Cultural Appropriation

In 1826 Muhammad 'Ali sent a delegation to France to study European languages and science. One delegate, Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, thought it right for Islam to recover European advances in science since the renaissance because their foundations were built on medieval Islamic ideas.

The accredited photograph by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

Al-Tahtawi controversially praised constitutional government built on justice, equity and the happiness of the people, ideals that were unfamiliar in Islamic tradition. He also praised upward mobility which also had no place in the hierachical society of Ottoman Egypt. Newspapers were unknown in the Arab world. Al-Tahtawi even supported the 1830 revolution of Charles X and the people's right to overturn their monarch to preserve their legal rights. The book Al-Tahtawi produced was a masterpiece and a catalyst for Ottoman and Arab reform in the 19th century.

Europe had surpassed the Ottomans in military and economic might although they still assumed their culture to be superior. Reform was accepted as being necessary to avoid being overrun by the European threat. They wanted steamships, telegraph and railways. However, reform led to unpaid debts and that gave Europe more leverage over the Ottoman Empire. To delegate spending, a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament was set-up between 1839 and 1876 - this period was called Tanzimat 'reordering'. Corporal punishment was curbed and torture were abolished and an annual budget regularized the empire's finances. An annual census and land registry were introduced to increase tax revenues which led to the advent of elementary schools to train thousands of the civil servants required. Attempts were also made to reconcile Islamic law with European legal norms.

Europeans used religion to meddle in Ottoman affairs. Unbelievably, the Crimean War 1854-1855, had its roots in who got the keys to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Catholic or Greek Orthodox monks. The French backed the Catholics, the Russians the Greeks and the rest is history. In order to avoid European interference, government attempted to confer equality between Muslims and non-Muslims which got them in trouble with with The Qur'an. However following Crimea, at the risk of public outrage, the 1856 Reform Decree established complete equality of all Ottoman subjects, regardless of faith. The reform risked provoking rebellion against the government and violence between its subjects. Muhammad 'Ali did it in egypt in 1820 and the Ottoman's thought they could manage it too.

Muslims attacked Christians in Aleppo in October, 1850, resentful of their commercial contacts in Europe. Returning Druze fought the Maronites in Mount Lebanon supported respectively by the British and the French. In 1860, the Druze forces utterly destroyed the Christians.

A Druze woman wearing a tantour.

The Christian annihilation on Mount Lebanon put Damascus Christians in danger. Christian refugees, fleeing Druze bands, littered the lanes around churches. In July, 1860, communal violence saw a reported 5,000 Christians killed from an original population of 20,000. Rape, burning of property and looting were widespread. This provoked Napoleon III to send a military expedition to protect Christians. So the plan to discourage European intervention failed. Retributions against the Damascus perpetrators were put in place by the Ottomans, including a death sentence for the governor, in order to divert the French. Commissions were set up to compensate Christians. It was a brilliant response to deal with French grievances before they arrived on Syrian soil.

The Ottomans subsequently refused the British demands to abolish slavery since contravening the Qur'an had proved so disastrous. Instead they opposed the slave-trade which the Qur'an is silent on. The local economy and social welfare were the keys to Ottoman hearts and the only way to make Tanzimat pallatable. Electric trams for example would boost public pride and sway opinion towards reform.

Damascus tram in 1920.

In Egypt, the British were granted the concession to build the Alexandria toCairo railway which opened 1856. Then of course came the concession for the Suez Canal which went to the French. The British, who would be using the canal to get to its territories in India, objected to the free labour offered in the concession. When free labour was withdrawn, Napoleon II demanded 84 million francs compensation (about $33.5 million in 1864).

In 1861 the American Civil War saw cotton prices soar and Egypt's annual income rose from £1,000,000 in the early 1850s to £11,500,000 in the mid-1860s.

Ismail Pasha wanted to surpass the Ottomans and sought to remake his capital Cairo in the image of Paris to mark the opening of Suez. Each new concession made Egypt more vulnerable to European

The Alexandria to Cairo railway opened in 1956 

domination and the coffers were being emptied. Tunisia was following exactly the same path. He formed a Nizami army equipped with modern weapons. Khayr al-Din, one of the last Maluks to rise from slavery to the peak of power was trained by that army. He echoed al-Tahtawi's assertion that Europe's debt to medieval Islamic science justified borrowings. he strived for vertical integration for the cotton and silk industries and watched in vain as national funds were frittered away.

