Though I generally shy from historical hyperbole, I must admit that Turks are not in-bred idiot hillbillies as the traditional Egyptian stereotype of their Mamluk and Ottoman Turkish overlords depicts them in films and literary works. The contemporary relationship between Islamist Turkey, ruled by hardliner Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his militant Islamist Justice and Development Party, and the closely aligned, ideologically and politically, ousted president Mohamed Morsi of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, is to say the least charged after Egypt's 30 July Revolution and the subsequent demise of militant Islamist rule in Egypt. It was the kudos of being the secretary-general of the 56-member state Organisation of Islamic Conference that lends credence to the authenticity of this seminal study by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. This remarkable work is the evidence of an astute recorder. With his imagination uncluttered by political and ideological bias, the reader is free to contemplate the complexity of Turkish-Egyptian relations in a historical perspective and to wander among the remarkable historical facts Ihsanoglu elucidates. Yet a few chapters in, I found myself in the grip of the fascinating story of Turks in Egypt. And, contrary to received wisdom, Ihsanoglu extrapolates that the historic Turkish presence in Egypt long predates Ottoman rule in the country. Ironically, the slave kings of Egypt, the Mamluks, were collectively known as Turks. “The word ‘Turkish' was often used in Egypt synonymously with ‘Ottoman' and this is especially apparent during the reign of Mohamed Ali [the founder of modern Egypt]. When Egypt was under Mamluk rule, before its conquest by Selim I, the Ottomans were more commonly known as ‘the Rum', while the Ottoman sultan was similarly referred to as the ‘Sultan of the Rum', the Mamluks themselves being known as ‘Turks'. This nomenclature changed entirely during the reign of Mohamed Ali,” Ihsanoglu expounds. “The adjective ‘Turkish' in a usage that extends from that time up to the present, no longer bears an ethnic or racial meaning but is generally used in a cultural or linguistic sense,” the author explains. And, it is in this context that I interviewed the accomplished translator of this monumental work, the celebrated Humphrey Davies, one of Egypt's most distinguished translators. What was the most difficult aspect of the translation? It is replete with technical terms and names in a wide variety of languages. As I understand from the book, you translated from the Arabic. Do you speak and write Turkish? “The technical difficulties may be more apparent than real. While I have a couple of years of Turkish language under my belt, I declined from the first to take responsibility for the transliteration or translation of Turkish, as in the book titles; all that was overseen by the author. My basic knowledge of Turkish grammar was, however, useful in that it allowed me a degree of comfort: I could figure out most of the Turkish, especially given that the literary language of earlier periods was so impregnated with Arabic vocabulary. The comfort issue is just that — if you don't know what those nuggets of other languages on the page are, you don't feel comfortable translating the matrix,” Davies replied. Davies's intriguing answer prompted my next question. I asked him: I presume that most of the original material for the book was in the Ottoman Arabic script, if so, was Ihsanoglu's work written in modern Turkish Latin script? “The book was written in modern Turkish script. The author, as the son of a religious scholar who left Turkey on the abolition of the caliphate, possesses nearly unique skills that allow him to bridge the two phases of Turkish language,” Davies put it in plain English. Ihsanoglu's magnum opus is timely and comes at a time when Egyptians and Turks must put aside their political differences and celebrate their common cultural heritage. “Mohamed Ali and the first generation of his dynasty knew no language other than Turkish. They had acquired a moderate amount of Ottoman culture in the town of Kavala, and then had come to Egypt as they were and settled there.” I was curious about the technical aspects of the translation. Did you yourself manage to look at some of the manuscripts and material mentioned in the book? I ventured further. Or did you translate it straight from the text given? “I translated from the Arabic translation of the Turkish original. Unfortunately, little of the material discussed is accessible here, so I was unable to view it,” Davies made plain. So, how long did it take you to translate such a seminal work? “About six months,” came his curt answer and it emboldened me to be more blunt. I inquired if there was any other interesting observation or insight he would like to mention that could give more colour to my review. “I found the decorative frontispieces of the Ottoman texts that are reproduced in the book a delightful aesthetic bonus to the work of translation. I was also constantly coming across information about nooks and crannies of Egyptian life