Moslem Authorities.—Arabic literature being cosmopolitan, and Arabic authors accustomed to travel from place to place to collect traditions and obtain oral instruction from contemporary authorities, or else to enjoy the patronage of Maecenates, the literary history of Egypt cannot be dissociated from that of the other Moslem countries in which Arabic was the chief literary vehicle. Hence the list of authors connected with Egypt, which occupies pages 161-275 of Suyūṭī’s work,Husn al-muḥādarah fi akhbāri Misr wal-Qāhirah(Cairo, 1321 A.H.), contains the names of persons like Mutanabbī, who stayed there for a short time in the service of some patron; Abū Tammām, who lived there before he acquired fame as a poet; ’Umāra of Yemen, who came there at a mature age to spend some years in the service of Fāṭimite viziers; each of whom figures in lists of authors belonging to some other country also. So long as the centre of the Islamic world was not in Egypt, the best talent was attracted elsewhere; but after the fall of Bagdad, Cairo became the chief seat of Islamic learning, and this rank, chiefly owing to the university of Azhar, it has ever since continued to maintain. The following composed special histories of Egypt: Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, d. 257 A.H.; ‘Abd al-Raḥīm b. Yūnus, d. 347; Mahommed b. Yūsuf al-Kindī, d. somewhat later; Ibn Zūlāq, d. 387; ‘Izz al-Mulk Mahommed al-Musabbihī, d. 420; Mahommed b. Salāmah al-Qodā‘ī, d. 454; Jamāl al-dīn ‘Alī al-Qifṭī, d. 568; Jamāl al-dīn al-Ḥalabī, d. 623; ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī, d. 629; Mahommed b. ‘Abd al-Azīz al-Idrīsī (history of Upper Egypt), d. 649; his son Ja’far (history of Cairo), d. 676; Ibn Sa‘īd, d. 685; Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh; Ibn al-Mutawwaj, d. 703; Mahommed b. Dani’āl, d. 710; Ja’far b. Tha’lab Kamāl al-dīn al-Adfu‘ī (history of Upper Egypt), d. 730; ‘Abd al-Qarūn al-Ḥalabī, d. 735; Ibn Ḥabīb, d. 779; Ibn Duqmāq, d. 790; Ibn Tughān, Shihāb al-dīn al-Auḥadī, d. 790; Ibn al-Mulaqqin, d. 806; Maqrīzī, Taqiyy al-dīn Aḥmad, d. 840; Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī, d. 852; al-Sakhāwī, d. 902; Abu’l-Mahāsin b. Taghrībirdī, d. 874; Jalāl al-dīn al-Suyūṭī, d. 911; Ibn Zunbul al-Rammāl; Ibn Iyās, d. after 928; Mahommed b. Abī Surūr, d. after 1017; Zain al-dīn al Karamī, d. 1033; ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jabartī, d. after 1236. Of many of the Mameluke sultans there are special chronicles preserved in various European and Oriental libraries. The works of many of the authors enumerated are topographical and biographical as well as purely historical. To these there should be added the Survey of Egypt, calledal-tuḥfah al-saniyyahof Ibn Jī’ān, belonging to the time of Kait Bey; the treatise on the Egyptian constitution calledZubdat Kashf al-Mamālik, by Khalīl al-Ẓāhirī, of the same period; and the encyclopaedic work on the same subject calledṢubḥ al-Inshā, by al-Qalqashandī, d. 821.Arabic poetry is in the main encomiastic and personal, and from the beginning of the Omayyad period sovereigns and governors paid poets to celebrate their achievements; of those of importance who are connected with Egypt we may mention Nusaib, encomiast of ‘Abd al-Azīz b. Merwān, d. 180; the greater Nāshi (Abu l-Abbās ‘Abdallah), d. 293; Ibn Ṭabāṭabā, d. 345; Abu’l-Raqa’maq, encomiast of al-Mo’izz, d. 399; Ṣarī’ al-Dilā (‘Alī b. ‘Abd al-Wāhid), encomiast of the Fāṭimite al-Ẓāhir, d. 412; Sanajāt al-ḍauḥ (Mahommed b. al-Qāsim), encomiast of Ḥākim; ‘Alī b. ‘Abbād al-Iskandarī, encomiast of the vizier al-Afḍal, executed by Ḥāfiẓ; Ibn Qalāqis al-Iskandarī, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 607; Muhaddhab b. Mamētī, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 616; Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 658; Ibn al-Munajjim, d. 626; Ibn Maṭrūḥ, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 654; Bahā’ al-dīn Zuhair, encomiast of al-Ṣāliḥ, d. 656; Ibn ‘Ammār, d. 675; al-Mi’mār, d. 749; Ibn Nubātah, d. 768; Ibn Abī Ḥajalah, d. 776; Burhān al-din al-Qīrāṭī, d. 801; Ibn Mukānis, d. 864; Ibn Ḥijjah al-Ḥamawī, d. 837. Poets distinguished for special lines are al-Ḥakīm b. Dānī’ āl, d. 608, author of the Shadow-play; and al-Būsīrī (Mahommed b. Sa‘īd), d. 694, author of the ode in praise of the prophet called Burdah. The poets of Egypt are reckoned with those of Syria in theYatīmahof Tha’ ālibī; a special work upon them was written by Ibn Faḍl allāh (d. 740); and a list of poets of the 11th century is given by Khafājī in hisRaiḥānat al-alibbā.The needs of the Egyptian court produced a number of elegant letter-writers, of whom the most famous were ‘Abd al-Raḥīm b. ‘Alī al-Baisāni, ordinarily known as al-Qāḍī’ al-Fāḍil, d. 596, secretary of state to Saladin and other Ayyūbite sultans; ‘Imād al-dīn al-Ispahānī, d. 597, also secretary of state and official chronicler; and Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir, d. 692, secretary of state to Bibars I. and succeeding sultans; he was followed by his son Faṭḥ al-dīn, to whom the title “Secret writer” was first given.In the subject of law Egypt boasts that the Imām Shāfi‘ī, founder of one of the schools, resided at Fosṭāṭ from 195 till his death in 204; his system, though displaced for a time by that invented by the Fāṭimites, and since the Turkish conquest by the Ḥanifite system, has always been popular in Egypt: in Ayyūbite times it was dominant, whereas in Mameluke times all four systems were officially recognized. The eminent jurists who flourished in Moslem Egypt form a very lengthy list. Among the Egyptian traditionalists the most eminent is Dāraquṭnī, d. 385.Among Egyptian mystics the most famous as authors are the poet Ibn al-Fāriḍ, d. 632, and Abd al-Wahhāb Sha rānī, d. 973. Abu’l-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656) is celebrated as the founder of the Shādhilī order; but there were many others of note. The dictionary of physicians, compiled in the 7th century, enumerates nearly sixty men of science who resided in Egypt; the best-known among them are Sa‘īd b. Biṭrīq, Moses Maimonides and Ibn Baiṭār. Of Egyptian miscellaneous writers two of the most celebrated are Ibn Daqīq al’-īd, d. 702, and Jalāl al-din Suyūṭī.European Authorities.—For the Moslem conquest, A. J. Butler,The Arab Conquest of Egypt(Oxford, 1902); for the period before the Fāṭimites, Wüstenfeld, “Die Statthalter von Ägypten,” inAbhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, vols. xx. and xxi.; for the Fāṭimite period, Wüstenfeld, “Geschichte der Fatimiden-Chalifen,” ibid. vols. xxvi. and xxvii.; for the Ayyūbite period, Ibn Khallikan’sBiographical Dictionary, translated by M’G. de Slane (London, 1842-1871); for the Mameluke period, Weil,Geschichte der Chalifen, vols. iv. and v. (also calledGeschichte des Abbasidenchalifats in Ägypten), (Stuttgart, 1860-1862); Sir W. Muir,The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt(London, 1896); for the Turkish period, G. Zaidan,History of Modern Egypt(Arabic), vol. ii. (Cairo, 1889). See also Maqrizi,Description topographique et historique de l’Égypte, translated by Bouriant (Paris, 1895, &c.); C. H. Becker,Beiträge zur Geschichte Ägyptens(Strassburg, 1902).
