Imagined Empires Read online

  Replacing the Hawwara regime shattered the social contract that existed between the tribe and the subalterns of Upper Egypt. The south experienced political chaos and repression under the new Mamluk government, and discontented groups undertook various forms of resistance. Only four years after Hammam passed away, groups of Arab peasants challenged the authority of the state and the remaining Hawwara tax farmers by refusing to pay the land tax. The peasants of the Busayla village ceased paying both cash and grain tax. Shaykhs of other villages intermediated between Busayla and the tax farmer and threatened that the state would punish them by destroying their houses.85 At the same time, Mamluk officers decreased the payments that the ‘Ababida Bedouins received for protecting villages and trade routes. The tribe immediately reacted by attacking travelers and plundering villages and later launched a war against the Mamluk government. It was almost impossible for the Mamluk officers to subdue the ‘Ababida dissidents, who were highly skilled warriors. After every defeat the rebels managed to quickly reassemble themselves in a few days and return to fight the new imperial regime even more fiercely.86

  Between 1784 and 1792, the plague struck Egypt again. This time the disease made it to the south—for the first time in five centuries. Before, as a contemporary French physician asserted, the plague had been an environmental phenomena “almost unknown” in Upper Egypt.87 Ever since the great plague of the 1300s that had swept all of Egypt, the endemic had not returned to Upper Egypt, thanks to the efficient government of the independent Hawwara. As noted earlier, European observers of the period reported that the healthier and hotter air of Upper Egypt made it difficult for the plague to travel south, whereas Cairo and the Mediterranean coast remained more susceptible.88 However, a British report from 1800 showed that the late-1700s plague had actually originated in Upper Egypt, killing thousands in one season. According to Colonel Wilson, “The Plague has long been supposed to have been brought from Turkey in the ships charged with old clothes, which constantly came to Alexandria from a market. But the plague has generated annually in Egypt during the last four years (although no such communication has been possible), and even chiefly commenced in Upper Egypt. . . . In Upper Egypt [last year], sixty thousand of the inhabitants perished. . . . There whole villages were swept away.”89 Thus, for Upper Egypt, the epidemic was without a doubt an “imperial” plague. It broke out precisely because of the new political order.

  Among European physicians and travelers of this period, two theories arose to explain why the plague infiltrated the south. Both implicate the empire. First, Colonel Wilson insisted that this latest wave of the epidemic originated in Upper Egypt because of internal causes and local conditions.90 Other European experts generally linked the outbreak to the overflow of the Nile and mismanagement of water. They asserted that a good system of irrigation, drainage, digging canals and sluices, and building dams would make it possible to prevent the plague.91 In fact, Arabic and European sources alike show that the new Mamluk regime neglected water management and agricultural organization in Upper Egypt, as they were busy disputing over who would be in power. The Ottoman pasha in Cairo was too weak to eradicate internal Mamluk military contests. During this period, Mamluks feuded over Upper Egyptian grain and carried out military campaigns on southern soil, causing food shortages and price hikes. In Qina the new regime left canals to dry, and the once thriving capital and center of commercial agriculture was reduced to an unimportant provincial town.92

  The second medical theory of the plague’s origins attributed the epidemic to external causes emanating from the larger imperial system. This approach suggests that the “globalization” of the Ottoman Empire, which incorporated Upper Egypt only in the last few years of the eighteenth century, coupled with the new one-state system the empire installed caused the plague that reached the south. Clot Bey, a French physician who practiced in Egypt in the early nineteenth century, suggested that the plague had no connection to the overflow of the Nile or to poverty. He argued that these two internal conditions had existed in Upper Egypt in the past, and yet the plague had not visited the south.93 Many other European physicians and observers affirmed that the plague was carried by ships coming from Istanbul and other parts of the Ottoman Empire to Alexandria and from there spread to the rest of Egypt. Guillaume Antoine Olivier, a contemporary French traveler, recounted,

