The awaited one

Al-Ahram: A Diwan of contemporary life (597)
The awaited one
of contemporary life In this final episode of a nine-part series marking the bicentennial of Mohamed Ali's assumption to the throne -- 13 May 1805 -- two historians are enlisted by Al-Ahram to argue why the Arabs had needed a man like Mohamed Ali. Prepared by Prof Yunan Labib Rizk
One of the unresolved debates among historians of modern Egypt revolves around the long-term goals of Mohamed Ali's wars against the Ottoman authorities in the 1830s. Some, such as Shafik Ghorbal, author of Mohamed Ali the Great, maintain that the Egyptian viceroy sought territory in order to better bolster and protect his project for modernizing the state against the ambitions of European powers which were gradually closing in on the "Sick man of Europe". Others hold that the pasha of Egypt was ultimately striving to sever the Arab provinces from the Ottoman Empire in the hope of creating an independent empire under his rule.
This debate assumed new proportions with the founding of the Arab League in 1945, given the new impetus this gave to proponents of the second view. For this reason, it is not surprising that the editors of Al-Ahram 's 1949 special edition commemorating the centennial of Mohamed Ali's death allocated considerable space to two historians who saw Mohamed Ali as the "Arabs' awaited one". The first of these is Mohamed Rifaat and the second Abdel-Hamid El-Batriq. Their articles follow.
ON MOHAMED ALI AND THE ARAB AWAKENING Mohamed Rifaat wrote, "In his memoirs from exile, said, 'The regions that are subject to the Ottoman crown and whose people speak Arabic appeal from the depth of their heart for a great upheaval, for which they are awaiting a man to lead them'. Bonaparte, himself, when at the height of his first push towards the east, tried to be that man the Arab peoples were awaiting. He took with him on his expedition to Egypt a rare group of scientists and Orientalists. He also brought with him a printing press with Latin letters and another with Arabic letters, which he had brought especially from Rome so as to publish his bulletins in Egypt in that ungainly style of Arabic that people, including the sheikhs of Al-Azhar, used at the time. He also founded a governing cabinet, which he initially formed of Egyptian ulama, religious scholars, and he replaced Turks by Egyptians in various government positions, foremost among which were judicial positions. However, all this was of little avail to Bonaparte. Hardly had he set out on his campaign against Syria than he came up against the impenetrable walls of Acre. British naval forces had moved in to protect that citadel from the sea and Napoleon was forced to retreat time and time again, until finally he had no alternative but to evacuate, not just from Acre but Egypt and the entire Oriental theatre. One evening, he secretly escaped back to France, leaving the Arabs still yearning for their awaited one. That man would ultimately be none other than Mohamed Ali", says Rifaat.
"Among the ideas that Mohamed Ali had undoubtedly inherited from Napoleon was the idea of awakening the Arabs and fighting off Turkish hegemony. This entailed creating a youthful Arab spirit that would initially show deference to the sultan but soon rise and conquer him. Turkey at the time was termed the "sick man", in reference to the state of weakness, confusion and decay that had European powers holding periodic diplomatic "consultations" to deliberate over the condition of the patient and the fate of his properties after his death.
"Among the consequences of these private or collective consultations was the surgical intervention of these powers to amputate several of the patient's limbs. They assisted, firstly, in severing off Greece. Then Russia intervened and gained for modern Romania its independence. Soon France turned its sights on North Africa where it saw a lame Ottoman limb just across from its own coast. It wasted no time in performing the amputation that would enable it to annex Algeria, which would eventually serve as a base from which it could bound eastwards and westwards so as to transform the Mediterranean into an almost entirely French-owned sea. It was therefore only natural that Mohamed Ali, endowed with an instinctive political genius, acted to save the Arab lands neighbouring Egypt and Sudan by creating of them a political unity distinct from the rest of Turkish possessions by virtue of its unique properties of race, traditions and Arabic tongue.
"Some might object that our use of the term "Arab unity" in the course of a discussion on Mohamed Ali is to give it a weight unsupported by the context of the times. People in those days were moved by religious and sectarian, not nationalist, sentiments. However, reformers of the calibre of Peter the Great, Bonaparte, Mohamed Ali and, later, Ataturk were never held back by the silence and inertia of the people and lack of awareness of the spirit and needs of the time. These are the geniuses who, in general, are ahead of their times and establish the systems of government and realise the visions that may initially be beyond the comprehension of the people.
