo. They were leaked by the Bolsheviks who had replaced the Mensheviks and Tsar Nicolas II. Sharif Husayn asked for clarifications to his correspondent in Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, who denied categorically the existence of such an agreement on February 18^th, 1918. Allenby was promoted First Viceroy of Megiddo after the battle around the city by that name, in October 1918, against the reputed Yildirim Army of Ottomans and Germans. His was a most brilliant victory over the enemy in which he used aeroplanes, infantry and cavalry in a blitz operation. Australians, Indian and South Africans fought under his command as well as a company of Armenians and French. Upon his return to Cairo, he was appointed High Commissioner of Egypt and the Sudan and moved to the Residency in Garden City.

Sa’d Zaghlul, meanwhile, had chosen with three other members of the Legislative Assembly, to proceed to Paris to attend the Peace Conference. It was in 1919. The British stopped the four Egyptians, soon to be referred to as al-Wafd, the Delegation, and they were instead exiled to Malta. Egyptians revolted across the country and Kitchener reverted his decision. 

The Wafd reached Paris after all. While not much attention was paid either to Zaghlul or to Faisal and Lawrence for that matter, both the veracity of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 16^th 1916, emphatically denied by McMahon, and a Balfour Declaration which committed Britain to favour, on November 2^nd, 1917, the establishment of a Jewish Home in Palestine, were on the table for all delegates to the Conference to consider. More than one, in Egypt, felt betrayed.

By the same token, the United States of America had entered the war in 1917. The following year, President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress and, in his speech, called for a League of Nations to be formed after the war. In the Fourteen Points he listed as a blueprint for the post-war period, the last point stated that be reached ‘’mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike’’.

Saad Zaghlul

Sa’d Zaghlul returned to Egypt to a hero’s welcome and was hopeful for the future. It shall be recalled that he had been influenced by Mufti Muhammad ‘Abduh, his friend. He worked tirelessly to rid Egypt of British occupation but he was a realist who believed this was to be a slow process in which time was on Egypt’s side. As a prominent political personality he constantly hindered any government in Cairo which was friendly to the British and the occupier exiled him, this time, to the Seychelles Islands. When he returned to his homeland, in 1923, the Wafd Party won the elections and Zaghlul was asked to head the government. He could not, as prime minister, however, halt the rioting across the land and rein in the extremists amongst the Nationalists.
When the Commander of the Egyptian Army, Sir Lee Stack, was assassinated, in 1924, he resigned from Government. Sa’d Zaghlul died a few years later, on August 23^rd, 1927. The entire nation wept at his funeral. The entire nation mourned its first native leader since Pharaoh times.

A new weekly series about Egypt 

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spent the first twenty years of his life in Cairo, then moved to Beirut where he studied at the American University. He later completed his studies at Mc Gill University, in Montreal. 

André's long career as professor exclusively at the "Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean" was only interrupted when that institution closed it's doors in 1995. 

Egyptian Frescoes part (4 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (4): General Allenby and Sa’d Zaghlul.

The drums of war had fallen silent in Europe, after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Bismarck’s First Reich entered the family of Europe by hosting a Berlin Conference in 1884. The Chancellor of a rising power, unified Germany, orchestrated the Scramble for Africa where Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium would slice each a piece of the Black Continent for themselves. France had already occupied Algeria in 1830. The British had helped themselves to choice territories in Eastern, Southern and Western Africa. There were still leftovers at the heart of a continent for everyone to be satisfied with.

Battle of Tel El Kebir

Meanwhile, prior to the American Civil War, between 1801 and 1805, the United States had sent frigates to Tripoli first, then to Algiers to bombard these cities and sink what was referred to as Pirate ships. And, during the Greek War of Independence, British and French vessels defeated Ottoman and Egyptian forces under the command of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mohammad ‘Ali, at Missolonghi, in 1825, and at Navarino, in 1827. By 1882, the British occupied Egypt after the Battle of Tall al-Kabir. In the Ottoman Empire itself, and in neighbouring Persia, the successors of Peter the Great and the Czarina Catherine, pushed south into Muslim Lands thus conquering Crimea and the Caucasus, between 1820 and 1850, and infringing upon Northern Persia in Azerbaydjan. Czar Nicolas I had referred to the Sultan-Caliph in Istambul as the Sick Man of Europe in 1860. He claimed Constantinople, the Straits of Dardanelles and the right of access to the Mediterranean for Russia. He called for the Ottoman Empire to be dismantled.

