The Arabs: A History

The Egyptian menace had been contained, but the threat posed by the Second Egyptian Crisis to the survival of the Ottoman Empire required a formal settlement. In a deal brokered in London, the Ottomans conferred on Muhammad ‘Ali lifetime rule over Egypt and Sudan and established his family’s hereditary rule over Egypt. Muhammad’Ali, for his part, recognized the sultan as his suzerain and agreed to make an a

Between 1805 and 1841, Muhammad ‘Ali’s ambitions had gone full circle. He rose to rank of governor and made himself master of Egypt. Once he was secure in Egypt and had expanded the revenues of his province, he set about creating a modern military. He then expanded his territorial reach from Sudan and Hijaz in the Red Sea to include much of Greece for a while, and all of Syria. These gains were denied him by foreign intervention, and by 1841 he had been reduced to Egypt and Sudan. Egypt would have its own government and make its own laws, but it would remain bound by the foreign policy of the Ottoman Empire. Though the Egyptians could strike their own coinage, their gold and silver coins would bear the sultan?s name, leaving the name of the Egyptian ruler for base copper. Egypt would have its own army, but its numbers were restricted to 18,000?a far cry from the massive army of 100,000?200,000 that Egypt formerly fielded. Muhammad ?Ali?s accomplishments were great, but his ambitions had been greater. Muhammad ‘Ali’s final years in office were marked by disappointment and ill health. The pasha was now an old man—seventy-one years old by the time his army had returned from Syria. He had grown alienated from his son Ibrahim. Over the course of the Syrian campaign, father and son communicated through palace officials. Both fought illness—Ibrahim was sent to Europe to combat tuberculosis, and Muhammad ’Ali was begi

The age of local leaders had come to an end. As the Egyptians were divested of Crete, the Syrian provinces, and the Hijaz, the Ottoman government was careful to dispatch its own men to serve as governors in these provinces. The Azm family in Damascus, like the Jalilis in Mosul, lost their grip over the cities they had ruled for much of the eighteenth century. The autonomous government of Mount Lebanon collapsed as the Shihab family was overthrown for collaborating with Egyptian rule. Here too the Ottomans sought to impose their own governors, though with explosive consequences that would send Lebanon down the road to sectarian conflict. The bid for local autonomy from the Ottoman government had come at a high price for the working people of the Arab lands, who suffered through wars, inflation, political instability, and countless injustices at the hands of ambitious local leaders. They now wanted peace and stability. The Ottomans too wanted to put an end to the internal challenges to their rule. While preoccupied by foreign threats and wars with Russia and Austria, they had seen the risks of leaving the Arab provinces unattended: the alliance between Ali Bey al-Kabir and Zahir al-Umar had threatened Ottoman rule in Syria and Egypt; the Wahhabis had ravaged southern Iraq and seized the Hijaz from Ottoman rule; and Muhammad ?Ali used the wealth of Egypt to create an army that gave him control of an empire in his own right and the means to threaten the very survival of the Ottomans themselves. But for the intervention of the European powers, Muhammad?Ali could have toppled the Ottomans in the Second Egyptian Crisis. These experiences had impressed on the Ottoman government the need for reform. It would require not just a gentle tinkering with the standing institutions of government but a complete overhaul of the ancient machinery of rule. The Ottomans recognized that they could not reform their empire on their own. They would need to draw on the ideas and technologies that had made their European rivals strong. Ottoman statesmen had noted how Muhammad ‘Ali succeeded in harnessing modern European ideas and technologies in creating his dynamic state. The dispatch of Egyptian missions to Europe, the import of European industrial and military technology, and the contracting of European technical advisors at all levels of the military and bureaucracy had played a large role in Muhammad ’Ali’s achievements. The Ottomans were entering a new and complex era in their relations with their European neighbors. Europe would serve as the role model, the ideal to be attained in military and technological terms. But Europe was also a threat to be kept at arm’s length, both as a belligerent that coveted Ottoman lands and the source of dangerous new ideologies. Ottoman reformers would struggle with the challenge of adopting European ideas and technology without compromising their own cultural integrity and values. The one thing the Ottomans could not do was ignore Europe’s progress. Europe had emerged as the dominant world power in the nineteenth century, and the Ottoman Empire increasingly would be obliged to play by Europe’s rules.

CHAPTER 4

The Perils of Reform

A young Muslim cleric approached the French sailing vessel La Truite, moored in Alexandria’s harbor, on April 13, 1826. As he stepped onto the gangway to board, dressed in the robes and turban of a scholar of Cairo’s ancient mosque university of al-Azhar (founded 969), Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi’s feet left Egyptian soil for the first time in his life. He was bound for France, appointed chaplain to Muhammad’Ali’s first major education mission to Europe. He would not see his native land for another five years. Once aboard, al-Tahtawi examined the faces of the other delegates. They made for a very diverse group: forty-four men in all, ranging in age from fifteen to thirty-seven. Al-Tahtawi (1801–1873) was then twenty-four years old. Though ostensibly an Egyptian delegation, only eighteen of its envoys were actually native-born Arabic speakers. The rest of the group spoke Turkish and reflected the national diversity of the Ottoman Empire, of which Egypt was still a part—Turks, Circassians, Greeks, Georgians, and Armenians. These men had been chosen by the governor of Egypt to study European languages and sciences and, on their return, to apply what they learned in France to reforming their native land. Born to a notable family of judges and theologians in a small village in Upper Egypt, al-Tahtawi had studied Arabic and Islamic theology since the age of sixteen. A gifted scholar, he was appointed to teach at al-Azhar before entering government service as a preacher in one of the new European-style Nizami infantry divisions in 1824. Through this post, and with the support of his patrons, al-Tahtawi was selected for this prestigious mission to Paris. It was the kind of posting that made a man’s career. Al-Tahtawi took with him a blank copybook in which to record his impressions of France. No detail seemed too trivial to interest him: the way the French built their houses, earned a living, observed their religion; their means of transport and the workings of their financial system; relations between men and women; how they dressed and danced; how they decorated their homes and set their tables. Al-Tahtawi wrote with curiosity and respect but also critical detachment. For centuries, Europeans had traveled to the Middle East and written books on the ma