"Mohamed Ali's actions in Egypt and the Levant differ little in essence from Peter the Great's modernisation of Russia and the eastward and westward expansion of its borders, and from Napoleon's drive in France and Europe in general. However, some counter that Mohamed Ali and his son, Ibrahim, who was his right hand man in implementing his Arab project, were not Arab by race and only spoke little more than rudimentary Arabic, so how could their project possibly succeed? In fact, there is nothing that dictates that the success of an ideological vision or political policy is contingent upon its advocates and the people among whom it is being advocated sharing the same nationality, language or religion. After all, the Ottoman sultan was not an Arab at the time his spiritual authority prevailed across all Arab and Islamic lands. More importantly, Mohamed Ali settled the question of his nationality when he decided to adopt Egypt as his home and build for it, himself and his family an edifice that would attain lofty status and lasting glory. Nationality was settled when he sent for his family and when his son Ibrahim arrived in advance of the rest when only an adolescent, and completed his upbringing and attained manhood beneath the skies of Egypt. Educated in the literature of the Qur'an and the Arabic language, it was not long before Egypt's glowing sun tinctured his skin and transformed his blood, as he put it, into pure Egyptian blood.
"In all events, no prince, president or king served the cause of the Arabs, whether in Egypt or in the Middle East as a whole, anywhere near as much as Mohamed Ali and his son Ibrahim had. It is sufficient alone that Mohamed Ali was the first leader in modern times to have formed an army of Arab elements. He recruited tens of thousands of them and, under the command of Ibrahim, they marched into various fields of battle carrying the banner of victory, causing Europe to fret at the march of the Egyptian Arab armies and the sailings of the Egyptian Arab fleets. The concept of Arabism in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world gained inestimable moral and national benefit from this. The army became the emblem of national unity, in which framework it served Muslim, Copt or Christian, Egyptian, Syrian, Hijazi or Sudanese, all on a platform of equality. The army founded in these regions a national, militarist spirit unseen in the East for generations past and poised to end the state of degradation and acquiescence that had plagued these countries for centuries before the advent of Mohamed Ali", explains Rifaat.
"Just as Napoleon's armies had, in the course of their conquests of Europe, sewed the seeds of the principles of the French Revolution, declaring the onset of the era of the human right to liberty, fraternity and equality, so too had Mohamed Ali equipped his expeditions with the experts and scholars to spread his principles. No sooner would these officials enter a new region than they would abolish discriminatory distinctions between the classes of the people, unify taxes, and place all religious denominations on a footing of equality, as they restored security to life and property and spread education among all strata. Once we grasp that Mohamed Ali's influence extended across the Levant through Palestine, Lebanon and Syria; to the Arabian Peninsula and Sudan, not to mention Crete and one of the provinces in Anatolia, we can comprehend the extent to which the world is indebted to that great ruler who planted the tree of knowledge and freedom in the soil of the Arab East for the first time in the modern era.
"It was as though fate decreed that the man who created the Arab unity project would have the opportunity to plant this idea in its natural environment, commencing at the front door. After the Ottoman forces had failed repeatedly to quell the Wahabi rebellion in the Hijaz, the Supreme Porte turned to Mohamed Ali, and it was thus the Arabian Peninsula became the first region where Mohamed Ali would extend his sway and raise aloft the banner of Arab unity. The war, which lasted nearly eight years, ended with the surrender of the Wahabis and the loss of the political power for an extended period of time, even if their spiritual movement never weakened.
"Certainly, Mohamed Ali's control over Mecca and Medina and the Arabian Peninsula as a whole formed the strongest support for and most conclusive proof of his right to lead the Arabs against the Turks. Even with the Arabs of the peninsula indebted to him and his word supreme in the Mediterranean, Mohamed Ali turned his attention southwards towards Sudan so as to secure the Red Sea as a fully Egyptian Arab sea. Although the Ottomans had not extended their influence in these vast southern climes beyond a few ports such as Sawakin and Mussawwa, Mohamed Ali was quick to realise the shortcomings of the Turkish strategy. He therefore opened the Sudan in the heart of Africa up to the known borders at the time and leased the Ottoman ports on the Red Sea, thereby carrying Egypt's repute and Arab influence to new and distant depths. The people of the Sudan along the White Nile to Dongola are mostly Muslims of Arab origin and it was only natural that Mohamed Ali sought to connect that land to Egypt and bring it inside the emerging Arab entity.