Muslims watched in dismay. In Egypt, more and more who lived and worked for the government in the cities had shed the Qaftan of the al-Azhar student for a western attire; they wore suites tailored by Avierino, an Italian immigrant, and the cylindrical pressed felt red Tarbush which had been borrowed from the Ottomans; they also, more often than not, carried a newspaper. They were becoming Afandiyyah. Sa’d Zaghlul (1859-1927) belonged to the new bureaucracy created by Lord Cromer.

Saad Zaghlul

He was born in the Delta and went to study at al-Azhar. Unlike Muhammad ‘Abduh and like Mustafa Kamel, he read French law. He was known to the police as an activist whose aim was to rid the country of the British. Zaghlul had been introduced to Princess Nazli Fadl, the niece of the late Khedive Isma’il who held a Salon in her palace, near the recently built ‘Abdine Khedivial Palace, past Maydan Ibrahim Basha. ‘Abduh was one of the habitués at her Salon. So were Cromer and Lord Kitchener, the Military Commander in Egypt. In 1892, Zaghlul was appointed Judge at the Court of Appeal. In 1895, he married the daughter of the Prime Minister, Mustafa Basha Fahmi and in 1906 was appointed his Minister of Education. In 1910, he was given the Justice portfolio. He had joined the newly formed al-Umma, the Nation, Party and been elected at the Legislative Assembly. He used this platform to criticize Khedive ‘Abbas Hilmi II and the British.

The telegraph had provided swift access to information. The telegraph linked the five continents. The spread of newspapers made news of the world available as never before in the history of mankind. Egyptians like Sa’d Zaghlul could follow events around them. The Agadir Incident during which a German frigate, the Panther, had ventured, in 1911, into Moroccan territorial waters unannounced, led the British Navy which ruled the seas to perceive this action as a threat of things to come: the Panther was forced to withdraw to the Baltic Sea. Again in 1911, Italy, an ally of Britain and France, declared war on the Ottoman Empire. 20.000 troops were landed in Tobruk, Libya, near the Egyptian border. They would occupy Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan. One note of interest, an airplane was used during this campaign for the first time in modern warfare, an Etrich Taube biplane which bombed a location near Benghazi where a Young Turk – more will be said about them - captain Mustafa Kemal, was in command. In the same year, the Dodecanese Islands, in the Aegean Sea, were wrested by Italy from the Ottoman Empire.

Sultan Abdel Hamid II

More critical for the British, in 1878, was the signature of a treaty in Berlin, an alliance which was forged between the First Reich and the Ottoman Empire at the time when two protagonists in the Balkans, Czar Nicolas II and Habsburg Emperor Franz-Joseph, vied for influence over Serbia. British diplomacy had now much to worry about, in Europe, in the Mediterranean, in the Middle East and along the land route to India. The aim of the British was to prevent Russia from heading south through the Dardanelles, or into Persia and Afghanistan. Building the Berlin-Baghdad Railroad, beginning in 1903, was another headache for London. Then came the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Istambul on his way to the Holy Land in 1898 that crowned German ambitions in the Middle East. Already, in Persia and in Mesopotamia, German archaeological teams were at work. One such team had come across oil seeping from the ground; it sent samples to Berlin. German presence in the Middle East was not a welcome one for London.

A bit of Ottoman history which will prove pertinent for Egypt: ‘Abdul Hamid II, the one they called the Red Sultan for his cruelty, was toppled by a group of officers known as Jön Türkler, Young Turks, in 1906. The Committee for Union and Progress was directed by Mehmet Talat, a telegraph operator and by Generals Enver and Cemal. They confirmed their commitment to the alliance with Germany. Their aim was primarily to stop the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid II was deposed and replaced by Abdul Mecid, a figurehead sultan and caliph. Germany promised officers at the brigade level under the command of Maj.Gen. Werner von Frankenberg. In Cairo, the British had been beefing their alliances and their defences in preparation for war in the region around the Suez Canal. As one walked towards the Nile from al-Azhar, one reached the open market of ‘Ataba. Beyond it, near the Gardens of Azbakiyyah where the new opera house had been erected during Isma’il’s reign, was Ibrahim Basha square. This was new Cairo. When one turned left and borrowed Qasr al-Nil Street, one reached Maydan Sulayman Basha named after Sulayman al-Faransawi, the Chief of Staff of Muhammad ‘Ali’s army, one Colonel Sèvres who converted to Islam and is buried in Egypt. Past the Maydan and built along the Nile, not far from the Residence of the British Pro-consul, there stood the Kasr el-Nil Barracks, the Head Quarters of the Imperial Army. It is here that plans were beings drawn in case war broke out in the Middle East.

