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

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION219the extortion employed, he complained that Bonaparte was using the methodsof the “Mamluks.”In the aftermath of the revolt, largely led and fought by Egyptian Muslims,Bonaparte leaned more heavily on members of religious minorities. He deployedsmall Maltese units in the Delta and created three Greek companies of athousand men each, at Cairo, Damietta, and Rosetta. 33 In early December hereplied to a letter from the Coptic community passed on to him by Jirjis al-Jawhari, a Coptic notable who served as the financial adviser to the French Republicof Egypt. Bonaparte said of this community that when circumstancespermitted, in the near future, “I will accord it the right to practice its religionpublicly, as is the usage in Europe, such that everyone follows his belief. I willseverely punish the villages that, in the course of various revolts, assassinatedCopts. From today, you may announce to them that I permit them to carryarms, to ride donkeys and horses, to wear turbans, and to dress in whatever waythey please.”Bonaparte was committing himself to lifting, over time, the marks of membershipin a subordinate or “protected” community in a premodern Muslim society.Despite the protections afforded such “people of the book,” Muslim rulersand jurists of the medieval and early modern periods sought to mark such non-Muslim populations as second-class subjects. They were not to dress like Muslimsor enjoy the marks of Muslim high status. Bonaparte had not, however,found the Copts very satisfactory collaborators. He noted with displeasure thatwhereas the Muslim clergy had identified for the French many hoards of thebeys’ treasure kept in safe houses, the Copts, who had been their principalagents, had not turned in a single one. If, he said, he restored “to the Coptic nationa dignity and the inalienable rights of man, which they had lost, I have theundoubted right to require the individuals who comprise it to demonstrate agreat deal of zeal and faithfulness in the service of the Republic.” Bonaparte’sminorities policy had to be actively constructed, since he found no “natural”collaborators, and he resorted to the supposedly inalienable Rights of Man onlyas a carrot in the quest for allies.Some of those around Bonaparte, at least, also envisaged a similar role forthe small Jewish community in Egypt and greater Syria, especially as the commanderin chief more openly made plans for a military encounter with CezzarPasha of Sidon. There were only 3,000 to 5,000 Jews in Cairo, living in a Jewishquarter near the gold market. 34 While they had been bankers to the OttomanJanissaries earlier in the eighteenth century, the rise of the Georgian beys hadmuch reduced their prominence, and they played no significant role in the