"Just as Mohamed Ali's army was instrumental in inspiring a nationalist spirit among the Arab peoples, so too did the construction of a fleet herald to the world that the power Mohamed Ali had established in the East was ready to embark in the international world of politics and trade and that domination of the eastern Mediterranean was about to pass from the hands of the trained but rebellious Greek sailors who for many years had the Turks racing from one island to the next in the Aegean. Indeed, soon after Egypt's first navy sailed out of Alexandria under the command of Ibrahim the Conqueror and his in-law the naval commander Muharram Bek, it succeeded in occupying Crete and gaining control over the Aegean. The Egyptian campaign then descended upon Morea, routed the rebels and seized their citadels and fortresses one after the other, until it was feared that the Arabs would put an end to the progeny of the ancient Greeks of the Hellenic lands to which modern European civilisation traces its first origins. Therefore, the European powers intervened on the side of Greece, compelling Mohamed Ali to withdraw his forces. The experience left him with a bitter resentment against the sultan and his men, and for the first time in his life his political acumen dictated to him to remain henceforth neutral in the sultan's wars. He thus refused to aid the sultan in the Turkish war against Russia, which marked the beginning of the eight- year-long clash between him and the sultan.
"It was a clash between two nationalities and two ideas, between two dynasties and two capitals; between the downtrodden Arab peoples stirred into action and the arrogant Ottoman sultan. It was a confrontation between Istanbul, the Ottoman capital of the Turks, and Cairo, the beacon of the Arab East, the podium of Al-Azhar, the resting ground of caliphs and the capital of the khedives. It was a choice between nascent Arab nationalism and acquiescence to submersion within the weak and crumbling Turkish structure that was on the verge of collapse on the heads of its rulers and those who sought protection under their wing. Compounding the violence and intensity of the confrontation was that the two rivals were fighting to gain control over the East. Would the Turks remain dominant in these lands or would the Arabs awake from their slumber and draw their swords against their masters until they succeeded in shattering the bonds of the Ottoman servitude and secured their right to self-determination?
"Ibrahim spearheaded the national liberation movement on land and sea. Advancing into the heart of the Levant, he seized Gaza, Jaffa and advanced on Acre. At the same time, Egyptian forces captured Jerusalem, Tripoli and Beirut. In 1832, the formidable citadel of Acre fell to Egyptian soldiers. So powerfully did this victory echo throughout the Levant that the people raced out to jubilantly welcome Egyptian forces in every town and city they entered and fortresses and citadels vied with one another to open their gates to receive the Arab nationalist liberation regiments, while Turkish commanders fled these same cities and citadels for fear of the wrath of the people. At this juncture, European powers intervened, in spite of their preoccupation with the 1830 revolution in Europe. On this occasion, they sided with Mohamed Ali for fear that Russia would single-handedly come to the aid of the sultan.
"It was thus that Syria, Lebanon and Palestine came under Mohamed Ali's rule and that he became the effective ruler of an enormous Arab nation the borders of which extended to the Persian Gulf to the east, Crete to the west, the Taurus Mountains to the north and the upper reaches of the White Nile to the south. Mohamed Ali was now in a position to support the Arab awakening in all these lands. However, it was not long before the European powers recovered from the effects of the 1830 revolution and the Ottoman sultan thirsted again for revenge. Once again, therefore, warfare erupted between the Turks and Arabs, in the course of which Ibrahim and his soldiers were crowned with the laurels of victory. Now, however, the European powers with the exception of France were set against Mohamed Ali. They were ill at ease with a powerful Egypt astride their gateway to India -- by which I refer to the watercourses of Suez, the Euphrates and the Gulf -- and they determined that Mohamed Ali's forces must withdraw behind the border of Egypt and Sudan. With this, the Arab world reverted to its ancient slumber under Ottoman rule for nearly another century", ends Rifaat.
FROM THE UNKNOWN ANNALS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY: On Mohamed Ali and the invasion of Iraq Abdel-Hamid Batriq wrote, "Iraq was the last link in the series of Arab countries that Mohamed Ali sought to incorporate into his vast Arab kingdom. From the moment order was restored in the Hijaz, he spared no effort in keeping track of current affairs in Iraq, for he was aware of the extent to which that province strained under poor government, poverty and the tyranny of the rulers under the viceroyship of Ali Pasha.