Moslem Authorities.—Arabic literature being cosmopolitan, and Arabic authors accustomed to travel from place to place to collect traditions and obtain oral instruction from contemporary authorities, or else to enjoy the patronage of Maecenates, the literary history of Egypt cannot be dissociated from that of the other Moslem countries in which Arabic was the chief literary vehicle. Hence the list of authors connected with Egypt, which occupies pages 161-275 of Suyūṭī’s work,Husn al-muḥādarah fi akhbāri Misr wal-Qāhirah(Cairo, 1321 A.H.), contains the names of persons like Mutanabbī, who stayed there for a short time in the service of some patron; Abū Tammām, who lived there before he acquired fame as a poet; ’Umāra of Yemen, who came there at a mature age to spend some years in the service of Fāṭimite viziers; each of whom figures in lists of authors belonging to some other country also. So long as the centre of the Islamic world was not in Egypt, the best talent was attracted elsewhere; but after the fall of Bagdad, Cairo became the chief seat of Islamic learning, and this rank, chiefly owing to the university of Azhar, it has ever since continued to maintain. The following composed special histories of Egypt: Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, d. 257 A.H.; ‘Abd al-Raḥīm b. Yūnus, d. 347; Mahommed b. Yūsuf al-Kindī, d. somewhat later; Ibn Zūlāq, d. 387; ‘Izz al-Mulk Mahommed al-Musabbihī, d. 420; Mahommed b. Salāmah al-Qodā‘ī, d. 454; Jamāl al-dīn ‘Alī al-Qifṭī, d. 568; Jamāl al-dīn al-Ḥalabī, d. 623; ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī, d. 629; Mahommed b. ‘Abd al-Azīz al-Idrīsī (history of Upper Egypt), d. 649; his son Ja’far (history of Cairo), d. 676; Ibn Sa‘īd, d. 685; Ibrāhīm b. Waṣīf Shāh; Ibn al-Mutawwaj, d. 703; Mahommed b. Dani’āl, d. 710; Ja’far b. Tha’lab Kamāl al-dīn al-Adfu‘ī (history of Upper Egypt), d. 730; ‘Abd al-Qarūn al-Ḥalabī, d. 735; Ibn Ḥabīb, d. 779; Ibn Duqmāq, d. 790; Ibn Tughān, Shihāb al-dīn al-Auḥadī, d. 790; Ibn al-Mulaqqin, d. 806; Maqrīzī, Taqiyy al-dīn Aḥmad, d. 840; Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī, d. 852; al-Sakhāwī, d. 902; Abu’l-Mahāsin b. Taghrībirdī, d. 874; Jalāl al-dīn al-Suyūṭī, d. 911; Ibn Zunbul al-Rammāl; Ibn Iyās, d. after 928; Mahommed b. Abī Surūr, d. after 1017; Zain al-dīn al Karamī, d. 1033; ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jabartī, d. after 1236. Of many of the Mameluke sultans there are special chronicles preserved in various European and Oriental libraries. The works of many of the authors enumerated are topographical and biographical as well as purely historical. To these there should be added the Survey of Egypt, calledal-tuḥfah al-saniyyahof Ibn Jī’ān, belonging to the time of Kait Bey; the treatise on the Egyptian constitution calledZubdat Kashf al-Mamālik, by Khalīl al-Ẓāhirī, of the same period; and the encyclopaedic work on the same subject calledṢubḥ al-Inshā, by al-Qalqashandī, d. 821.
Arabic poetry is in the main encomiastic and personal, and from the beginning of the Omayyad period sovereigns and governors paid poets to celebrate their achievements; of those of importance who are connected with Egypt we may mention Nusaib, encomiast of ‘Abd al-Azīz b. Merwān, d. 180; the greater Nāshi (Abu l-Abbās ‘Abdallah), d. 293; Ibn Ṭabāṭabā, d. 345; Abu’l-Raqa’maq, encomiast of al-Mo’izz, d. 399; Ṣarī’ al-Dilā (‘Alī b. ‘Abd al-Wāhid), encomiast of the Fāṭimite al-Ẓāhir, d. 412; Sanajāt al-ḍauḥ (Mahommed b. al-Qāsim), encomiast of Ḥākim; ‘Alī b. ‘Abbād al-Iskandarī, encomiast of the vizier al-Afḍal, executed by Ḥāfiẓ; Ibn Qalāqis al-Iskandarī, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 607; Muhaddhab b. Mamētī, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 616; Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 658; Ibn al-Munajjim, d. 626; Ibn Maṭrūḥ, encomiast of the Ayyūbites, d. 654; Bahā’ al-dīn Zuhair, encomiast of al-Ṣāliḥ, d. 656; Ibn ‘Ammār, d. 675; al-Mi’mār, d. 749; Ibn Nubātah, d. 768; Ibn Abī Ḥajalah, d. 776; Burhān al-din al-Qīrāṭī, d. 801; Ibn Mukānis, d. 864; Ibn Ḥijjah al-Ḥamawī, d. 837. Poets distinguished for special lines are al-Ḥakīm b. Dānī’ āl, d. 608, author of the Shadow-play; and al-Būsīrī (Mahommed b. Sa‘īd), d. 694, author of the ode in praise of the prophet called Burdah. The poets of Egypt are reckoned with those of Syria in theYatīmahof Tha’ ālibī; a special work upon them was written by Ibn Faḍl allāh (d. 740); and a list of poets of the 11th century is given by Khafājī in hisRaiḥānat al-alibbā.
The needs of the Egyptian court produced a number of elegant letter-writers, of whom the most famous were ‘Abd al-Raḥīm b. ‘Alī al-Baisāni, ordinarily known as al-Qāḍī’ al-Fāḍil, d. 596, secretary of state to Saladin and other Ayyūbite sultans; ‘Imād al-dīn al-Ispahānī, d. 597, also secretary of state and official chronicler; and Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir, d. 692, secretary of state to Bibars I. and succeeding sultans; he was followed by his son Faṭḥ al-dīn, to whom the title “Secret writer” was first given.
