Napoleon's Egypt: Invading The Middle East - Reenactor.ru

THE FLIGHT OF IBRAHIM BEY99his treasure for safekeeping into the care of Sayyid al-Bakri, who surrendered itto the commodore. The clerics of al-Azhar attempted to intercede with HasanPasha for Züleyha, but with no success. Hasan Pasha then sold off the slave girlsand harem favorites of the rebellious beys at an inexpensive price as a way of humiliatingthem. The clerics of al-Azhar, however, including Sheikh al-Sadat andSheikh Ahmad al-Arusi, rode to see Hasan Pasha about this vindictive measure.They pointed out to him that, in Islamic law, it was illegal to sell a free personand also illicit to sell a slave woman who had borne a child to her master (thechildren were freeborn). The commodore is said to have angrily rebuked theclerics for daring to intervene, and to have turned against them. Europeandiplomats circulated tales of Hasan Pasha’s odious behavior toward these elitewomen, seeing it as a sign of barbarous tyranny.The elevation of Ottoman-Egyptian gentlemen far above Arabic-speakinglocal elites such as the clerics and the great coffee merchants was a goal ofHasan Pasha’s ruling style. It was no new thing, and the concentration of powerthrough the second half of the century in the hands of the Qazdaghli beys hadalready contributed to such stratification.The tumultuous events of the 1780s set the stage for the later French invasion,though they did not make it inevitable. French diplomats and merchantswere alarmed at the great importance the British clearly put on their favoredposition at Alexandria and on Egypt as a key link in their Indian trade and communications.The interest in Egypt displayed by Russia, and the reciprocal interestof the Georgian Mamluks in the patronage, even troops, of St.Petersburg, also panicked French observers. Some French diplomats beganspeculating that as the Ottoman Empire declined, it seemed increasingly likelythat Britain or Russia would make a play for the Egyptian province. For thenext decade, these advocates of a forward policy agitated with Paris for a preemptivestrike to ensure that if Egypt were to fall to any European power, itwould be France.In August 1786, Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey had headed to Upper Egypt,where they drew to themselves a remnant of the beys and made alliances withthe local Bedouin. An expedition south by the commodore, aimed at decisivelydefeating them, faltered in the fall when the imperial troops lost their cannon inbattle with the rebels and had to retreat to the safety of Cairo. Hasan Pasha leftEgypt in 1787 as the prospect of a new Ottoman war with Russia built. Beforehe departed, he pardoned Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey but stipulated that theyshould remain in Upper Egypt. By 1791, the attention of Istanbul had turnedelsewhere. In that year, an outbreak of plague in Cairo carried off members of