"At the time in which Egyptian forces were advancing east and west in Sudan as they progressed southwards in the Nile Valley, Mohamed Ali's attention to developments in Iraq never flagged. In 1821, he wrote to the governor of Medina asking him to keep him regularly posted on the news of Iraq. He further instructed the governor 'to remain constantly informed of the circumstances in Baghdad, towards which end he should dispatch spies from Medina, Oneiza or Jabal Shamar who have connections there. The moment they report any news, the governor was instructed to immediately transmit it to Mohamed Ali'.
"What triggered Mohamed Ali's interest in the news from Iraq that year was the deterioration in the relations between Turkey and Iran and the threat of an invasion by the shah of Iran against Baghdad at a time when Ottoman defences there were too weak to withstand an invasion.
"The following year, as Iranian forces encroached on Iraqi borders and stood poised to occupy Baghdad, Mohamed Ali was presented with the opportunity to invade Iraq. On 15 Shaaban 1238 AH the Grand Vizier, on behalf of the sultan, wrote to Mohamed Ali informing him that the viceroy of Baghdad had declared his inability to repel the Persians from Baghdad. The vizier, therefore, asked Mohamed Ali to come to Baghdad's defence by sending over a large force commanded by the heroic Ibrahim Pasha. Mohamed Ali, however, felt that the timing was inappropriate as the Sudan campaign was still in progress. In a delicately worded response he pleaded that he was busy monitoring British advances in the Red Sea, especially as British warships had just bombarded the Yemeni port of Mocha preparatory to occupying that city. Nevertheless, he added that he was prepared to personally lead a large campaign to Iraq the following year in order to repel the Persians and establish a strong government in Baghdad", states Batriq.
"Soon, however, tension subsided between Iran and Turkey while to the west rebellion flared up among the Greeks. Thus, while the sultan no longer required Mohamed Ali's aid to protect Baghdad he did need it to protect the empire from the spreading Greek insurrection.
"Meanwhile, as misgovernment continued to prevail in Iraq, Mohamed Ali and the sultan fell into dispute over rumours that Mohamed Ali planned to invade Iraq and annex it to the Arab empire he was building. So alarmed was the British empire by these rumours that between 1833 and 1834 they were a constant subject of the communications between the British Foreign Office and the Government of India and of secret communiqués between Bombay, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and London, all warning of the impending Egyptian storm against Baghdad and all describing the wretchedness of the situation in Iraq and the desperate hopes of its people to be incorporated into a new Arab political entity ruled by Mohamed Ali. In December 1833, the British consul in Baghdad reported to the Foreign Office: 'The province of Baghdad is currently reeling under the worst government it has ever known in its history. The people are in a state of furor over the despotism of the viceroy Ali Pasha and have pinned their hopes on Ibrahim Pasha'. Then, on 10 March 1834 he reported, 'An Egyptian officer travelling clandestinely has arrived in Baghdad. After making certain contacts during his stay, which lasted several days, he visited the Persian borders, which indicates that the Pasha [Mohamed Ali] has his mind seriously set on this part of the world. In addition, Mohamed Ali's messenger, Sayed Khaled Effendi, has delivered letters from Mohamed Ali to the imam of Muscat, the emir of Shiraz, Sheikh Shueib and Sheikh Al-Muntafiq and is awaiting their responses to transmit to his master. This messenger told a Turkish merchant in Baghdad that he left Egypt four months ago and that Iraq and the coasts of the Persian Gulf would be joined to Mohamed Ali's rule beginning in 1250 AH'. The British consul added, 'The people here prefer the rule of the viceroy of Egypt and there is no one in Iraq capable of resisting any effort on the part of the pasha to invade the country'.
"When British Foreign Secretary Palmerston, Mohamed Ali's sworn enemy, learned of the possibility of an Egyptian invasion of Iraq he flew into a rage and wrote to Colonel Campbell, the British ambassador to Cairo, instructing him to meet with the Pasha in order to learn how seriously he was contemplating such an event. Campbell hastened to Mohamed Ali's palace in Shobra and after his discussions with Mohamed Ali he wrote back to Palmerston reporting that the pasha was not at present contemplating an invasion of Baghdad as his forces in Syria were barely sufficient to man the garrisons there.