In the subject of law Egypt boasts that the Imām Shāfi‘ī, founder of one of the schools, resided at Fosṭāṭ from 195 till his death in 204; his system, though displaced for a time by that invented by the Fāṭimites, and since the Turkish conquest by the Ḥanifite system, has always been popular in Egypt: in Ayyūbite times it was dominant, whereas in Mameluke times all four systems were officially recognized. The eminent jurists who flourished in Moslem Egypt form a very lengthy list. Among the Egyptian traditionalists the most eminent is Dāraquṭnī, d. 385.
Among Egyptian mystics the most famous as authors are the poet Ibn al-Fāriḍ, d. 632, and Abd al-Wahhāb Sha rānī, d. 973. Abu’l-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656) is celebrated as the founder of the Shādhilī order; but there were many others of note. The dictionary of physicians, compiled in the 7th century, enumerates nearly sixty men of science who resided in Egypt; the best-known among them are Sa‘īd b. Biṭrīq, Moses Maimonides and Ibn Baiṭār. Of Egyptian miscellaneous writers two of the most celebrated are Ibn Daqīq al’-īd, d. 702, and Jalāl al-din Suyūṭī.
European Authorities.—For the Moslem conquest, A. J. Butler,The Arab Conquest of Egypt(Oxford, 1902); for the period before the Fāṭimites, Wüstenfeld, “Die Statthalter von Ägypten,” inAbhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, vols. xx. and xxi.; for the Fāṭimite period, Wüstenfeld, “Geschichte der Fatimiden-Chalifen,” ibid. vols. xxvi. and xxvii.; for the Ayyūbite period, Ibn Khallikan’sBiographical Dictionary, translated by M’G. de Slane (London, 1842-1871); for the Mameluke period, Weil,Geschichte der Chalifen, vols. iv. and v. (also calledGeschichte des Abbasidenchalifats in Ägypten), (Stuttgart, 1860-1862); Sir W. Muir,The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt(London, 1896); for the Turkish period, G. Zaidan,History of Modern Egypt(Arabic), vol. ii. (Cairo, 1889). See also Maqrizi,Description topographique et historique de l’Égypte, translated by Bouriant (Paris, 1895, &c.); C. H. Becker,Beiträge zur Geschichte Ägyptens(Strassburg, 1902).
(D. S. M.*)
(9)From the French Occupation to the Rise of Mehemet Ali.—The ostensible object of the French expedition to Egypt was to reinstate the authority of the Sublime Porte, and suppress the Mamelukes; and in the proclamation printed with the Arabic types brought from the Propaganda press, and issued shortly after the taking of Alexandria, Bonaparte declared that he reverenced the prophet Mahomet and the Koran far more than the Mamelukes reverenced either, and argued that all men were equal except so far as they were distinguished by their intellectual and moral excellences, of neither of which the Mamelukes hadany great share. In future all posts in Egypt were to be open to all classes of the inhabitants; the conduct of affairs was to be committed to the men of talent, virtue, and learning; and in proof of the statement that the French were sincere Moslems the overthrow of the papal authority in Rome was alleged. That there might be no doubt of the friendly feeling of the French to the Porte, villages and towns which capitulated to the invaders were required to hoist the flags of both the Porte and the French republic, and in the thanksgiving prescribed to the Egyptians for their deliverance from the Mamelukes, prayer was to be offered for both the sultan and the French army. It does not appear that the proclamation convinced many of the Egyptians of the truth of these professions. After the battle of Ambabah, at which the forces of both Murād Bey and Ibrāhīm Bey were dispersed, the populace readily plundered the houses of the beys, and a deputation was sent from al-Azhar to Bonaparte to ascertain his intentions; these proved to be a repetition of the terms of his proclamation, and, though the combination of loyalty to the French with loyalty to the sultan was unintelligible, a good understanding was at first established between the invaders and the Egyptians. A municipal council was established in Cairo, consisting of persons taken from the ranks of the sheiks, the Mamelukes and the French; and presently delegates from Alexandria and other important towns were added. This council did little more than register the decrees of the French commander, who continued to exercise dictatorial power. TheBattle of the Nile.destruction of the French fleet at the battle of the Nile, and the failure of the French forces sent to Upper Egypt (where they reached the first cataract) to obtain possession of the person of Murād Bey, shook the faith of the Egyptians in their invincibility; and in consequence of a series of unwelcome innovations the relations between conquerors and conquered grew daily more strained, till at last, on the occasion of the introduction of a house tax, an insurrection broke out in Cairo on the 22nd of October 1798, of which the headquarters were in the Moslem university of Azhar. On this occasion the French general Dupuy, lieutenant-governor of Cairo, was killed. The prompt measures of Bonaparte, aided by the arrival from Alexandria of General J. B. Kléber, quickly suppressed this rising; but the stabling of the French cavalry in the mosque of Azhar gave great and permanent offence. In consequence of this affair, the deliberative council was suppressed, but on the 25th of December a fresh proclamation was issued, reconstituting the two divans which had been created by the Turks; the special divan was to consist of 14 persons chosen by lot out of 60 government nominees, and was to meet daily. The general divan was to consist of functionaries, and to meet on emergencies.
In consequence of despatches which reached Bonaparte on the 3rd of January 1799, announcing the intention of the Porte to invade the country with the object of recovering it by force, Bonaparte resolved on his Syrian expedition, and appointed governors for Cairo, Alexandria, and Upper Egypt, to govern during his absence. From that ill-fated expedition he returned at the beginning of June. Advantage had been taken of this opportunity by Murād Bey and Ibrāhīm Bey to collect their forces and attempt a joint attack on Cairo, but this Bonaparte arrived in time to defeat, and in the last week of July he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Turkish army that had landed at Aboukir, aided by the British fleet commanded by Sir Sidney Smith. Shortly after his victory Bonaparte left Egypt, having appointed Kléber to govern in his absence, which he informed the sheiks of Cairo was not to last more than three months. Kléber himself regarded the condition of the French invaders as extremely perilous, and wrote to inform the French republic of the facts. A double expedition shortly after Bonaparte’s departure was sent by the Porte for the recovery of Egypt, one force being despatched by sea to Damietta, while another under Yūsuf Pasha took the land route from Damascus by al-Arish. Over the first some success was won, in consequence of which the Turks agreed to a convention (signed January 24, 1800), by virtue of which the French were to quit Egypt. The Turkish troops advanced to Bilbeis, where they were received by the sheiks from Cairo, and the Mamelukes also returned to that city from their hiding-places. Before the preparations for the departure of the French were completed, orders came to Sir Sidney Smith from the British government, forbidding the carrying out of the convention unless the French army were treated as prisoners of war; and when these were communicated to Kléber he cancelled the orders previously given to the troops, and proceeded to put the country in a state of defence. His departure with most of the army to attack the Turks at Mataria led to riots in Cairo, in the course of which many Christians were slaughtered; but the national party were unable to get possession of the citadel, and Kléber, having defeated the Turks, was soon able to return to the capital. On the 14th of April he bombarded Bulak, and proceeded to bombard Cairo itself, which was taken the following night. Order was soon restored, and a fine of twelve million francs imposed on the rioters. Murād Bey sought an interview with Kléber and succeeded in obtaining from him the government of Upper Egypt. He died shortly afterwards and was succeeded by Osman Bey al-Bardīsī.