Trying to keep up with Europe cost the Ottoman Empire and made it more reliant on European creditors. Khayr al-Din recommended spending within their means. Ahmad Bey was a spendthrift, vain leader. In Egypt a Consultative Council of Deputies, comprised of landed notables in 1866, saw a broader participation in affairs of state emerging.

Debt to Europe destroyed the Ottoman Empire, caused ironically by it's attempt to keep up with European technological and societal advances. An agreement with European debtors saw the Ottomans lose control of their finances in 1881 with the Ottoman Public Debt Administration which effectively opened the Ottoman economy to companies from Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands for railways, mining and public works. Egypt was the last to go bankrupt in 1876 but ahead of that date, the government had attempted to staunch the haemorrhage by selling its shares in Suez to the British in 1875 for £4 million ($22 million).

'Over time, informal imperial control hardened into direct colonial rule, as the whole of North Africa was partitioned and distributed among the growing empires of Europe.'

British troops at the base of the Sphinx at the Great Pyramids in Giza in 1882.

Generalissimo Ibrahim Pasha

France was getting worryingly cosy with Egypt and British concerns over the land/sea route to India were growing around 1827. Not wishing to get in to any more expensive wars with the French, maintaining the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire seemed like a better way of preserving the peace. The British decided that supporting Greek claims for greater autonomy was the best solution, as neither the Ottomans nor Egypt were capable of retaining Greece on their own and it was already a drain on their resources.

On 27 October, 1827, the British and French allied fleet sank 78 Ottoman and Egyptian ships and killed over 1,000 Ottoman and Egyptian men. The Kingdom of Greece was established by France, Russia and Britain in London, May 1832. Muhammad 'Ali no longer sought Sultan Mahmud's favour after the defeat (which he blamed the sultan for) and would pursue his own objectives at the sultan's expense.

Muhammad 'Ali had had his eye on Syria since 1811 and the Porte reneged on irs promise to make him Governor in return for defending Greece against the allied fleet. In 1832 Muhammad lay siege to the unassailable city of Acre amidst terrible scenes of slaughter and the constant bellow of deafening artillery. It took six months to blast through the walls of the fortress of Acre and once breached the invasion was over quickly. Only 350 defenders survived to great the invaders.

Ibrahim Pasha then headed for Damascus. 10,000 civilians were press-ganged to defend the city, and knowing civilians would run at the first shot, the Egyptians fired over their heads and so it happened.

Ibrahim Pasha forbade looting and charged his army to respect the townspeople. Ibrahim Pasha then mearched 16,000 men, 43 cannons and 3,000 transport camels towards Homs. On 8 July, the Egyptians engaged the Ottoman army for the first time and gained a decisive victory. One day after the battle Ibrahim Pash marched on Aleppo to complete his conquest of Syria. The city surrender without resisting the Egyptian army. There was a another battle with the remainder of the Ottoman army which, although out-numbered, Ibrahim Pasha's forces won. The Egyptians made it to the port of Adana where Egyptian ships could resupply his exhausted army. It is impossible to imagine now the stamina, strength and valour of those fighting men.

On hearing of his son's victories, Muhammad 'Ali sought to validate his acquisitions. The Ottomans mobilized an army of 80,000 men to drive the Egyptians back where they came from. Ibrahim Pasha marched to the Anatolian Plateau to meet the Ottomans. Used to deserts, the snow and freezing temperatures put the Egyptians at a disadvantage. Even so, the unwilling conscripts of the Egyptian army were the more disciplined army and they secured total victory over the Ottoman troops in the Battle of Konya (21 December, 1832). As a result, the sultan capitulated to most of Muhammad 'Ali's demands.

The Anatolian Plateau as it is today.

In the space of a few years, Muhammad 'Ali had secured an empire to rival the Ottomans.