"Did Mohamed Ali really want to advance on Baghdad? Our answer to this is that were it not for British intervention and Palmerston's animosity towards Mohamed Ali Egyptian forces would have invaded Iraq. Order had been restored in the Arabian Peninsula and Egyptian forces now prevailed in the Levant. Naturally, Mohamed Ali had his sights on Baghdad and, moreover, he made two attempts in this regard. The first followed the Egyptian siege of Aleppo, when between 1834 and 1835 his troops advanced closer to their target. The only thing that prevented him from completing this advance was Palmerston's ultimatum that Britain would not abide by an invasion of Iraq.
"The second attempt was launched in 1839. This time, however, the inspiration did not come from Mohamed Ali but rather from his great commander, Khurshid Pasha. Under his command, Egyptian forces seized control over the coasts of the Persian Gulf and concluded a treaty with the prince of Bahrain in accordance with which that country entered under Egyptian rule.
"Khurshid Pasha spent nearly two years in the Najd and Al- Ahsa', gathering the information necessary for a campaign against Iraq. He had eyes and hands over there who fed him news, created the appropriate climate and spread propaganda for Egyptian rule among the inhabitants resentful of Ottoman rule. His most important propagandist was a religious scholar from the Najd who served as a judge in Al-Zubeir in Iraq. Sheikh Hamouda Bin Jassar submitted exhaustive reports on events in Iraq and on its ruler Ali Pasha. At the same time, he was in constant contact with Iraqi notables, prominent merchants and ulama whom he attempted to win over to the idea of Egyptian rule. Moreover, he also established contacts with Iraqi Arabs in the army in the hope of ensuring that the greatest number of these possible would join Egyptian ranks at the time of the invasion. In fact, he succeeded in winning over a large number of their chiefs", continues Batriq.
"The people of Basra were no less eager for the imminent Egyptian invasion. Sheikh Hamouda met with naqib al-ashraf (the head of the Descendants of the Prophet) there, Abdel- Rahman Effendi, as well as two muftis and several Basra notables, all of whom he found fully prepared to aid and rally under the banner of Egyptian rule. Also, when news spread in Basra of Khurshid's victories in the Najd and along the Persian Gulf coast, and of the imminent arrival of the Egyptian army, some Iraqi army officers and their men attempted to defect to Khurshid. Indeed, a group of 70 succeeded in making their way to the Najd where they asked Khurshid Pasha to grant them permission to summon the rest of their forces who were stationed in Basra -- these numbering around 500 -- so that they could join the Egyptian army in its drive into Iraq.
"Following the Nezib battle Khurshid Pasha felt the time was ripe to conquer Iraq. He wrote to his master strongly urging his permission and impressing upon him the preparations he had undertaken over the previous year. He concluded his plea: 'Iraq is a kingdom as vast as Egypt. At present it is as the sword of Al- Jawhar which fell and had to be snatched up again. That whose time has come must not be passed up'.
"However, Khurshid was unaware of the importance the British attached to Iraq, and not just the Persian Gulf, for to them, the two were closely connected. They firmly believed that Mohamed Ali planned to form an Arab kingdom comprising all the Arab- speaking lands, and they suspected that his next step would be to pounce on Iraq, either from the Arabian Peninsula where Khurshid's forces were stationed, or from Syria where Ibrahim's forces were garrisoned, or from both directions simultaneously. The British therefore took the utmost precautions to ensure Mohamed Ali's grip would not extend to both the Persian Gulf and the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Apart from its strategic significance, the route to the Persian Gulf, to Palmerston, held the future of Great Britain, for upon it the East India Company pinned great hopes. The British had not yet thought of building the Suez Canal. Their sole preoccupation was navigation through the Gulf by way of the Euphrates.
"For this reason, Britain stepped up its campaign, which reached its peak towards the end of 1836, when in frequent meetings with Mohamed Ali the British consul warned him to cease his activities in the Persian Gulf and Iraq. Thus, Mohamed Ali's eastward thrust came to a halt. This, however, did not quell the animosity harboured by the British foreign secretary toward Mohamed Ali who spared no effort in instigating other European powers against the great Egyptian ruler. Were it not for this, the Arabs would have realised the dream of unity under a strong and wise rule", concludes Batriq.