On the 14th of June Kléber was assassinated by a fanatic named Suleiman of Aleppo, said to have been incited to the deed by a Janissary refugee at Jerusalem, who had brought letters to the sheiks of the Azhar, who, however, refused to give him any encouragement. Three of these, nevertheless, were executed by the French as accessories before the fact, and the assassin himself was impaled, after torture, in spite of a promise of pardon having been made to him on condition of his naming his associates. The command of the army then devolved on General J. F. (Baron de) Menou (1750-1810), a man who had professed Islam, and who endeavoured to conciliate the Moslem population by various measures, such as excluding all Christians (with the exception of one Frenchman) from the divan, replacing the Copts who were in government service by Moslems, and subjecting French residents to taxes. Whatever popularity might have been gained by these measures was counteracted by his declaration of a French protectorate over Egypt, which was to count as a French colony.
In the first weeks of March 1801 the English, under Sir R. Abercromby, effected a landing at Aboukir, and proceeded to invest Alexandria, where on the 21st they were attacked by Menou; the French were repulsed, but the EnglishFrench evacuation.commander was mortally wounded in the action. On the 25th fresh reinforcements arrived under Husain, the Kapudan Pasha, or high admiral; and a combined English and Turkish force was sent to take Rosetta. On the 30th of May, General A. D. Belliard, who had been left in charge at Cairo, was assailed on two sides by the British forces under General John Hely Hutchinson (afterwards 2nd earl of Donoughmore), and the Turkish under Yūsuf Pasha; after negotiations Belliard agreed to evacuate Cairo and to sail with his 13,734 troops to France. On the 30th of August, Menou at Alexandria was compelled to accept similar conditions, and his force of 10,000 left for Europe in September. This was the termination of the French occupation of Egypt, of which the chief permanent monument was theDescription de l’Égypte, compiled by the French savants who accompanied the expedition. Further than this, “it brought to the attention of a few men in Egypt a keen sense of the great advantage of an orderly government, and a warm appreciation of the advance that science and learning had made in Europe” (Hajji Browne,Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of to-day, 1907, p. 268).
Soon after the evacuation of Egypt by the French, the country became the scene of more severe troubles, in consequence of the attempts of the Turks to destroy the power of the Mamelukes. In defiance of promises to the British government, orders were transmitted from Constantinople to Husain Pasha, the Turkish high admiral, to ensnare and put to death the principal beys. Invited to an entertainment, they were, according to the Egyptian contemporary historian al-Jabarti, attacked on board the flag-ship; Sir Robert Wilson and M. F. Mengin, however, state that they were fired on, in open boats, in the Bay of Aboukir. They offered an heroic resistance, but were overpowered, andsome killed, some made prisoners; among the last was Osman Bey al-Bardīsī, who was severely wounded. General Hutchinson,British, Turks and Mamelukes.informed of this treachery, immediately assumed threatening measures against the Turks, and in consequence the killed, wounded and prisoners were given up to him. At the same time Yūsuf Pasha arrested all the beys in Cairo, but was shortly compelled by the British to release them. Such was the beginning of the disastrous struggle between the Mamelukes and the Turks.
Mahommed Khosrev was the first Turkish governor of Egypt after the expulsion of the French. The form of government, however, was not the same as that before the French invasion, for the Mamelukes were not reinstated. The pasha, and through him the sultan, endeavoured on several occasions either to ensnare them or to beguile them into submission; but these efforts failing, Mahommed Khosrev took the field, and a Turkish detachment 7000 strong was despatched against them to Damanhur, whither they had descended from Upper Egypt, and was defeated by a small force under al-Alfī; or, as Mengin says, by 800 men commanded by al-Bardīsī, when al-Alfī had left the field. Their ammunition and guns fell into the hands of the Mamelukes.
In March 1803 the British evacuated Alexandria, and Mahommed Bey al-Alfī accompanied them to England to consult respecting the means to be adopted for restoring the former power of the Mamelukes, who meanwhile took Minia and interrupted communication between Upper and Lower Egypt. About six weeks after, the Arnaut (or Albanian) soldiers in the service of Khosrev tumultuously demanded their pay, and surrounded the house of the defterdār (or finance minister), who in vain appealed to the pasha to satisfy their claims. The latter opened fire from the artillery of his palace on the insurgent soldiery in the house of the defterdār, across the Ezbekia. The citizens of Cairo, accustomed to such occurrences, immediately closed their shops, and every man who possessed any weapon armed himself. The tumult continued all the day, and the next morning a body of troops sent out by the pasha failed to quell it. Tāhir, the commander of the Albanians, then repaired to the citadel, gained admittance through an embrasure, and, having obtained possession of it, began to cannonade the pasha over the roofs of the intervening houses, and then descended with guns to the Ezbekia and laid close siege to the palace. On the following day Mahommed Khosrev made good his escape, with his women and servants and his regular troops, and fled to Damietta by the river. This revolt marks the beginning in Egypt of the breach between the Albanians and Turks, which ultimately led to the expulsion of the latter, and of the rise to power of the Albanian Mehemet Ali (q.v.), who was destined to rule the country for nearly forty years and be the cause of serious European complications.
Tāhir Pasha assumed the government, but in twenty-three days he met with his death from exactly the same cause as that of the overthrow of his predecessor. He refused the pay of certain of the Turkish troops, and was immediatelyFirst appearance of Mehemet Ali.assassinated. A desperate conflict ensued between the Albanians and Turks; and the palace was set on fire and plundered. The masters of Egypt were now split into these two factions, animated with the fiercest animosity against each other. Mehemet Ali, then in command of an Albanian regiment, became the head of the former, but his party was the weaker, and he therefore entered into an alliance with the Mameluke leaders Ibrahim Bey and ’Osmān Bey al-Bardīsī. A certain Ahmed Pasha, who was about to proceed to a province in Arabia, of which he had been appointed governor, was raised to the important post of pasha of Egypt, through the influence of the Turks and the favour of the sheiks; but Mehemet Ali, who with his Albanians held the citadel, refused to assent to their choice; the Mamelukes moved over from El-Giza, whither they had been invited by Tāhir Pasha, and Ahmed Pasha betook himself to the mosque of al-Ẓāhir, which the French had converted into a fortress. He was compelled to surrender by the Albanians; the two chiefs of the Turks who killed Tāhir Pasha were taken with him and put to death, and he himself was detained a prisoner. In consequence of the alliance between Mehemet Ali and al-Bardīsī, the Albanians gave the citadel over to the Mamelukes; and soon after, these allies marched against Khosrev Pasha, who having been joined by a considerable body of Turks, and being in possession of Damietta, was enabled to offer an obstinate resistance. After much loss on both sides, he was taken prisoner and brought to Cairo; but he was treated with respect. The victorious soldiery sacked the town of Damietta, and were guilty of the barbarities usual with them on such occasions.