However, taxation and conscription and cultural change made the Syrians despise Egyptian rule. Further fighting followed when Europe supported the Turks after Muhammad 'Ali announced his intention to secede Syria from Ottoman rule, but the German trained Nizami were routed by Ibrahim Pasha's supposedly exhausted 'peasant army' of conscripts near Aleppo on 24 June, 1839. The Sultan died and was replaced by his adolescent son so admiral Ahmed Fevzi Pasha sailed across the Mediterranean to join Mumhammad 'Ali to stop his fleet falling into Russian hands.

Europe was worried the power vacuum would allow the Russians to seize the Bosporus and Dardanelles allowing its fleet access to the Mediterranean. The British and Austrians told Muhammad 'Ali to leave Syria in return for Damascus but he refused, counting on French support. Following a naval victory for the Europeans, Ibrahim Pasha withdrew from Syria to Egypt overland in January 1841.

After the the British Prie Minister Lord Palmerston effectively arranged four decades of protection against European designs on Ottoman territory in a secret appendix to the London Convention of 1940.

After nearly 40 years in power Egyptian coinage still bore the head of the Sultan. Muhammad 'Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha were both dead by 1850 and Muhammad 'Ali's grandson Abbas came to power.

Challenges to their Empire made the Ottomans seek outside help from Europe but Europe had already become the dominant world power.

Napoleon in Egypt & the Crafty Albanian

On the morning of July 1 1798, after ignoring a warning from the British navy (Admiral Horatio Nelson) in June, Alexandria was invaded by Napoleon at the head of a massive invasion force.

Battle of the Pyramids where Napoleon's force of 25,000 fought off 100,00 Mamluks

Meeting no resistance, Napoleon secured Alexandria and headed for Cairo. The gallant Mamluk calvalry engaged the French with swords but were systematically mowed down by highly efficient French infantry men before they were even within striking distance. Egyptian eyewitnesses claim the battle was over in less than an hour.

The occupation of Cairo was a French 'civilising mission' which introduced the technology of the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment in order to win Egyptiians over to the benefits of French rule.

Unfortunately, Egypt's Muslim majority rejected Napoleons exercise of human reason over revealed religion. When a Montgolfier hot-air balloon was launched it crashed causing still more sceptism in the natives about French superiority.

Napoleon's intentions were of course strategic. He wanted Egypt in order to stop England's land-sea route to India via Egypt and the Red Sea. By August, Nelson caught up with the French navy and destroyed it in the Battle of the Nile. The French lost 1,700 men.

Napoleon's flagship l'Orient explodes during the Battle of the Nile by William Lionel Wyllie

 20,000 French soldiers were stranded in Egypt, only to be abandoned by Napoleon who returned to France in August 1799 and seized power in November. Spotting a sitting duck, the English joined forces with the Ottomans and forced the French army to surrender in Cairo in June 1801. Ottoman and British ships then transported them home.

The English wanted a strong Egypt (to keep Napoleon out) which meant Mamluk rule while the Ottomans wanted to reassert their authority over the rebellious province of Egypt. Unfortunately, the Ottomans reneged on their promise to pardon the Mamluk beys and war broke out. Enter the Ottoman commander Muhammed 'Ali.

Muhammad 'Ali was an ethnic Albanian who headed a 6,000 man

Muhammad Ali by Auguste_Couder

contingent of the Ottoman army in Egypt. He was clever and ambitious and emerged as a king-maker in Cairo. But he wanted to be king himself!

In Arabia, the Ottomans were having trouble with the Wahhabi Islamic reformers who were imposing conditions on pilgrimage caravans to Mecca from Cairo and Damascus (they prohibited entry in 1806). The Sultan was supposed to be the guardian of Islam's holiest cities so he looked bad. 

Thinking he could crush the Wahhabi movement the Ottomans appointed Muhammad 'Ali governor of Hijaz. However, this meant instant promotion to the rank of pasha which in turn meant he was eligible to serve as governor in any Ottoman province. Thinking he could be made a puppet, the mob asked Muhammad 'Ali to be governor. After craftily declining, he allowed himself to be persuaded. Eventually Istanbul agreed to the appointment and on June 18, 1805, Muhammad 'Ali became master of Egypt.

Muhammad 'Ali established his mastery over the province like no one before or since. He built a powerful army and a bureaucratic state. His dynasty would rule Egypt until the 1952 revolution brought down the monarchy.