  The plague visits the different countries of the Ottoman Empire, as the smallpox visits the different countries of Europe: Like the latter, it neither owes its origin to putrid exhalations nor to causes derived from the soil or the climate. . . . The plague visits Turkey and makes its appearance more or less often in a town, according as commerce or communications are most or less frequent. . . . Egypt carries on a somewhat considerable trade with Constantinople; and indeed, it commonly happens that the Turkish ships or caravels belonging to the Grand Signior bring the plague to Alexandria, where it spreads to Rosetta, Damietta, and Cairo, and thence into all the villages.94

  The plague was pandemic throughout the empire from the beginning of the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, causing a mortality rate of up to 70 percent in the affected places. The eighteenth century witnessed many waves of this epidemic in the Mediterranean basin of the empire;95 and in a sense, Istanbul “traded” the epidemic with Cairo.96 As Upper Egypt was now an integrated part of the empire’s political and commercial system, Mamluk ships gained access to the south—facilitated by their wars on Upper Egyptian soil—and they carried imperial diseases with them. In the 1780s, the ships of two Mamluk factions of the new regime, led by Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey, fought each other in Upper Egypt in what was also a time of low Nile inundation and food shortage. Furthermore, other dissident factions continued to take refuge in Upper Egypt. These troops without a doubt transmitted the epidemic to the south, especially since numerous Mamluk warlords of this period died from the plague while in Upper Egypt or after their return to Cairo.97

  With the plague and Mamluk oppression in Upper Egypt, subaltern rebellion became a daily practice of the inhabitants of the towns, villages, and mountains in the desert. Nomadic Arab tribes and Coptic peasants in particular faced increasing oppression during this period. They rebelled in various ways against the empire and its Mamluk government. Their discontent was more distinctly expressed when the Napoleonic campaign arrived in Egypt, between 1798 and 1801, as many members of these two groups supported the French soldiers against the Mamluk army.

  As for the unsettled Arab tribes, their rebellion was incited by both racial and economic factors. In the past, these roaming tribes had submitted themselves to the Hawwara primarily because they shared Arab tribal blood with them but also because of the economic advantages that the Hawwara provided. Arab tribes were, as an eighteenth-century European traveler put it, “looking down with contempt on Turks,” and they believed that their lineage could be traced to Ishmael and was therefore superior to that of the Turks.98 They detested the new domination of the northern Mamluk elite, who were a foreign oligarchy of Turco-Circassian origin. In addition, the Mamluk elite discontinued the Hawwara practice of offering economic privileges to the Arab tribes in exchange for safe passage on highways. As a result, the tribes returned to plunder, highway robbery, and raiding villages to both disturb the foreign state and make a living.99

  For instance, al-Jazzar Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Syria, indicated in his 1785 report to the sultan that when the Mamluk officers suspended the salaries of the ‘Ababida tribe in Qina Province, the frustrated members of the tribe exacted revenge by attacking travelers, pillaging villages, and destroying crops. A battle erupted between the two sides in which the strong, proficient warriors of the ‘Ababida emerged triumphant. The conflict was settled only when the ‘Ababida fully received their payment in addition to blood money for those who were killed in the battles. The two sides then wrote a deed registered in one of Qina’s shari‘a courts to confirm the settlement and record the terms of the ceasefire. Thousands of similar battles erupted
between the Mamluks and Arab tribes. Al-Jazzar did, however, note that friendship between the Arabs and the Mamluks was not impossible.100

  The ‘Ababida tribe embarked on another more radical rebellion when they supported the French troops in Upper Egypt against the soldiers of the sultan. As soon as the French arrived in Egypt, their troops headed to Upper Egypt in order to occupy the rich region and control its agriculture and trade routes. The ‘Ababida befriended the French officers and provided them with logistical support during the battles. Vivant Denon, an Egyptologist who accompanied the campaign, reported that during a battle in the Qusayr port on the Red Sea, “we entirely gained their [the ‘Ababida] friendship by exercising with them in mock charges and showing so much confidence in them.”101 Similarly, peasant Copts, who suffered tremendously under Mamluk oppression after the collapse of Hammam’s nearly ideal state, supported the troops of the French occupation. Like the ‘Ababida tribe, Coptic peasants of Qina sided with the Christian invaders during the battles in their province. Denon asserted that commoner Copts sympathized with the French army because of their extreme animosity for the Mamluk troops who had plundered Coptic villages, such as Nagada, during the war. Denon said that “[the Copts’] zeal induced them to come and give us all the intelligence that they had been able to collect.”102