A few days later, Ali Pasha Jazāirli landed at Alexandria with an imperial firmān constituting him pasha of Egypt, and threatened the beys, who now were virtual masters of Upper Egypt, as well as of the capital and nearly the whole of Lower Egypt. Mehemet Ali and al-Bardīsī therefore descended to Rosetta, which had fallen into the hands of a brother of Ali Pasha, and having captured the town and its commander, al-Bardīsī purposed to proceed against Alexandria; but the troops demanded arrears of pay which it was not in his power to give, and the pasha had cut the dyke between the lakes of Aboukir and Mareotis, thus rendering the approach to Alexandria more difficult. Al-Bardīsī and Mehemet Ali therefore returned to Cairo. The troubles of Egypt were now increased by an insufficient inundation, and great scarcity prevailed, aggravated by the taxation to which the beys were compelled to resort in order to pay the troops; while murder and rapine prevailed in the capital, the riotous soldiery being under little or no control. Meanwhile, Ali Pasha, who had been behaving with violence towards the Franks in Alexandria, received ahatt-i-sheriffrom the sultan, which he sent by his secretary to Cairo. It announced that the beys should live peaceably in Egypt, with an annual pension each of fifteen purses (a “purse” = 500 piastres) and other privileges, but that the government should be in the hands of the pasha. To this the beys assented, but with considerable misgivings; for they had intercepted letters from Ali to the Albanians, endeavouring to alienate them from their side to his own. Deceptive answers were returnedThe Mamelukes and Ali Pasha.to these, and Ali was induced by them to advance towards Cairo at the head of 3000 men. The forces of the beys, with the Albanians, encamped near him at Shalakān, and he fell back on a place called Zufeyta. They next seized his boats conveying soldiers, servants, and his ammunition and baggage; and, following him, they demanded wherefore he brought with him so numerous a body of men, in opposition to usage and to their previous warning. Finding they would not allow his troops to advance, forbidden himself to retreat with them to Alexandria, and being surrounded by the enemy, he would have hazarded a battle, but his men refused to fight. He therefore went to the camp of the beys, and his army was compelled to retire to Syria. In the hands of the beys Ali Pasha again attempted treachery. A horseman was seen to leave his tent one night at full gallop; he was the bearer of a letter to Osmān Bey Hasan, the governor of Kine. This offered a fair pretext to the Mamelukes to rid themselves of a man proved to be a perfidious tyrant. He was sent under a guard of forty-five men towards the Syrian frontier; and about a week after, news was received that in a skirmish with some of his own soldiers he had fallen mortally wounded.
The death of Ali Pasha produced only temporary tranquillity; in a few days (February 12, 1804) the return of Mahommed Bey al-Alfī (called the Great) from England was the signal for fresh disturbances, which, by splitting the Mamelukes into two parties, accelerated their final overthrow. An ancient jealousy existed between al-Alfī and the other most powerful bey, al-Bardīsī. The latter was now supreme among the Mamelukes, and this fact considerably heightened their old enmity. While the guns of the citadel, those at Old Cairo, and even those of the palace of al-Bardīsī, were thrice fired in honour of al-Alfī, preparations were immediately begun to oppose him. His partisans were collected opposite Cairo, and al-Alfī the Less held Giza; but treachery was among them; Husain Bey (a relative of al-Alfī)was assassinated by emissaries of al-Bardīsī, and Mehemet Ali, with his Albanians, gained possession of Giza, which was, as usual, given over to the troops to pillage. In the meanwhile al-Alfī the Great embarked at Rosetta, and not apprehending opposition, was on his way to Cairo, when a little south of the town of Manūf he encountered a party of Albanians, and with difficulty made his escape. He gained the eastern branch of the Nile, but the river had become dangerous, and he fled to the desert. There he had several hairbreadth escapes, and at last secreted himself among a tribe of Arabs at Rās al-Wādī. A change in the fortune of al-Bardīsī, however, favoured his plans for the future. That chief, in order to satisfy the demands of the Albanians for their pay, gave orders to levy heavy contributions from the citizens of Cairo; and this new oppression roused them to rebellion. The Albanians, alarmed for their safety, assured the populace that they would not allow the order to be executed; and Mehemet Ali himself caused a proclamation to be made to that effect. Thus the Albanians became the favourites of the people, and took advantage of their opportunity. Three days later (March 12th, 1804) they beset the house of the aged Ibrahim Bey, and that of al-Bardīsī, both of whom effected their escape with difficulty. The Mamelukes in the citadel directed a fire of shot and shell on the houses of the Albanians which were situated in the Ezbekīa; but, on hearing of the flight of their chiefs, they evacuated the place; and Mehemet Ali, on gaining possession of it, once more proclaimed Mahommed Khosrev pasha of Egypt. For one day and a half he enjoyed the title; the friends of the late Tāhir Pasha then accomplished his second degradation,22and Cairo was again the scene of terrible enormities, the Albanians revelling in the houses of the Mameluke chiefs, whose hareems met with no mercy at their hands. These events were the signal for the reappearance of al-Alfī.
The Albanians now invited Ahmed Pasha Khorshīd to assume the reins of government, and he without delay proceeded from Alexandria to Cairo. The forces of the partisans of al-Bardīsī were ravaging the country a few miles south of the capital and intercepting the supplies of corn by the river; a little later they passed to the north of Cairo and successively took Bilbeis and Kalyub, plundering the villages, destroying the crops, and slaughtering the herds of the inhabitants. Cairo was itself in a state of tumult, suffering severely from a scarcity of grain, and the heavy exactions of the pasha to meet the demands of his turbulent troops, at that time augmented by a Turkish detachment. The shops were closed, and the unfortunate people assembled in great crowds, crying “Yā Latīf! Yā Latīf!” (“O Gracious [God]!”) Al-Alfī and Osmān Bey Hasan had professed allegiance to the pasha; but they soon after declared against him, and they were now approaching from the south; and having repulsed Mehemet Ali, they took the two fortresses of Turā. These Mehemet Ali speedily retook by night with 4000 infantry and cavalry; but the enterprise was only partially successful. On the following day the other Mamelukes north of the metropolis actually penetrated into the suburbs; but a few days later were defeated in a battle fought at Shubra, with heavy loss on both sides. This reverse in a measure united the two great Mameluke parties, though their chiefs remained at enmity. Al-Bardīsī passed to the south of Cairo, and the Mamelukes gradually retreated towards Upper Egypt. Thither the pasha despatched three successive expeditions (one of which was commanded by Mehemet Ali), and many battles were fought, but without decisive result.
At this period another calamity befell Egypt; about 3000 Delīs (Kurdish troops) arrived in Cairo from Syria. These troops had been sent for by Khorshīd in order to strengthen himself against the Albanians; and the events of this portion of the history afford sad proof of their ferocity and brutal enormities, in which they far exceeded the ordinary Turkish soldiers and even the Albanians. Their arrival immediately recalled Mehemet Ali and his party from the war, and instead of aiding Khorshīd was the proximate cause of his overthrow.
Cairo was ripe for revolt; the pasha was hated for his tyranny and extortion, and execrated for the deeds of his troops, especially those of the Delīs: the sheiks enjoined the people to close their shops, and the soldiers clamoured for pay. At this juncture a firmān arrived from Constantinople conferring on Mehemet Ali the pashalic of Jedda; but the occurrences of a few days raised him to that of Egypt.