In his first six years, Muhammad 'Ali realised he needed money, so he taxed the land, taking revenue away from religious scholars and landed elite. With that done, he sent his son Tussun Pasha to sort out the Wahhabis. He invited the most powerful Mamluk beys to an investiture ceremony for Tussun but after the ceremony, he trapped them in a passage way and had his soldiers murder them. Only then did crafty Muhammad 'Ali feel secure enough to send his army to Arabia to earn the gratitude of the Sultan. 

Tussun's campaign was impossibly difficult and bloody. yet he secured Medina and Mecca. It had cost a fortune, 8,000 men and the Wahhabis weren't defeated, only biding their time and bound to return.

A truce was struck in 1815 and Tussun returned to Cairo where, ironically, he immediately died of plague. On hearing of Tussan's death the Wahhabi commander, Abdullah ibn Saud, broke his truce and attacked Egyptian positions. Muhammad 'Ali appointed his eldest son, Ibrahim as a replacement for Tussan and he emerged as Muhammad 'Ali's generalissimo.

Ibrahim seized the Red Sea province of Hijaz before driving the Wahhabis back to Najd in central Arabia. He then drove them to their capital of Dir'iyya, laid seige under terrible conditions and forced the Wahhabis to surrender in September 1818 or face destruction. Muhammad 'Ali destroyed the town and sent Abdullah ibn Saud and the other Wahhabi leaders on to Istanbul to face the Sultan's justice. Mahmud II beheaded them all with great ceremony and may have thought himself now the French and Wahhabi threats were no more. But the real threat to the ruling dynasty of the Ottoman Empire was Muhammad 'Ali. 

The Sultan rewarded Ibrahim with the rank of pasha and made him governor of Hijaz, including Jidda, a busy port and what was effectively the gateway to Mecca. The taxes alone made Muhammad 'Ali rich. It was the first addition to his empire. 

Muhammad 'Ali invaded Sudan in 1820 looking for gold and slave soldiers. It was a brutal campaign and thousands of Sudanese were killed. No gold was found. Sudan didn't regain its independence from Egypt until 1956, 136 years later. Unfortunately, 20 years of war had left Muhammad 'Ali's armies decimated and the remainder old. Slave soldiers were not forthcoming from the Caucasus as they knew he was ambitious and they European fronts to defend. So Muhammad decided on a national army. There was a military caste as peasant were considered too passive and dull to be soldiers. However, Sultan Selim formed a peasant army and trained them in European methods of warfare and deployed it to Egypt in 1801 where Muhammad 'Ali would have seen the discipline first hand. The Nizami forces, as they were known were a threat to the old order of Janissaries and so they mutinied and overthrew Selim III and disbanded the Nizami army, unwittingly providing Muhammad 'Ali with a model to replicate in Egypt.

In 1822 Muhammad 'Ali commissioned Colonel Seves - a French convert to Islam - to train a Nizami army. Within a year he had 30,000 troops. By the mid-1830s it was 130,000. The peasants were press-ganged into service, although they resisted strongly. Yet in 1821, the Greeks rose up in nationalist revolt against their Ottoman rulers and the Sultan turned to Muhammad 'Ali for assistance. The new Nizami proved its mettle and Ibrahim Pasha was made governor of Crete. Muhammad's empire had expanded to the Aegean and the Ottoman's now feared him even more. 

Christians were up in arms about Greek Christians being slaughtered by Muslim Turks and Egyptians. Lord Byron went to Greece to support Greek independence and died there.

Byron on his death bed in April 19, 1824, Missolonghi, Greece - by Joseph Denis Odevaere (1775–1830) 

*A new way of thinking at the heart of The French Revolution in which that rational thought begins with clearly stated principles, uses correct logic to arrive at conclusions, tests the conclusions against evidence, and then revises the principles in the light of the evidence.

Diary of a Barber

Budayri, the barber of Damascus kept a written record of what went on in his town from 1741-1762. He noted corrupt governors, high prices, unruly military and a decline in public moraility. One Arab family, the Azyms ruled Damascus from 1724-1783 and abused power to enrich itself. The barber held As'ad Pasha al-Azym, the family leader ruling in his time, responsible for plundering state funds. The army had become a rabble, who attacked and even killed the residents of Damascus.

