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.

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 (2 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (2): Tall al-Kabir, 1882

  

Napoleon in the battle of the Pyramids

The Muhammad ‘Ali Dynasty originated from the Port City of Kavalla, in Thrace. The Pasha was initially from Albania: he and his kind were known as Arna’ut. The Pasha and his associates in the Albanian Contingent of the Ottoman Army had been transported by British ships to expel the French Expeditionary Force then commanded by Bonaparte’s deputy, General Kléber. They ousted both the French and the Mamlukes, a slave caste of warriors, Circassians from the Caucasus, or Turks and Kurds. The Founder of Modern Egypt then created his own fighting force with officers that were Albanian and Turk and the soldiery that came from the Egyptian peasantry, the Fallahin. Advisors to the new Egyptian Army were French who had served at some point in Napoleon’s army.

Khedive Isma’il

When Isma’il, Muhammad ‘Ali’s grandson, succeeded Sa’id to the throne of Egypt, the new Khedive reformed the army further: starting in 1863, he encouraged native Egyptians to enter the officer corps. One such youth, Ahmed ‘Urabi, rose in rank. Like many sons of notables, ‘Urabi had been schooled at the great al-Azhar Mosque. When he enrolled in the military, he was rapidly promoted to the rank of Pasha, General that is, and given a Junior post in the Cabinet. The Khedive waged war against Ethiopia and tightened his grip on the Sudan where the Nile waters originated. ‘Urabi Pasha served his Khedive in combat. He was in Cairo when the Khedive was deposed by the Sultan in Istambul.

The main reason for this deposition was that the debt Isma’il contracted had reached 100 million pounds as opposed to the initial three he inherited when he occupied the throne. In 1875, auditors were appointed by France and Britain to advise on the course to be followed. The following year, the Khedive had to cede his entire lands to Egyptians and to Foreigners, to sell his shares in the Suez Canal to Britain’s D’Israeli, to accept constitutional limitations to his power, and to appoint Nubar Pasha, a Christian Armenian, as his Prime Minister. An Englishman became Minister of Finance and a Frenchmen held the Public Works portfolio. Egypt was, slowly but surely, being taken over by the Infidels.

It was estimated then that more than 10.000 Christians and Jews, from Southern Europe, Salonika and Izmir, and from North Africa had settled in Egypt in 1840. Their presence became conspicuous. They enjoyed special privileges. They could not be judged in Egyptian courts and what came to be known as Mixed Courts offended the Egyptians deeply. When Khedive Isma’il was finally deposed and sent to exile, riots erupted in Alexandria, the most Europeanized city in the country. 

Orabi Pasha

‘Urabi Pasha who had taken command of the government demanded that the influence of Foreigners be curtailed. Isma’il’s son, Tawfiq, who had succeeded him escaped the rioting to the Mediterranean coast to seek British naval protection. A British contingent had, meanwhile, been landed that would meet the Egyptians under the command of ‘Urabi Pasha. They fought at Tall al-Kabir and ‘Urabi was easily defeated by General Wolseley. British firepower and tactics had won the day. The Egyptian rebel to the crown was sentenced to death but exiled instead to Ceylon. His home in Kandy, in the hills outside Colombo, is today the Orabi Pasha Museum and Cultural Centre. Next to it is the Zahira College which he founded for Singalese Muslims.

‘Abbas II had succeeded his brother Tawfiq as Khedive of Egypt in 1901. ‘Abbas was one who hated the British. ‘Urabi was brought back to Egypt that very year to a hero’s welcome. He had been the first indigenous Egyptian to achieve political and military prominence since the Ptoleme Pharoe took over from Native Egyptian Pharoes in 323BC. His pardon favoured the Khedive in the eyes of the Egyptians at the very time when the British chose to make their presence permanent in Egypt. Lord Cromer, once secretary to the Viceroy of India, was assigned to, in effect, rule Egypt. Britain had not forgotten Napoleon Bonaparte’s Campaign in the Nile Valley whose aim it had been to threaten the Road to British India. 

Suez canal innauguration

The opening of the Suez Canal, 164 kilometres long, which was inaugurated in 1869, made British presence along the waterway the more so pressing. The British had occupied Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus in the Mediterranean. South of Suez, they would land troops in Aden and the Horn of Africa. The Road to India was thus being secured for King and Country for generations to come.

The brilliant administration of Egypt by Lord Cromer which lasted from 1883 till 1907 paved, meanwhile, the way for a British Protectorate over Egypt in 1912. This protectorate would last till Fu’ad, yet another son of Khedive Isma’il, would sign an Anglo-Egyptian Treaty that made him King in 1922 and guaranteed British presence in the country. During the time all this was taking place, Egyptian Society kept changing. Egypt, today, owes much to Lord Cromer’s administration. Not unlike in India, the British Pro-Consul of Egypt revamped the country’s bureaucracy to suite Britain’s objectives and govern Egypt effectively in order to increase its productive capacities and pay back its debts. 