  After the campaign’s defeat and the French departure from Egypt, the Ottoman sultan needed to propagate a new imperial discourse of hegemony in order to address the resentment in Upper Egypt. Sultan Selim III restored the one-state system and, once more, installed Mamluk military elite as rulers of Upper Egypt. Nevertheless, he sent a series of decrees (fermans) to Qina and the other provinces in Upper Egypt to appease and co-opt different discontented groups. The Ottomans incorporated the south’s local shari‘a law into the more centralized state apparatus and used the court system to disseminate these decrees. The sultan deployed a religious rhetoric, emphasizing his position as the “caliph” of Muslims who had defeated infidel invaders. One of the fermans arrived immediately after the French departure and expounded the sultan’s policy of reconciliation with the peasants and Arab tribes of Qina, especially after the massive destruction that the Mamluk armies had inflicted on these two groups while fighting the French for the Ottomans. The same decree also aimed at incorporating all power groups in Upper Egypt into a new imperial order.103

  This elaborate decree, as received by Isna Court, addressed elite and subaltern groups alike, including shari‘a law scholars, judges, Arab tribal leaders, village shaykhs, and peasants. After declaring victory over the French, the sultan affirmed that it was his duty to protect and guard the poor inhabitants of the country—a mission entrusted to him by God as the caliph of Muslims. The decree added that some Mamluk soldiers had arbitrarily accused groups of peasants, Arab tribal leaders, and Bedouins of collusion with the French and consequently had confiscated their grain, animals, and wealth. The affected groups expected the sultan to apply a firm punishment to the transgressive soldiers. Instead, the sultan stated his plan to relocate the offending Mamluks outside of Egypt and bestow upon them lands and houses in other provinces in the empire, as a reward for defeating the French. The sultan implied that Upper Egyptian peoples whom they had hurt would never have to see them again, and a new Mamluk government hopefully would be more just.104

  Another decree from Istanbul dealt with the Copts as a religious minority. Upper Egyptian Copts who had supported the French were clearly in trouble with both the Mamluks, who now had reasserted their authority, as well as the local Muslim population. The new regime forced these Copts from their homes and confiscated their properties. The Copts raised a petition to the Ottoman sultan, requesting protection and the retention of their properties. In response, Sultan Selim III promulgated a decree in 1801, also disseminated through Qina’s and other provincial shari‘a courts, commanding the Muslim inhabitants of Upper Egypt to pardon the Copts who had supported the infidel French. The decree implored religious dignitaries, laypeople, and peasants to treat Copts with dignity and respect, indicating the belief that they had only cooperated with the French out of fear and the desire to protect their families and properties. The sultan asserted that the Copts had followed and obeyed the French only by force. He stipulated that they must return to their homes in peace and resume the tranquil life they had enjoyed before the political turmoil:

  A ferman from his majesty Sultan Selim, may God give him victory . . . to the authorized court deputies [local judges] . . . and the country shaykhs . . . [decrees] that during the French infidels’ seizure time, the Copts coercively followed the French infidels in order to protect their honor [a‘aradahum, i.e., families] and fortunes. Even if what they did was not accepted, they shall return to their home places and live in their houses in comfort and safety as they were in the past. Because they are in all cases the subjects [ra‘iyya] of our Sublime state and they petition for protection against all matters. From now on, nobody should intrude upon them because of their support of the French. They should buy and sell and take and give [freely] as they used to do in the past.105

  The Ottoman Empire’s attempt at establishing hegemony would fail just a few years later, when the rising empire of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha (r. 1805–48) took control of the entirety of Egypt.

