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

ALI BONAPARTE125When evening fell, Bernoyer’s least favorite people, the dervishes, or Sufimystics, appeared, their hair long and their clothing “negligible.” Malus, morefrank, observed of the dervish leaders, “These are the saints of the country; theirlife is a continual ecstasy and everything is permitted to them; many circulatethrough the streets at various times of the year naked as apes. They only live onalms from the public.” Villiers du Terrage said of the nude holy men that they“are a kind of madman, extremely venerated, to whom everything is permitted,whose insults are an honor, even to the women who surrender themselves tothem.” Devotees gathered, Detroye said, forming themselves in circles, verycrowded in on one another, and taking each other by the arms. They then began“a very violent movement, of each man by himself and of the entire circle, to theleft and the right. This movement was accompanied by painful efforts.” Theywent on moving in unison until they were exhausted. “It was said that sometimesdevotees died where they stood.” Moving in unison and chanting religiouspoetry in this manner caused Sufi adepts to hyperventilate, which they believedhelped them attain alternate states (hal) of consciousness and aided them intheir quest to feel union with the divine.That morning, Bonaparte had ordered up an imposing parade of the troops ofthe garrison in honor of the great day, and a French marching band intermixedits martial strains with the chants of the Muslims. Then, Detroye recalled dryly,“The French artillery saluted Muhammad.” All the high French officers werepresented to a leading cleric, Sayyid Khalil al-Bakri. In the presence of thedivan, Bonaparte dressed al-Bakri in an ermine coat and declared him the naqibal-ashraf, the leader of the caste of Muhammad’s honored descendants, insomuchas the previous incumbent, Umar al-Makram, had fled to Syria. The festivalof the Prophet’s birth was especially presided over by his putativedescendants, who formed an honored social stratum. Bonaparte directed thatany Egyptian who had a dispute with a member of the sharif caste should bringthe complaint to Sayyid al-Bakri.In all these steps, Bonaparte was playing the role of a Muslim sultan, honoringthe progeny of the Prophet, and they in turn pledged to support the statusquo and employ their religious aura to mediate disputes between ruler andruled. This attempt at gaining legitimacy through the Prophet’s progeny wasnot entirely successful. The Christian Syrian chronicler of the occupation,Niqula Turk, remarked, “Sheikh Khalil al-Bakri loved the French Republic, andfor that reason the Egyptian Muslims hated him.” The ambitious and wealthy