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

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION205fled from their homes and sat hidden in their neighbours’ houses; others fearedtheir enemies and bolted their gates, sitting with their womenfolk. Others left theirhomes, setting out for the building of Qayitbay in the desert and living there.” 5The second group of clerics, with residences in the al-Husayn quarter andits vicinity, either gleefully joined in the revolt (as did Sayyid Maqdisi) or waswilly-nilly caught up in it. The insurgents, Bonaparte said, chose Sheikh Shamsal-Din al-Sadat as the leader of their revolutionary divan, composed of one hundredclerics, preachers, callers to prayer, North African notables, and “people ofthe lower classes” (probably guildsmen). Even in rebellion, the Egyptians werenow governing themselves by a people’s parliament, in the French way!Sheikh al-Sadat was drafted by the rebels to be their leader, but was probablylukewarm to the rebellion, since he knew how militarily powerful theFrench were. Al-Sadat, the wealthiest and most powerful of the Sunni clerics ofEgypt in that age, and a scion of one of the more prominent clerical families,claimed direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad. From this clan camemany scholastics at al-Azhar Seminary, and their leading member headed theWafa’iya Sufi order, a sober mystical brotherhood, which gave them yet anothersource of honor and authority among the common people. He was supervisor offour major shrines, including that of al-Husayn, and received a portion of theincome generated by pilgrimage to them.The French had cultivated him and let his wealth alone. They saw him as thesort of middling “indigenous” notable, neither an Ottoman aristocrat nor a peasant,who might provide a backbone for the French Republic of Egypt. In contrast,the militants saw him as a Muslim leader who would surely stand with them in theholy war against the French infidel. Sayyid Khalil al-Bakri, in al-Azbakiyah withBonaparte, proved unable to contact his colleagues from the outside that night. Itis nevertheless possible that Sheikh al-Sadat managed to get word to Bonapartethat he was trying to find a way to calm the rebellion. The insurgents drew up aproclamation announcing that “the Sublime Porte [the Ottoman government] hasdeclared war on France; that Cezzar Pasha had arrived at Bilbeis with his army;that the French were disposed to save themselves but that they had demolishedthe internal city gates in order to pillage the city before departing.” 6The third faction, led by Sayyid al-Bakri, actively sided with the French andopposed the rebellion; it was helped in this stance by the lack of an uprising intheir parts of the city. The members of this faction, on the whole, tended to bewealthier and more senior than the clerics who joined the revolt. The chronicleral-Jabarti was among them, and his sympathies with this quietist political eliteshine through his text. Al-Bakri took two fellow clerics, sheikhs Sirsi and Mahdi,