  TWO

  * * *

  The French, the Plague Encore, and Jihad

  1798–1801

  In 1798, when Napoléon Bonaparte’s army landed in Egypt, its declared goal was to liberate the country from the despotic rule of the Ottomans. Granting freedom to the country’s minority of Orthodox Christians, the Copts, was the second task of the French colonial troops. Upon arriving in Egypt, the soldiers advanced from Cairo into the south, Upper Egypt, where the Coptic population was concentrated. As expected, Christian inhabitants received the French with admiring eyes and tender hearts. The Copts provided the French with extensive logistical support until the French triumph over the tyrannical Mamluks—the Turkic ruling elite appointed by the Ottomans. An Egyptologist who accompanied the troops to the south, Vivant Denon, depicted scenes in Qina Province of passionate Copts aiding the French, crying at the sight of their forces leaving for the battlefields. Of one incident, Denon wrote, “I was struck with the sincere interest which the sheik [chief Copt] expressed for our fate, who, believing that we were marching on to a certain death, gave us the most circumstantial advice, without concealing from us any of the dangers to which we were exposed, advised us with great judgment on every particular which could render the encounter less fatal to us, followed us as far as he could, and parted from us with tears in his eyes.”1

  Nevertheless, after the French won the wars and established a colony in Egypt, the romantic image of supportive natives awaiting their liberators was soon shattered. The Copts, in fact, were manipulating and exploiting the French for their own interests. As soon as the new administration hired them to run the taxation system, Coptic accountants controlled the colony’s finances and denied the French access to files. Copts were not the only native group that acted in this manner or that manipulated the French with false impressions of welcoming locals. Many Arab tribes, as oppressed by the Mamluks as the Copts had been, similarly showed a friendly, hospitable face and supported the French troops during the battles. They later excluded the colonial administrators from local governing councils and denied them access to decision-making institutions in villages.2

  The French Empire’s campaign in Egypt was a conspicuously failed attempt at colonization in the Middle East that lasted for only three years. In 1801, Napoléon’s troops were defeated by British troops allied with the Ottomans, and the French were soon forced to depart from Egypt. However, this chapter argues that military misfortune was not the reason behind the rapid failure of the French Empire. Rather, it was a crisis of images. Before and during the campaign, French experts on the Orient forged one image of inferior and oppressed natives waiting for an enlightened nation to liberate them, and another image of the col
onial self as exactly this liberator. Moreover, the colonial self was imagined as a competent exploiter of the colony’s immense resources, which were allegedly underutilized. As the troops encountered the harsh reality on the ground, these images were demolished, putting the empire in deep crisis.

  Upper Egypt, especially Qina Province, was a distinct site where this plight was exposed. The population of the south consisted mainly of two groups that the revolutionary French Republic came to liberate: Copts and Arab tribes. These two groups both deliberately perpetuated the discursive construction of false images in order to take advantage of the French. When the truth was revealed, it was too late for the confused colonizer to escape. As this chapter recounts, the French faced a fierce holy war of Jihad launched by local and regional Arab insurgents and had to reinstall the very ancien régime they had originally come to depose. Shortly afterward, the failed empire brought about environmental destruction to the south: a massive wave of the plague swept Upper Egypt.

  Postcolonial theory pays much attention to the issue of image making within contexts of modern imperialism. The colonizer—who was in the position of controlling knowledge production—created reductionist visions of the colonized in order to simplify the process of imperial hegemony. This is the problem of “representation,” as theorists of the field refer to it, where voices from the empire authoritatively described silent natives and presented simplifying categorizations and stereotypes that assisted in the domination of the colonized. Postcolonial theory largely presumes that representation was a unilateral process in which the colonizer solely controlled the production of images and imposed them on the represented natives.3 Nonetheless, this chapter shows how image making was a bilateral process to which the natives equally contributed through deceit and manipulation of the empire. The encounters between the French and the Copts and Arab tribes in Upper Egypt during Napoléon’s campaign are but one illustrative case.