that were quite unfamiliar to me, that, for example, Turkish prisoners of war were held in camps around the Delta from 1914, where they produced a large number of ephemeral newspapers, not to mention a guide to beekeeping, or that gave new meaning to the familiar; I'd always wondered where Sharia Al-Mubtadayan — off Qasr Al-Aini — got its name; now I know. It was the site of the first section (beginners) of the school for princes established by Mohamed Ali. The word itself is Arabo-Perso-Turkish. Tasty.” So that, I presume, is how Al-Qasr Al-Aini acquired its romantic name. Part one of this work focuses on Turks and their culture in Egypt, including a chapter entitled “The Turkish language and Ottoman culture at the Palace and among the aristocracy”. Another chapter deals with Turks in the Egyptian administration and the use of the Turkish language as an official medium of communication. Even though the Ottomans were essentially ethnic Turks, Persian held pride of place at the Ottoman palaces throughout the empire, and Egypt was no exception to the general rule. The teaching of the Persian language and literature was a sign of sophistication, as Turkish itself was deemed even by the Ottomans to be a somewhat uncouth tongue. Turkish, nevertheless, was extensively used in the Egyptian army. And, Arabic was the sacred religious tongue of the Sunni Muslim Ottomans. The story of the commencement of contemporary printing in Egypt is a fascinating study in its own right. And, the author extensively elaborates on the subject. The Bulaq Press paved the way, but other publishing houses followed suit. Mohamed Ali himself was an avid reader. He had many European novels and political treatises translated into Turkish, Persian and Arabic. Among his most cherished books, specifically translated for his pleasure was Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. And, other work that greatly impressed Mohamed Ali was that of celebrated Egyptian intellectual of the time Rifaa Al-Tahtawi, who was dispatched to France for further studies and whose fascinating The Quintessence of Paris intrigued the inquisitively-minded Mohamed Ali. Moreover, Mohamed Ali was keenly interested in the education of his sons, daughters, male and female relatives and his closest followers and hangers-on. Ibrahim Pasha, Mohamed Ali's eldest son and heir apparent, was also obsessed with the education of his progeny. His three sons born to his various Circassian wives, Ahmed Rifaat, the Khedive Ismail and Mustafa Fadil Pasha, were tutored in Turkish, Persian, French and Arabic. Slavery was an established institution of the Ottoman Turks in Egypt. However, the very concept of slavery was different than in the West. Slaves were invariably domestic workers or concubines of the aristocracy. And, once a slave girl bore a son to her master, her social status was elevated to that of a fully fledged wife. The Turks were similarly not fastidious about marrying local Egyptian women. Indeed, there are numerous Egyptian families to this day whose ancestral Turkish blood runs in their veins. Among these Egyptian individuals were celebrities such as the Arab world's most distinguished poet Ahmed Shafik. “Ahmed Shafik says in his memoirs that the number of slave girls in a given palace was the indicator of its greatness and status and that the palace on the banks of the Nile belonging to Princess Khushyar Hanim (died 1886), the Circassian mother of Khedive Ismail, outdid all others, holding a thousand white and black slave girls.” The Turks in Egypt never insisted on racial purity. “The slave girl freed after nine or fewer years of slavery, and married to the illustrious son of one of the local elite families, would pass on to her children the Ottoman Turkish culture that she had absorbed, thus aiding the spread of Turkish culture in Egypt,” the author observes. “Generally, young Circassian and Georgian slave girls were imported from the Caucuses to Istanbul and from there to Egypt, for sale primarily to the palace and secondary to the aristocracy that revolved around it, and it was in the palace that they were educated and taught appropriate comportment.” The Egyptian poetess Aisha Al-Taymouriya, too, was of Turkish descent. “We find poets and writers, especially women, who went beyond the boundaries of amateurism and created works that may be counted as interesting examples of Turkish literature.” The annotated bibliographical lists in Ihsanoglu's masterpiece are accentuated by his eye for detail as depicted in his systematic study of the influence of the Turkish musical tradition on classical contemporary Egyptian music. “Turkish music, as played in the palaces of Cairo and the houses of the aristocracy of Turkish origin, came to have a clear impact on the formation of the musical tastes of Egyptians.” The historical bonds that bind Turkey and Egypt would surely withstand the test of time. Egyptian and Turkish cultures are inextricably intertwined. “Given that the Turks of Egypt were never considered a minority they did not see themselves as separate from its society and never had the status of European or non-Muslim minorities.”