Allenby

Troops from Australia, from New Zealand, from India and from South Africa were now being ferried to Suez. Their encampments were located in Tall al-Kabir and Fayid, along the Suez Canal. Security was tightened and Sa’d Zaghlul and his Nationalist friends were kept on a short leash. Edmund Allenby (1861-1936) was in Britain before the war broke out.  He had been in command in South Africa during the two Boer Wars of 1880 and 1899, in the Transvaal and in the Free State of Orange. It is during the second Boer War that Allenby served under Lord Kitchener. 

Kitchener had previously visited Egypt and learnt Arabic. He was assigned the task of mapping Palestine. He also recaptured Khartum, in the Sudan, from the Mahdists who had defeated and assassinated Lord Gordon in 1898. At the start of the First World War he was appointed Minister of War. He was responsible for assigning the younger Allenby the task of commanding what was known as the Egyptian Expeditionary Force although no Egyptian served in this war. In the next frescoe, Allenby’s war will be narrated. Sa’d Zaghlul’s war will be waged at the Paris Peace Conference, on the island of Malta and in the Seychelles during his two exiles, and as Prime Minister of Egypt when he will face Egypt’s ruler and the British occupier.

A new weekly series about Egypt 

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spent the first twenty years of his life in Cairo, then moved to Beirut where he studied at the American University. He later completed his studies at Mc Gill University, in Montreal. 

André's long career as professor exclusively at the "Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean" was only interrupted when that institution closed it's doors in 1995. 

Egyptian Frescoes part (3 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (3): The Neo Mu'tazilah and Nationalism

Picture a young lad just arriving at Bab al-Hadid Central Train Station from a village in the Nile Delta. 

Old Bab El-Hadid Train Station

Picture him now taking a horse carriage to Bab al-Futuh, one of the four gates of the once walled city of al-Qahira, the Victorious, which the Fatimids, Shi’a Berbers, built when they toppled the Tulunid Sunni rulers in Egypt in 970AD. Beyond the gate is al-Mu’iz street which extends, a few miles further to Bab Zuwayla, another gate to the city. Past al-Hakim Mosque and its two dainty minarets, the Qalqawun complex where the Fatimid Palace stood were mansions and palaces. Not too far ahead, one entered the spice market, the ‘Attarin, from which scents of India and Yaman, roots from the Horn of Africa, and medicinal plants from Aswan and beyond filled the evening air. Al-Azhar Mosque, consecrated in 970, sits next to al-Ghuri Mosque and faces Sayyidna al-Husayn, another mosque. Al-Azhar is the most imposing structure in the City of a Thousand Minarets. The various dynasties which replaced the Fatimi Shi’a, the Ayyubi descendants of Saladin in 1171, the Mamlukes in 1266 and the Ottomans in 1517, all added to the expansion of this Madrasah and made it one of the most famous in the Muslim World. Muhammad  ‘Abduh roamed about the city. After the calls to Sunset Prayer, oil lamps were hung to all minarets. The streets were bustling with life. The young Fallah from the Nile Delta was discovering Egypt and the Muslim World in al-Qahira.

‘Abduh eventually entered al-Azhar Mosque in order to enrol as a Talib, a student. He had crossed the magnificent Bab al-Muzayyinin which  ‘abd al-Mu’in Katkhuda, head of the Janissaries, donated in 1749. Katkhuda also had a fountain built for people to draw water from. The Azhar Mosque area was vast, compared to the Ahmadi Coranic School he had frequented near his village. The dome rested on at least one hundred columns, mostly different from one another which had been borrowed from buildings of older times, as was customary in the past. Against these columns, elderly ‘Ulama’ lectured loudly, their white turban neatly wrapped around their red shishiya made of soft felt. They were surrounded by Talaba, students, ‘Abduh’s age and older. In the atrium, a wide Sahn where the Believers went for their ablutions, the water fountains sang sweet melodies and sparrows and doves flew around.  ‘Abduh knew he had made a good choice by coming to al-Azhar.

Mohamed Abduh

The schooling at al-Azhar lasted six years. Arabic philology, mathematics, history and geography, and the Sira, the biography of the Prophet Muhammad were required. Religious studies dealt with Kalam, theology, Tafsir, exegesis, and Hadith, the quotes of the Prophet.  Reciting and pronouncing the Words of Allah was naturally a requirement for all. Jurisprudence, Fiqh, encompassed the four schools of Law in Sunni Islam, the Maliki, the Shafi’i, the Hanafi and the Hanbali schools and teachers belonging to those schools occupied each his corner of the mosque. It is while Muhammad ‘Abduh was at al-Azhar that he met Jamal ed-Din al-Afghani. Their association would last many years. It had started when Afghani was discoursing on European Philosophy, seated as others against a column. Medieval tradition allowed the learned to share their knowledge in public. This was in 1872.