On the 12th of Safar 1220 (May 12th, 1805) the sheiks, with an immense concourse of the inhabitants, assembled in the house of the ḳāḍī; and the ulemā, amid the prayers and cries of the people, wrote a full statement of the heavyStruggle between Khorshīd and Mehemet Ali.wrongs which they had endured under the administration of the pasha. The ulemā, in answer, were desired to go to the citadel; but they were apprised of treachery; and on the following day, having held another council at the house of the ḳāḍī, they proceeded to Mehemet Ali and informed him that the people would no longer submit to Khorshīd. “Then whom will ye have?” said he. “We will havethee,” they replied, “to govern us according to the laws; for we see in thy countenance that thou art possessed of justice and goodness.” Mehemet Ali seemed to hesitate, and then complied, and was at once invested. On this, a bloody struggle began between the two pashas. Khorshīd, being informed of the insurrection, immediately prepared to stand a siege in the citadel. Two chiefs of the Albanians joined his party, but many of his soldiers deserted. Mehemet Ali’s great strength lay in the devotion of the citizens of Cairo, who looked on him as a deliverer from their afflictions; and great numbers armed themselves, advising constantly with Mehemet Ali, having the sayyid Omar and the sheiks at their head, and guarding the town at night. On the 19th of the same month Mehemet Ali began to besiege Khorshīd. After the siege had continued many days, Khorshīd gave orders to cannonade and bombard the town; and for six days his commands were executed with little interruption, the citadel itself also lying between two fires. Mehemet Ali’s position at this time was very critical: his troops became mutinous for their pay; the silāhdār, who had commanded one of the expeditions against the Mamelukes, advanced to the relief of Khorshīd; and the latter ordered the Delīs to march to his assistance. The firing ceased on the Friday, but began again on the eve of Saturday and lasted until the next Friday. On the day following (May 28th) news came of the arrival at Alexandria of a messenger from Constantinople. The ensuing night in Cairo presented a curious spectacle; many of the inhabitants, believing that this envoy would put an end to their miseries, fired off their weapons as they paraded the streets with bands of music. The silāhdār, imagining the noise to be a fray, marched in haste towards the citadel, while its garrison sallied forth and began throwing up entrenchments in the quarter of Arab al-Yesār, but were repulsed by the armed inhabitants and the soldiers stationed there; and during all this time the cannonade and bombardment from the citadel, and on it from the batteries on the hill, continued unabated.
The envoy brought a firmān confirming Mehemet Ali and ordering Khorshīd to go to Alexandria, there to await further orders; but this he refused to do, on the ground that he had been appointed by ahatt-i-sherīf. The firingMehemet Ali granted the pashalic.ceased on the following day, but the troubles of the people were rather increased than assuaged; murders and robberies were daily committed by the soldiery, the shops were all shut and some of the streets barricaded. While these scenes were being enacted, al-Alfī was besieging Damanhur, and the other beys were returning towards Cairo, Khorshīd having called them to his assistance; but Mehemet Ali forced them to retreat.
Soon after this, a squadron under the command of the Turkish high admiral arrived at Aboukir Bay, with despatches confirming the firmān brought by the former envoy, and authorizingMehemet Ali to continue to discharge the functions of governor. Khorshīd at first refused to yield; but at length, on condition that his troops should be paid, he evacuated the citadel and embarked for Rosetta.
Mehemet Ali now possessed the title of Governor of Egypt, but beyond the walls of Cairo his authority was everywhere disputed by the beys, who were joined by the army of the silāhdār of Khorshīd; and many Albanians deserted from his ranks. To replenish his empty coffers he was also compelled to levy exactions, principally from the Copts. An attempt was made to ensnare certain of the beys, who were encamped north of Cairo. On the 17th of August 1805 the dam of the canal of Cairo was to be cut, and some chiefs of Mehemet Ali’s party wrote, informing them that he would go forth early on that morning with most of his troops to witness the ceremony, inviting them to enter and seize the city, and, to deceive them, stipulating for a certain sum of money as a reward. The dam, however, was cut early in the preceding night, without any ceremony. On the following morning, these beys, with their Mamelukes, a very numerous body, broke open the gate of the suburb al-Husainia, and gained admittance into the city from the north, through the gate called Bāb el-Futūḥ. They marched along the principal street for some distance, with kettle-drums behind each company, and were received with apparent joy by the citizens. At the mosque called the Ashrafia they separated, one party proceeding to the Azhar and the houses of certain sheiks, and the other continuing along the main street, and through the gate called Bāb Zuwēla, where they turned up towards the citadel. Here they were fired on by some soldiers from the houses; and with this signal a terrible massacre began. Falling back towards their companions, they found the bye-streets closed; and in that part of the main thoroughfare called Bain al-Kasrain they were suddenly placed between two fires. Thus shut up in a narrow street, some sought refuge in the collegiate mosque Barkukia, while the remainder fought their way through their enemies and escaped over the city-wall with the loss of their horses. Two Mamelukes had in the meantime succeeded, by great exertions, in giving the alarm to their comrades in the quarter of the Azhar, who escaped by the eastern gate called Bāb al-Ghoraib. A horrible fate awaited those who had shut themselves up in the Barkukia. Having begged for quarterFirst massacre of the Mamelukes.and surrendered, they were immediately stripped nearly naked, and about fifty were slaughtered on the spot; and about the same number were dragged away, with every brutal aggravation of their pitiful condition, to Mehemet Ali. Among them were four beys, one of whom, driven to madness by Mehemet Ali’s mockery, asked for a drink of water; his hands were untied that he might take the bottle, but he snatched a dagger from one of the soldiers, rushed at the pasha, and fell covered with wounds. The wretched captives were then chained and left in the court of the pasha’s house; and on the following morning the heads of their comrades who had perished the day before were skinned and stuffed with straw before their eyes. One bey and two others paid their ransom and were released; the rest, without exception, were tortured and put to death in the course of the ensuing night. Eighty-three heads (many of them those of Frenchmen and Albanians) were stuffed and sent to Constantinople, with a boast that the Mameluke chiefs were utterly destroyed. Thus ended Mehemet Ali’s first massacre of his too confiding enemies.
The beys, after this, appear to have despaired of regaining their ascendancy; most of them retreated to Upper Egypt, and an attempt at compromise failed. Al-Alfī offered his submission on the condition of the cession of the Fayum and other provinces; but this was refused, and that chief gained two successive victories over the pasha’s troops, many of whom deserted to him.