Budayri also blamed high food prices on Azym, who as a landholder, would create artificial grain shortages to maximise profits. Azym's palace was a testament to his greed. The Sunni Islamic values that held the state together were being neglected as shown by the proliferation of prostitutes in the city. Unable to control the prostitutes, Azym taxed them instead.

By the middle of the 18th C Ottoman rule extended from Istanbul to Algiers. Arabs paid tax to the sultan's agents. The mid 18th C saw formerly non-socially mobile Muslims rising through the ranks to the title of 'pasha'. Local leaders diminished Ottoman influence by diverting taxes to local military and local building projects and as the phenomenon spread it threatened the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

The second half of the 18th C saw many local leaders rebel against Istanbul's rule. Istanbul was too preoccupied with challenges from Vienna and Moscow to be concerned by distant Arab rebellions. The Habsburgs defeated the Ottomans in 1699 and were awarded Hungary, Poland and parts of Transylvania while Peter the Great was pressing in the Black Sea and parts of the Caucasus.

Before oil, cotton put the Eastern Mediterranean on the map. European demand dates to the 17th C with UK using US cotton while the French used Ottoman. The Industrial Revolution saw French demand rise from 2m kg in 1700 to 11m kg in 1789 and the Galilee dynast producing the best cotton in Northern Palestine became rich enough to challenge Ottoman rule in Syria. Budyari the barber notes that attempts to destroy Zahir the leader of the dynast (who took taxes meant for the annual pilgrimage caravan to Mecca) were unsuccessful. Zahir expanded his territory and bullied the French into high cotton prices. When the Ottomans brought together his many enemies against him, Zahir was forced to join forces with the ruling Mamluk in Cairo - Ali Bey.

Ali Bey was ruthless and trusted only slaves he had trained himself. He wanted to restore the Mamluk Empire. The Ottomans were fighting Russia and unable to stop him.Unfortunately a pious general refused Ali Bey's orders to attack Damascus during the pilgrimage season. The rebel campaign thus came to a halt for the rest of winter 1770-1771.

Ali Bey had better luck second time round and 'Abu al-Dhubab' or 'the father of gold' drove the Ottoman governor of Damascus out in June. The Mamluks now controlled Egypt, Hijaz and Damascus, nearly fulfilling Ali Bey's dream of reconstructing the Mamluk Empire.

Unfortunately, the same pious general, Isma'il Bey persuaded Abu al-Dhubab to leave Damascus and take his army back to Egypt. Isma'il cleverly ignited Abu al-Dhubab's ambition by claiming that since Ali Bey had turned his back on Islam by consorting with the Russians, any good Muslim could kill him and claim his harem and his wealth.

Ali Bey fled Egypt and Abu al-Dhubab sought to be Ottoman governor of Egypt. Zahir a-Umar had lost his best ally and was eventually assinated. The challenge most serious challenge to 250 years of Ottoman rule over the Arab world had been withstood.

Infighting amongst Mamluk leaders left Egypt in a state of instability for the rest of the 18th C.

The Wahhabis

State Mosque - Doha

Muhammad ibn 'Abd al Wahhb founded the Wahhabi movement in Central Arabia with ideological purity at its core posing the next threat to Ottoman rule in the Arab world. His schooling condemned all mystical practices.

He was exiled from his home town of 'Uyayna for ordering the public execution of a woman for adultery. He called for a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet and his successors, the caliphs. The tenet of there being only one God was central to his beliefs. Saints were not to be prayed to or venerated. This horrified mainstream Sunni Muslim society. He hated the mysticism of Sufism. By declaring most of Ottoman Islam as polytheistic, the Wahhabis were on a collision course with the empire.

In 1798 the governor of Baghdad sent 10,000 troops to fight the Wahhabis in Wahhabi territory but they were surrounded and forced to negotiate a truce.

In 1802 the Wahhabis attacked the Shiite city of Karbala where the mosque venerated the grandson of the Prophet Muammad. They slaughtered the inhabitants and descrated the tomb of the imam causing widespead revulsion across the Ottoman world. However, the geography of Central Arabia made the Wahhabis unassailable. Mecca and Medina were taken by the Wahhabis. Sunni Muslims were banned from Mecca due to their use of music and opulence during worship. Ottoman's were denied access to Mecca even though the sultan was defender of the faith and protector of holy cities.