One can easily imagine the pair strolling around the lively streets neighbouring al-Azhar and sharing their thoughts. Both had studied Falsafa and knew Socrates and his peripatetic habits: Afghani would prove most convincing on a one to one basis. In the district of Gamaliyah they watched the children play with spinning-tops, women argue loudly around vegetable stalls as they ate fava beans accompanied by salads and bran Baladi bread. Or, they could pick a rolled Fitir, a pancacke, and a glass of sugarcane juice in the Sagha, the gold market. They could wonder, past the walls, towards the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, the second oldest after the Mosque of  ‘Amr ibn al- ‘As, the conqueror for the Umayyads of Egypt. Many prayed at ibn Tulun, named after the ‘Abbasi governor who commissioned that mosque and marvelled at its unusual minaret, the shape of a Zigurat from Samarra, in Iraq, its marble Mihrab which indicated the direction for prayer and its Cedar Wood adorned and carved Mimbar where Friday sermon was delivered. 

Bab El-Foutouh

The discourse which occupied both men dealt with the jeopardy of Islam in their day and age. al-Afghani related the state of Muslims as far as India or Central Asia which he had visited.  ‘Abduh heard about the Indian Mutiny of 1857 for the first time. al-Afghani’s thoughts as to how Islam could remedy the ills of the Faithful appealed to  ‘Abduh: reforming Islam would bring unity among Muslims and the sciences of the Europeans could then be borrowed in the same manner Muhammad ‘Ali had done at the turn of the century.

Seated in the gardens of al-Azhar at dusk, they must also have admired the minarets of the mosques of Katkhuda or Abaghawiyya or al-Ghuriyya or Qaytbay, some square and stout and others elegantly chiselled and darting into the sky. To the Fallah from the Delta and his senior from the Land of ‘Ajam, al-Qahira was one unlike other cities. It could be likened to Makkah where faces from all over the world were constantly passing through on their way to Hajj, the pilgrimage, or back. Or else, they both supposed, Istambul, the seat of the Caliphate, might also be likened to their city.

Jamal Ed-Din El-Afghani

al-Afghani claimed to have originated from Afghanistan. He knew much about the Shi’a and may have been a Shi’i from Iran himself, according to Nikki Keddie. He had travelled  extensively East of Egypt. In al-Qahira ventured Blacks from Africa, south and west of Egypt. Beyond the gate of Bab Zuwayla, past the mosques of al-Rifa’i and Sultan Hasan, were the Muqattam hills. Muhammad ‘Ali‘s fort and his mosque  which had been built in the style of Sinan, the architect of Sulayman-the-Magnifcient, dominated the Muqattam Hills. And, hanging from its cliffs near by, the Tekkeh of the Biktashiyyah Sufi Brotherhood hosted fair haired Turks and Albanians, Pomaks from Bulgaria or Bosniaks near the Adriatic Sea. Both men must have commented on the vastness and the diversity of Dar ul-Islam while they sipped mint tea and smoked from their Shisha in amazement of the opportunity that had been offered them to be at the heart of eventful times.

al-Afghani spoke of poverty which was the bride of ignorance. Muslim rulers were unfair rulers. It had been so since time immemorial. al-Mawardi, the great political theoretician at the time of the ‘Abbasi Caliphate, constantly warned against tyrants and despots. Islam advocated equality and justice. ‘Abduh had become conscious of the fairness that accompanies piety. Afghani was also urging Islah, reform of the Religious Sciences: a return to Ijtihad, the free exercise of thought, and the advancement of Ra’y, reflection, to those ‘Ulama’ who would practice Tafsir, exegesis, and Fiqh, jurisprudence. His was reviving the attitudes of the Mu’tazilah who, at the height of the ‘Abbasi Period of Islam when the ‘Ulama’, men of knowledge and intellectual pursuit, were incorporating the mathematics, medicine, the sciences and astronomy from India and the philosophies from Greece into what would become Islamic Civilization. The zenith of Medieval Islam was the result of the borrowing from others who were non-Believers in accordance with the Divine Message revealed in the Qur’an.

