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

74 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTof your submission. Prepare bread, meat, straw, and barley for my army, andhave no fear, for no one desires to contribute to your well-being more than I.” 12The Muslim clergy of the al-Azhar Seminary was also eager to make contactwith Bonaparte, even before he crossed the Nile. Those who had not fledin panic met at the seminary and decided to call on a prominent Muslim merchantfrom Tripoli in Libya who knew French. He wrote out a letter to theFrench asking for safe-conduct for civilians remaining in the capital. Bonaparte,on receiving the messengers, insisted he had already offered such safepassage and asked to meet with a clerical deputation. He gave them a proclamationthat the French came in enmity only to the beys, and that “as for elders,clergy, those drawing salaries, and the common subjects, their minds should beat ease.” He then explained to the messengers, “The clerics and city notablesmust come to us, so that I can appoint from among them a divan composed ofseven wise men, who will manage affairs.” He sent a delegation to them,headed by General Dupuy, bearing the letter from the commander in chief.Étienne Malus, a junior officer, went along. He recalled that at Bulaq, “wefound the sheikhs of the law who, after some preliminary pleasantries, performedtheir prayers in front of us.” The clerics received this message withsome relief, and sheikhs Mustafa al-Sawi, Sulayman al-Fayyumi, and otherscrossed the Nile on Thursday, 27 July to meet with Bonaparte at Giza. Helaughed at them for being so fearful. After that, al-Jabarti wrote, the greatsheikhs began to be willing to meet with him.The French in Egypt viewed the Arabic-speaking urban middle classes asthe potential backbone of a French Republic of Egypt, just as middle-class liberalsunderpinned the Paris Directory, and they considered the Muslim clergy tobe the natural leaders of that class. The Muslim clergymen, or ulema, congregatedat seminaries such as al-Azhar. It was perhaps the world’s oldest university,founded in the tenth century. Many of the 14,000 seminary students who studiedthere (Bonaparte’s estimate) were actually destined for private business orestate management rather than for preaching in mosques. Those who completedtheir studies as Muslim clergymen became jurists arbitrating Islamic law,theologians, or popular preachers, and they wielded enormous moral authority.They also often owned villages and engaged in commerce and tended to be welloff. It was the custom in Egypt, as in other Muslim societies, to endow propertyfor religious (and sometimes family) purposes, and a fifth of Egypt’s land wasendowed. Once a farm had been designated as a pious endowment, the annualprofit from the sale of its crops would go to the upkeep of a mosque or religiousschool, for instance. A cleric was typically appointed as overseer of the endow-