The Ottomans demanded their provincial governors in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo do something about it but the desert made it logistically impossible to achieve anything. The governor of Egypt, Muammed 'Ali Pasha had the ability but his attention was drawn elsewhere.

Eastern Mediterranean.

The Maronites and the Druzes were self-ruling in the hard to navigate highlands of Lebanon. The Maronites had strong links to the Vatican while the Druze were originally Shiite Muslims fleeing persecution in Cairo. The mountain dwellers paid tribute and were left in peace until 1591 when Fakhr al-Din came in to power and sought to expand his influence across Lebanon.

The Ottomans attacked Lebanon but Fakhr escaped to Tuscany. Fakhr and his sons were finally abandoned by their army, captured and excuted in Istanbul in 1635. The Lebanese feudal order recommenced and survived into the nineteenth century.

The Mamluks became very powerful in seventeenth century Egypt but there were intense and bloody internal rivalries and blood-feuds. It ended with a Mamluk household called the Qazdughlis dominating eighteenth century Egypt. Egypt, Lebanon and Algeria never lost their autonomy under the Ottomans but were required to pay tribute. The multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian empire bore similarities to the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. The latter half of the eighteenth century saw defiance against the Ottomans often aided by European support. The leaders of these revolts put the Ottoman state in jeopardy.

Ottoman rule was characterised by ruling in partnership with local elites. Once those local elites began to join forces with each other and Europe it signalled the beginning of the end.

Loyalty and Treachery

The two former Mamluk officials Sultan Selim appointed to be governors of Damascus and Cairo could not have been more different. One had fought valiantly against the Ottomans at Marj Dabiq while the other betrayed his leaders.

As soon as the Sultan died in 1520, the loyal governor of Damascus sought to restore the Mamluk empire. This led to another defeat by the Ottoman army who went on to plunder Damascus murdering 3,000 civilians while taking other hostage. Another revolt in Cairo was suppressed and Mamluk influence ended.

The Ottoman civil service and high ranking military were appointed from slave recruits taken from Christian Balkan villages in their early teens. Bizarrely this meant Arabs were underrepresented in the power elite of the early Ottoman empire.

Suleyman the Magnificent instigated law and order reforms. He made clear the relationship between government and tax-payers in a way that was ahead of its time. It covered everything from irrigation

Suleyman the Magnificent

to security all the way down to village level.

Sultan Suleyman II was one of the most successful rulers of the Ottoman Empire and he finished what his father started in conquoring the Arab world in his forty-six year reign. He took Baghdad and Basra from the Persian Safavid Empire 1520-1566 and was welcomed by the Sunni population as a liberator after years of Shiite Safavid persecution.

Central Arabia and Morocco were the only Arab territories to remain outside the Ottoman Empire.

The turn of the 16th century saw Spain conquor the Iberian peninsular ending eight centuries of Muslim rule. Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella then pursued holy war across the Muslim kingdoms where the Moriscos (refugees from Muslim Spain) took refuge. Ceuta and Melilla still survive as Spanish possessions on the Moroccan coastline.

North African Muslim dynasties put up little resistance to the Spaniards and paid tribute to the Spanish crown. This led to proud fishermen taking their jihad to sea in the West where they were known as the Barbary corsairs. This led to Algeria agreeing to succumb to Ottoman rule in exchange for military support. The Barbarys took Tunis and Algiers for the Ottomans. Charles the V took it back with massive fleet carrying horses and soldiers. A gale prevented the Spaniards finishing the job in Algiers for the loss of 150 ships and 12,000 men (not dissimilar to how weather prevented a French fleet from landing in Bantry 1798 to support Wolfe Tone's Irish revolution against the British). Tripoli and Tunis were taken in the sixteenth century. However, rule gradually shifted to local civil rulers and the Ottomans satisfied themselves with a small income from the territories and sovereignty over strategic Muslim territory. This arrangement worked until the 19th century and European colonization of North Africa.

French conquest of Algeria 1852