Jamal ed-Din al-Afghani was eventually and inevitably expelled from Egypt for his subversive teaching in 1878: he headed for Turkey. In 1882, Muhammad ‘Abduh  took the road to exile for his pro-‘Urabi sympathies. After a short stay in Beirut, ‘Abduh joined al-Afghani who had now moved to Paris. He would not return to Egypt before 1888. He travelled to Oxford and Cambridge, and to Berlin. He also studied French Law. ‘Abduh and Afghani finally edited a newspaper, al-‘Urwa al-Wuthqa, The Firmest Bond, in Paris. Their ideas could now reach wider audiences of Muslims. The new trends and discoveries in Europe were publicised. The debates they had with Ernest Renan and Gabriel Hannotaux, in Paris, were made available. ‘Abduh argued that Islam, a simple, straightforward and logical religion, and Science, could not fundamentally be in contradiction with one another. Unlike Christianity that was burdened with miracles and mysteries. Islamic Reformism, Islah, would dispel any fears Islam would have from modernity. Yet, while al-Afghani toiled to unite the Faithful against British occupation of Muslim lands and attract the Caliph in Istambul to Muslim Nationalism and its struggle against Imperialism, it was becoming apparent to ‘Abduh that he return to Egypt where he would embark upon the task of changing Egyptians and their traditional beliefs through education and education only.

Mustafa Kamel

Meanwhile, in Egypt itself, the young Mustafa Kamel (1874-1908) was making a name for himself. He was the son of an officer. He had studied Law at the French School of Law located in Munirah, not far from the Mosque of al-Sayyida Zaynab, the sister of al-Hassan and al-Hussayn and the daughter of ‘Ali and Fatimah. It is said that the skull of al-Hussayn, her brother whom the Umayyads had beheaded, is buried in the crypt of the mosque. During the celebrations of ‘Ashurah, a parade of the faithful from the Mosque reminded one of past Isma’ili practices during Fatimi times and of the Festivals of the Shi’a.

Mustafa Kamel moved to Toulouse, in France, to complete his legal education. Upon his return, he supported the Khedive ‘Abbas Helmi II’s opposition to British occupation but, at the same time, called for constitutional reforms that would limit the powers of the ruler. He became the champion of parliamentary government and the rule of law. He had founded a newspaper, al-Liwa, the Banner. An incident in the fields of Dinshaway, in 1906, in which peasants had mishandled British officers who had been pigeon hunting on their land and had trampled their crops, led to these peasants being hanged by the occupier. Kamel defended the accused. al-Liwa covered the trial and much agitation resulted from the verdict of the Court. In 1907, Kamel was encouraged to found the first political party, the National Party, al-Hizb al-Watani, in the country. The newspaper and the political party were new tools that aimed at bringing independence from Britain while stirring the population into directions yet unknown to the Egyptian masses. Mustafa Kamel was the precursor of Sa’d Zaghlul. He died too young to witness the changes in Egypt that followed the First World War.

Al-Azhar complex

Meanwhile, Lord Cromer prepared to retire to Britain after 24 years of stewardship during which much change had been brought about. The rapport between the Pro-Consul and Mufti Muhammad ‘Abduh had proven constructive. ‘Abduh often visited Cromer at his Residence, along the Nile, in Garden City. Cromer wanted more reforms. Mufti Muhammad ‘Abduh supported these reforms as he believed they were good, at the end, for Egypt and Egyptians and for Islam. Education was one such reform. ‘Abduh encouraged al-Azhar to update its curricula. Relations between Muslims and Copts always remained tense: ‘Abduh urged for dialogue, tolerance and understanding.

Foreigners in Egypt had been increasing in numbers: ‘Abduh considered their presence useful and thus overlooked certain abuses. 

Gamaliyah

Elias Nehmeh Tabet, my grandfather who had come from Lebanon, visited the Mufti in his home in the Gamaliyah Dictrict, near al-Azhar, and requested his legal opinion on the purchase by Muslims of life insurance. My grandfather represented the first life insurance company in the Middle East, Gresham Life Insurance Company Limited. A fatwa was granted that stated that life insurance was not usury nor Bid’a, an innovation contrary to Islam, and could therefore be purchased.

Muhammad ‘Abduh had formed many enemies. At al-Azhar, he was considered an Infidel by the older establishment, the Traditionalists and the Literalists. Amongst the Secularists, his al-Radd ‘ala al-Dahriyyin, his Rebuttal of Materialism, did not go well with Westernized Egyptians. He finally criticised Sufi excesses and this did not ingratiate him to the many Mystical Brotherhoods. His influence amongst the younger students at al-Azhar and in the growing number of government schools had grown meanwhile, in Egypt, in the Arab World, from Morocco to ‘Iraq and beyond into Turkey and as far as Indonesia. Muhammad ‘Abduh never commented on the national anthem which Mustafa Kamel composed, Biladi, My Country. He must  have approved of the words ‘’If I were not an Egyptian I would have wished to be one’’. ‘Abduh remained a patriot who always endured the short run for the sake of the long one. Welcome now General Allenby and Sa’d Zaghlul in our next frescoe.