At length, in consequence of the remonstrances of the English, and a promise made by al-Alfī of 1500 purses, the Porte consented to reinstate the twenty-four beys and to place al-Alfī at their head; but this measure met with the opposition of Mehemet Ali and the determined resistance of the majority of the Mamelukes, who, rather than have al-Alfī at their head, preferred their present condition; for the enmity of al-Bardīsī had not subsided, and he commanded the voice of most of the other beys. In pursuance of the above plan, a squadron under Sālih Pasha, shortly before appointed high admiral, arrived at Alexandria on the 1st of July 1806 with 3000 regular troops and a successor to Mehemet Ali, who was to receive the pashalik of Salonica. This wily chief professed his willingness to obey the commands of the Porte, but stated that his troops, to whom he owed a vast sum of money, opposed his departure. He induced the ulemā to sign a letter, praying the sultan to revoke the command for reinstating the beys, persuaded the chiefs of the Albanian troops to swear allegiance to him, and sent 2000 purses contributed by them to Constantinople. Al-Alfī was at that time besieging Damanhur, and he gained a signal victory over the pasha’s troops; but the dissensions of the beys destroyed their last chance of a return to power. Al-Alfī and his partisans were unable to pay the sum promised to the Porte; Sālih Pasha received plenipotentiary powers from Constantinople, in consequence of the letter from the ulemā; and, on the condition of Mehemet Ali’s paying 4000 purses to the Porte, it was decided that he should continue in his post, and the reinstatement of the beys was abandoned. Fortune continued to favour the pasha. In the following month al-Bardīsī died, aged forty-eight years; and soon after, a scarcity of provisions excited the troops of al-Alfī to revolt. That bey very reluctantly raised the siege of Damanhur, being in daily expectation of the arrival of an English army; and at the village of Shubra-ment he was attacked by a sudden illness, and died on the 30th of January 1807, at the age of fifty-five. Thus was the pasha relieved of his two most formidable enemies; and shortly after he defeated Shāhīn Bey, with the loss to the latter of his artillery and baggage and 300 men killed or taken prisoners.
On the 17th of March 1807 a British fleet appeared off Alexandria, having on board nearly 5000 troops, under the command of General A. Mackenzie Fraser; and the place, being disaffected towards Mehemet Ali, opened itsThe British expedition of 1807.gates to them. Here they first heard of the death of al-Alfī, upon whose co-operation they had founded their chief hopes of success; and they immediately despatched messengers to his successor and to the other beys, inviting them to Alexandria. The British resident, Major Missett, having represented the importance of taking Rosetta and Rahmanieh, to secure supplies for Alexandria, General Fraser, with the concurrence of the admiral, Sir John Duckworth, detached the 31st regiment and the Chasseurs Britanniques, accompanied by some field artillery under Major-General Wauchope and Brigadier-General Meade, on this service; and these troops entered Rosetta without encountering any opposition; but as soon as they had dispersed among the narrow streets, the garrison opened a deadly fire on them from the latticed windows and the roofs of the houses. They effected a retreat on Aboukir and Alexandria, after a very heavy loss of 185 killed and 281 wounded, General Wauchope and three officers being among the former, and General Meade and nineteen officers among the latter. The heads of the slain were fixed on stakes on each side of the road crossing the Ezbekīa in Cairo.
Mehemet Ali, meanwhile, was conducting an expedition against the beys in Upper Egypt, and he had defeated them near Assiut, when he heard of the arrival of the British. In great alarm lest the beys should join them, especially as they were far north of his position, he immediately sent messengers to his rivals, promising to comply with all their demands if they should join in expelling the invaders; and this proposal being agreed to, both armies marched towards Cairo on opposite sides of the river.
To return to the unfortunate British expedition. The possession of Rosetta being deemed indispensable, Brigadier-Generals Sir William Stewart and Oswald were despatched thither with 2500 men. For thirteen days a cannonade of the town was continued without effect; and on the 20th of April, news having come in from the advanced guard at Hamād of largereinforcements to the besieged, General Stewart was compelled to retreat; and a dragoon was despatched to Lieutenant-colonel Macleod, commanding at Hamād, with orders to fall back. The messenger, however, was unable to penetrate to the spot; and the advanced guard, consisting of a detachment of the 31st, two companies of the 78th, one of the 35th, and De Roll’s regiment, with a picquet of dragoons, the whole mustering 733 men, was surrounded, and, after a gallant resistance, the survivors, who had expended all their ammunition, became prisoners of war. General Stewart regained Alexandria with the remainder of his force, having lost, in killed, wounded and missing, nearly 900 men. Some hundreds of British heads were now exposed on stakes in Cairo, and the prisoners were marched between these mutilated remains of their countrymen.
The beys became divided in their wishes, one party being desirous of co-operating with the British, the other with the pasha. These delays proved ruinous to their cause; and General Fraser, despairing of their assistance, evacuated Alexandria on the 14th of September. From that date to the spring of 1811 the beys from time to time relinquished certain of their demands; the pasha on his part granted them what before had been withheld; the province of the Fayum, and part of those of Giza and Benī-Suef, were ceded to Shāhīn; and a great portion of the Sa‘īd, on the condition of paying the land-tax, to the others. Many of them took up their abode in Cairo, but tranquillity was not secured; several times they met the pasha’s forces in battle and once gained a signal victory. Early in the year 1811, the preparations for an expedition against the Wahhābīs in Arabia being complete, all the Mameluke beys then in Cairo were invited to the ceremony of investing Mehemet Ali’s favourite son, Tūsūn, with a pelisse and the command of the army. As on the former occasion, the unfortunate Mamelukes fell into the snare. On the 1st of March, Shāhīn Bey and the other chiefs (one only excepted) repaired with their retinues to the citadel, and were courteously received by the pasha. Having taken coffee, they formed in procession, and, preceded and followed by the pasha’s troops, slowly descended the steep and narrow road leading to the great gate of the citadel; but as soon as the Mamelukes arrived at the gate it was suddenly closed before them. The last of those to leave before the gate was shut were Albanians under Sālih Kush. To these troops their chief now made known the pasha’s orders to massacre all the Mamelukes within the citadel; therefore, having returnedFinal massacre of the Mamelukes.by another way, they gained the summits of the walls and houses that hem in the road in which the Mamelukes were confined, and some stationed themselves upon the eminences of the rock through which that road is partly cut. Thus securely placed, they began a heavy fire on their victims; and immediately the troops who closed the procession, and who had the advantage of higher ground, followed their example. Of the betrayed chiefs, many were laid low in a few moments; some, dismounting, and throwing off their outer robes, vainly sought, sword in hand, to return, and escape by some other gate. The few who regained the summit of the citadel experienced the same fate as the rest, for no quarter was given. Four hundred and seventy Mamelukes entered the citadel; and of these very few, if any, escaped. One of these is said to have been a bey. According to some, he leapt his horse from the ramparts, and alighted uninjured, though the horse was killed by the fall; others say that he was prevented from joining his comrades, and discovered the treachery while waiting without the gate. He fled and made his way to Syria. This massacre was the signal for an indiscriminate slaughter of the Mamelukes throughout Egypt, orders to this effect being transmitted to every governor; and in Cairo itself the houses of the beys were given over to the soldiery. During the two following days the pasha and his son Tūsūn rode about the streets and tried to stop the atrocities; but order was not restored until 500 houses had been completely pillaged. The heads of the beys were sent to Constantinople.
A remnant of the Mamelukes fled to Nubia, and a tranquillity was restored to Egypt to which it had long been unaccustomed. In the year following the massacre the unfortunate exiles were attacked by Ibrahim Pasha, the eldest son of Mehemet Ali, in the fortified town of Ibrīm, in Nubia. Here the want of provisions forced them to evacuate the place; a few who surrendered were beheaded, and the rest went farther south and built the town of New Dongola (correctly Dunkulah), where the venerable Ibrahim Bey died in 1816, at the age of eighty. As their numbers thinned, they endeavoured to maintain their little power by training some hundreds of blacks; but again, on the approach of Ismail, another son of the pasha of Egypt, sent with an army in 1820 to subdue Nubia and Sennār, some returned to Egypt and settled in Cairo, while the rest, amounting to about 100 persons, fled in dispersed parties to the countries adjacent to Sennār.
