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

THE OBJECT OF HIS DESIRES197per session). In fact, Saturday had to be skipped because Sheikh al-Sharqawi, thenew president of Egypt, was accused of harboring a Libyan merchant who hadpartnered with a known partisan of Murad Bey. Fifty French soldiers searchedthe president’s house, but the merchant from Tripoli had fled. When informed,Bonaparte grew angry and insisted that the man would not have left if he hadnot been guilty of continued collusion with Murad. The next morning theFrench went to his now-abandoned house and storehouse, broke the seals, andconfiscated all the merchandise. Whatever shadow was cast on al-Sharqawi forthe moment had passed.On Sunday, a senate or “special council” was elected, consisting of twentysevenmembers, including leading clerics as well as Ottoman-Egyptian officers,Copts, Syrians, and Muslim merchants. Apparently the two legislative bodies hada relationship similar to that of the Council of 500 and the Council of Ancients inDirectory France. The lower body deliberated issues, then passed the deliberationson to the special divan for actual decision making and legislation. TheFrench pressed the new divan to establish requirements for formal registration ofproperty, with deeds, for assessments of its value, and for a graduated propertytax. They also wished to be instructed concerning Egyptian customs with regardto dowries, saying that in France only the brides received trousseaus, but that thegroom did not receive anything. Amusingly, the Egyptians misunderstood theFrench to be discussing inheritance practices, and so presumably believed thatFrench men were disinherited and all property was bequeathed to their women.The Muslims insisted that inheritance be divided in accordance with the schemaprovided in the Qur’an, and they were supported in this by the Copts and SyrianChristians, who averred that they usually had Muslim authorities handle theirown inheritances, in accordance with Muslim law. The divan also consideredcriminal justice, and likewise wanted Qur’anic precepts enshrined in law. Bonapartewas following through on his promise to Sheikh Masiri in Alexandria, toimplement sharia or Islamic canon law in the French/Islamic Republic of Egypt.According to French sources, the village headmen pressed for an end to the practiceof tax-farming, but the high clergy, themselves often tax-farmers, suppressedthe motion and retained the system of venality. 29The French announced a new tax schedule on the morning of Saturday, 20October, al-Jabarti said. They divided property into three categories, charging atax of eight riyals on the more expensive, six on the middling, and three on thehumbler. Properties that yielded less than a riyal a month paid nothing. But forbusinesses, the tax was thirty or forty riyals. It hit shops, oil presses, sesame mills,baths, and caravansaries. The French posted the tax schedule at intersections and