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

ALI BONAPARTE133that “the politicians” among the French forces argued that positive rhetoricabout Islam and stoking the fires of such expectations among the Egyptian populacewere necessary for the security of the army. They pointed to Roman practice,which they said was to avoid imposing any changes on the mores, usages,laws, or religions of the peoples they conquered. “Rather than forcing them toadopt the gods of the capital, they placed there the gods of Athens andCarthage.” Moiret alleged that this view won out among the army, and was certainlythat of Bonaparte himself.Captain Moiret remarked dryly that the French troops actually would nothave much minded gaining admission to the Muslim paradise. This is a joking referenceto the Qur’an’s promise of perpetual virgin companions, or houris, said toinhabit it. But, he said, they would only have wanted such a heaven if they couldhave obtained a dispensation to do without circumcision and to continue to drinkwine. When he had first arrived in Cairo, Moiret had complained bitterly that theEgyptians had no wine, because their Legislator, the Prophet Muhammad, forbadeit. He admitted that the French troops thought it unlikely that they wouldreceive special permission to drink, were they to convert. The rationalist partisansof the Enlightenment, he reported, either satirized these predictions about Bonaparteconverting or became indignant. They protested that they “had not shakenup the superstitions of Europe so as to adopt those of the Orient, and that oneshould never speak anything but the truth to the people.” 17 He saw these militantsecularists as a minority, with little support among the troops, who favored Bonaparte’spragmatic paganism on the Roman model instead.The civilian quartermaster Bernoyer also wrote angry letters back homeabout Islam. At one point, he launched a diatribe against the Muslim clerics,whom he called “veritable impostors,” and charged with forcing the faithful tobelieve absurdities such as that they were the agents or confidants of the Creator:“Nothing surprises with regard to them, but it is inconceivable that thereare enough imbeciles to believe them!” Once when he saw pilgrims come backto Cairo from Mecca, a multitude in diverse dress, from different races and nations,he wrote of his desire to shout the Enlightenment truth at them that therewas no deity that actively intervened in history. But, he concluded, “what wouldthat have served?” 18Bonaparte’s Islam policy provoked lively intellectual debates, but encounterswith Islam had an intimate meaning for those of the French who established