See A. A Paton,History of the Egyptian Revolution(2 vols., 2nd ed., enlarged 1870); andFrench Revolutionary Wars.
See A. A Paton,History of the Egyptian Revolution(2 vols., 2nd ed., enlarged 1870); andFrench Revolutionary Wars.
(E. S. P.; S. L.-P.; D. S. M.*)
3.Modern History.
(1)Rule of Mehemet Ali.—Mehemet Ali was now undisputed master of Egypt, and his efforts henceforth were directed primarily to the maintenance of his practical independence. The suzerainty of the sultan he acknowledged, and at the reiterated commands of the Porte he despatched in 1811 an army of 8000 men, including 2000 horse, under the command of his son Tūsūn, a youth of sixteen, against the Wahhābīs (q.v.). After a successful advance, this force met with a serious repulse at the pass of Jedeida, near Safra, and retreated to Yembo’ (Yambu). In the following year Tūsūn, having received reinforcements, again assumed the offensive, and captured Medīna after a prolonged siege. He next took Jidda and Mecca, defeating the Wahhābīs beyond the latter place and capturing their general. But some mishaps followed, and Mehemet Ali, who had determined to conduct the war in person, left Egypt for that purpose in the summer of 1813. In Arabia he encountered serious obstacles from the nature of the country and the harassing mode ofWars in Arabia.warfare adopted by his adversaries. His arms met with various fortunes; but on the whole his forces proved superior to those of the enemy. He deposed and exiled the sharif of Mecca, and after the death of the Wahhābī leader Saud II. he concluded in 1815 a treaty with Saud’s son and successor, Abdullah. Hearing of the escape of Napoleon from Elba—and fearing danger to Egypt from the plans of France or Great Britain—Mehemet Ali returned to Cairo by way of Kosseir and Kena. He reached the capital on the day of the battle of Waterloo. His return was hastened by reports that the Turks, whose cause he was upholding in Arabia, were treacherously planning an invasion of Egypt.
During Mehemet Ali’s absence in Arabia his representative at Cairo had completed the confiscation, begun in 1808, of almost all the lands belonging to private individuals, who were forced to accept instead inadequate pensions. By this revolutionary method of land “nationalization” Mehemet Ali became proprietor of nearly all the soil of Egypt, an iniquitous measure against which the Egyptians had no remedy. The attempt which in this year (1815) the pasha made to reorganize his troops on European lines led, however, to a formidable mutiny in Cairo. Mehemet Ali’s life was endangered, and he sought refuge by night in the citadel, while the soldiery committed many acts of plunder. The revolt was reduced by presents to the chiefs of the insurgents, and Mehemet Ali ordered that the sufferers by the disturbances should receive compensation from the treasury. The project of theNizām Gedid(New System), as the European system was called, was, in consequence of this mutiny, abandoned for a time.
Tūsūn returned to Egypt on hearing of the military revolt at Cairo, but died in 1816 at the early age of twenty. Mehemet Ali, dissatisfied with the treaty concluded with the Wahhābīs, and with the non-fulfilment of certain of its clauses, determined to send another army to Arabia, and to include in it the soldiers who had recently proved unruly. This expedition, under his eldest son Ibrahim Pasha, left in the autumn of 1816. The war was long and arduous, but in 1818 Ibrahim captured the Wahhābī capital of Deraiya. Abdullah, their chief, was made prisoner,and with his treasurer and secretary was sent to Constantinople, where, in spite of Ibrahim’s promise of safety, and of Mehemet Ali’s intercession in their favour, they were put to death. At the close of the year 1819, Ibrahim returned to Cairo, having subdued all present opposition in Arabia.
Meanwhile the pasha had turned his attention to the improvement of the manufactures of Egypt, and engaged very largely in commerce. He created for himself a monopoly in the chief products of the country, to the further impoverishment of the people, and set up and kept going for years factories which never paid. But some of his projects were sound. The work of digging (1819-1820) the new canal of Alexandria, called the Mahmudiya (after the reigning sultan of Turkey), was specially important. The old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity of a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. Such was the object of the canal then excavated, and it answered its purpose; but the sacrifice of life was enormous (fully 20,000 workmen perished), and the labour of the unhappy fellahin was forced. Another notable fact in the economic progress of the country was the development of the cultivation of cotton in the Delta in 1822 and onwards. The cotton grown had been brought from the Sudan by Maho Bey, and the organization of the new industry—from which in a few years Mehemet Ali was enabled to extract considerable revenues—was entrusted to a Frenchman named Jumel.
In 1820 Mehemet Ali ordered the conquest of the eastern Sudan to be undertaken. He first sent an expedition westward (Feb. 1820) which conquered and annexed the oasis of Siwa. Among the pasha’s reasons for wishing toConquest of the Sudan begun.extend his rule southward were the desire to capture the valuable caravan trade then going towards the Red Sea, and to secure the rich gold mines which he believed to exist in Sennār. He also saw in the campaign a means of getting rid of the disaffected troops, and of obtaining a sufficient number of captives to form the nucleus of the new army. The forces destined for this service were led by Ismail, then the youngest son of Mehemet Ali; they consisted of between 4000 and 5000 men, Turks and Arabs, and left Cairo in July 1820. Nubia at once submitted, the Shagia Arabs immediately beyond the province of Dongola were worsted, the remnant of the Mamelukes dispersed, and Sennār reduced without a battle. Mahommed Bey, the defterdār, with another force of about the same strength, was then sent by Mehemet Ali against Kordofan with a like result, but not without a hard-fought engagement. In October 1822 Ismail was, with his retinue, burnt to death by Nimr, themek(king) of Shendi; and the defterdār, a man infamous for his cruelty, assumed the command of those provinces, and exacted terrible retribution from the innocent inhabitants. Khartum was founded at this time, and in the following years the rule of the Egyptians was largely extended and control obtained of the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa (seeSudan:History).
In 1824 a native rebellion of a religious character broke out in Upper Egypt headed by one Aḥmad, an inhabitant of Es-Sālimiya, a village situated a few miles above Thebes. He proclaimed himself a prophet, and was soon followed by between 20,000 and 30,000 insurgents, mostly peasants, but some of them deserters from the “Nizām Gedid,” for that force was yet in a half-organized state, and in part declared for the impostor. The insurrection was crushed by Mehemet Ali, and about one-fourth of Ahmad’s followers perished, but he himself escaped and was never after heard of. Few of these unfortunates possessed any other weapon than the long staff (nebbut) of the Egyptian peasant; still they offered an obstinate resistance, and the combat in which they were defeated resembled a massacre. This movement was the last internal attempt to destroy the pasha’s authority.
The fellahin, a patient, long-suffering race save when stirred by religious fanaticism, submitted to the kurbash, freely used by the Turkish and Bashi Bazuk tax-gatherers employed by Mehemet Ali to enforce hisSufferings of the fellahin.system of taxation, monopolies, corvée and conscription. Under this régime the resources of the country were impoverished, while the finances fell into complete and incomprehensible chaos.
A vivid picture of the condition to which Egypt was reduced is painted in the report drawn up in 1838 by the British consul-general, Colonel Campbell:—