Lord Cromer

The Cromer reforms built an elaborate civil service to implement what has come to be known as Indirect Rule. Schooling was expanded as never before to staff his government. On this particular matter, Cromer had essentially spotted a brilliant mind in one Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh. In Egypt, today, Cromer has been forgotten. Not so Muhammad ‘Abduh.

Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905), not unlike Ahmad ‘Urabi and the thousands that enrolled in the bureaucracy, be it civilian or military, was rooted in Egypt’s soil. He rose in society through education and ended at the al-Azhar Mosque where he graduated as a ‘Alim. ‘Abduh had been appointed to teach at Dar al-‘Ulum, the teacher’s training school in Cairo, in 1878. He also taught at Madrasat al-Alsun, the Khedivial Language School which Muhammad ‘Ali founded and which Shaykh Rifa’a al-Tahtawi (1801-1873) ran.

‘Abduh had been an admirer of al-Tahtawi, the Azhari whom Muhammad ‘Ali entrusted with the task of accompanying two dozen youths to Paris in 1826. 

El Tahtawi

Al-Tahtawi spent six years in that city, learnt French, frequented Salons and Libraries and, upon his return, the Pasha appointed him Head of the Languages School where he also translated texts on military matters, geography and European History. All al-Tahtawi’s books were widely read. In Rihla, his Journey to Paris, he states that the Principles of Islam are compatible with European Modernity. He added that one way to protect one’s country was to accept the changes that come with modern societies. Such ideas were, certainly revolutionary at the time and a few gave credence to them.

Meanwhile, in 1882, ‘Abduh who had supported the ‘Urabi Revolt was exiled for six years. Much will be said about ‘Abduh’s exile. Suffice it to say that later, in 1899, Cromer saw to it that ‘Abduh be offered the position of Mufti of Egypt. The Pro-Consul sought an enlightened Azhari to issue the Fatwas that could pave the way to Cromer’s reforms. After all, had not Muhammad ‘Abduh been quoted as stating that: ‘’I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims but no Islam’’. Al-Tahtawi could not have written these words for he belonged to that period of Egyptian history where self assurance was paramount amongst its intellectuals. They could borrow freely from the West and not the least feel threatened by all that they borrowed. ‘Abduh, on the other hand, was the child of the ‘Urabi defeat and the subject of British occupation. He belonged to an age of resistance to all that the West stood for and offered. Apologetics for the shortcomings of Egypt and Islam were growing among its intellectuals. 

Not so with Muhammad ‘Abduh who, along with Jamal ed-Din Afghani (1838-1897) and Mustafa Kamil (1874-1908), was able to distinguish between the Genius of Western Civilization and Brutal Imperialism and between the Fundamentals of Islam and Corrupt Muslims. So let us now move on with our story and speak of the Neo-Mu’tazilah and of Nationalism among the Muslims of Egypt in the nineteenth century.

A new weekly series about Egypt 

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spend 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 (1 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (1): Tu Quoque Cicero...

Early in November 2011, I met for diner with long time friends, Alieddin Hilal and Yahiya el-Gamal, at the Automobile Club, on Kasr el-Nil Street, in Cairo. Egypt’s Arab Spring was barely nine months old. After the forced resignation of President Husni Mubarak, ‘Ali, a class mate of mine from his Canada days, resigned his post as Secretary for Media Affairs in the ruling National Democratic Party. ‘Ali had previously been appointed Minister of Youth and Sports. He held a PhD from Mc Gill University in Montreal in Political Science. Upon his graduation, he returned to Egypt where he taught at Cairo University. He later founded the Centre for International Affairs before he went into politics.

Facade of the Automobile club in Cairo

Yahiya just resigned his short-lived post as Vice-President when Marshal Tantawi appointed yet a new government to replace Mubarak’s own. A constitutional jurist of repute, he would now assist candidate Muhammad al-Baradei in his bid for the presidency at the head of his National Coalition for Change. Yahia had served as Minister of Administrative Affairs in the Cabinet of Gamal ‘abd al-Nasir. He was a seasoned politician. ‘Ali, although much younger, was experienced as well. The question raised at the dinner table was whether or not the Muslim Brotherhood did pose a serious challenge for the political future of Egypt. That evening, everyone seemed to agree that this fringe party would attract 20% of the vote, at most.

As one prepares to move onto a new year, results of the post Mubarak elections are coming in. It is now agreed that the MB will reap a majority of seats in parliament and form a government. Also, the newly elected house will be called upon to draft a constitution that should, most probably, set the course for a new ideological direction for Egyptians to follow. Time will tell whether Egypt’s new constitution will radically depart from the traditions which resulted from the reforms brought about, in 1820, by Muhammad ‘Ali Basha (1769-1849) when innovations in education and government institutions, which were inspired essentially from France, initiated the transformation of that country’s economy and society. We owe it to Henry Dodwell to still refer to Muhammad ‘Ali as the Founder of Modern Egypt.

The process which began in order to provide the Pasha with a modern powerful army permeated the entire country. In terms of constitutional precedent some, today, will argue that a MB government will thwart this process once and for all. Those who fear for past values and principles remind us of Cicero (106BC-43BC) who, in his Letters to Atticus deplored the end of the Republic, the death of Natural Law and Liberty and the disappearance of the Innate Rights for the People. I, for one, believe that the seeds of Modernity are deeply engrained in Egyptian soil. The negative opinion some Egyptians carry for the MB which is related to their past impressions of what once used to be a secret organisation that carried assassinations against its political enemies, will fade away. As to the notion that the past was better than the present and the future, it shall prove questionable as this notion remains class related: to the Egyptians who enjoyed past privileges, the Egypt they were raised in was certainly one of harmony for them. The 1952 Military Coup which toppled the Ancient Regime put an end to such privileges and harmony. The following essays will delve into that very subject and assist me in putting order in the thoughts I nurture on the subject.

Muhammed Ali

It shall be reminded that Egyptian Society had been changing ever since the Convention of London of 1840 recognized to Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha and his descendants their hereditary right to rule over Egypt. The Pasha’s heirs became known as Khedives (from the Turkish Hidiv, viceroy) from 1867 till 1914. An Egyptian Monarchy was then established, again which belonged to Muhammad ‘Ali’s dynasty. In his time, in 1843 at the Treaty of Balta Liman, the Pasha’s dream to erect a strong and independent state along the Nile faded away when the British who had supported the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II against his rebellious vassal from Egypt, tore down all import barriers which the state had built to protect and promote its infant economy. The imposition of liberal trade practices by the British forced Egypt to abandon much of its agricultural and industrial development. Barely one year after the signature of this treaty, the Egyptian debt reached 80 million francs, a considerable amount for the time.

And yet, the memory I harbour from my parents and grandparents is that Egypt had reached a sophisticated degree of Westernization. Both my grandparents immigrated to Egypt, one from the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and the Caspian Seas and the other from Beirut. They sought opportunities to acquire wealth and reaped it due to the political, social and economic mood which the Khediviate, and latter, the Monarchy provided. A grandchild of Muhammad ‘Ali, the Khedive Isma’il, had committed himself to make Egypt part of Europe. He embarked upon grand construction projects. Building modern Cairo with the help of French and Italian architects, erecting an opera house, investing into the sugar cane industry, extending the railroad and the telegraph to the south of the country and, last but not least, becoming the major shareholder of the Société du Canal de Suez makes him the important builder he is today remembered for. Isma’il was benefiting from the actions of his grandfather, Muhammad ‘Ali, who confiscated the lands of the Mamlukes, a military caste which he toppled when he assumed power after 1811: the ruling family of Egypt became the major land owner in the country. 

The Citadel

The native political allies of the House of Muhammad ‘Ali also received land. And so it was that a landed class was created that would exploit the peasantry, the Fellahin, for its own benefits. This landed aristocracy partook in a form of development in Egypt, submitted to the benefits of Westernization, grew cotton, the cash crop which would make Egypt rich during the American Civil War, and educated its children often in French and English schools.

One will have to wait until the 1952 Military Coup to witness the end of Monarchy in Egypt. The banner of the House of Muhammad ‘Ali, the Crescent and the Three Stars on a green background, will be replaced by Egypt’s Free Officers’ who will fly the Red-White-and-Black emblem of Revolution. The first major legislation to be introduced by the young officers under the presidency of Muhammad Naguib and the leadership of Gamal ‘abd al-Nasir, in the late summer of 1952, will be the Land Reform Law. All important landowners will see their properties expropriated. Their lands will be distributed to the peasantry. A new era will, as a result, have begun in Egypt whose implications are felt till this very day. One is instantly, once again, reminded of Cicero, witness to the crossing by Julius Caesar and his Legionnaires from Gaul of the Rubicon and to the rise of the dictatorship of the Imperium: the Egyptian Monarchy had contributed to institutions and to values which our grandfathers and fathers valued, enjoyed and benefited from. To them, a state of stability and social harmony had been achieved which made Egypt distinguish itself from all its other Arab neighbours. People flocked to Cairo to partake in its wonders. 

Colonel Nasser & General Naguib 1952

After 1952, however, the beneficiaries of Westernization witnessed the collapse of the world they had grown accustomed to. Ever since l952, our fathers and ourselves have tended to deplore what we see as a regression in values, a setback to progress, a sure invitation to backward changes in the Egyptian political scenery; the recent most election results show that the trend has not been abated. The result of the latest count at the polls may, indeed, confirm that bygone are the good old days when the West could influence the East and where Muslim and Christian, Egyptian and Levantine could live and prosper together.

Here is, however, not the end of the story but the beginning of a new page to be written for that unending tale of new settings to replace the old. For instance, the MB had its roots in Egypt’s not too distant past. The British had landed in Alexandria and defeated the feeble Egyptian Army. Egypt would be occupied and the Nationalist Movement would be born. Islam would also become Egypt’s shield against the Christian occupier. In history, everything relates to the past and while history cannot predict the future, it certainly explains the present. 

Fresco One has ended. Please bear with me for the next one.