Khaled Fahmy

This article refutes official affirmations by the Egyptian army that it participated in the First World War. It argues instead that the nearly 100,000 Egyptians who participated in the war were members of the Egyptian Labour Corps. These men, the article argues, were peasants and not soldiers, and, as such, they were civilians and not members of the Egyptian army.

This articles charts the history of the creation of a public health system in nineteenth-century Egypt. It concentrates on efforts to contain repeated epidemics, most notably the plague and cholera. the article relies heavily on material culled from the Egyptian National Archives.

For nearly thirty years, Ruud Peters has been publishing pioneering work that has considerably enriched our understanding of Islamic law. In addition to path-breaking books, scholarly articles and book chapters on such diverse topics as jihad, qasāma, the development of madhhabs, Ottoman criminal law and the application of Islamic criminal law in modern times, he has also produced pioneering work on nineteenth-century Egyptian law. The significance of Peters’ work on the history of Egyptian law lies not only in revolutionizing our understandings of the origins of the modern Egyptian legal system or in his unique ability to combine thorough knowledge of fiqh with a deep command of archival material, but also in painting a detailed picture of the complex ways in which Islamic law was applied in a modern state context.

CONTENTS Acknowledgments 1 MACEDONIAN ORIGINS Birth Childhood and adolescence Marriage 2 THE EGYPTIAN QUAGMIRE Husrev Pasha: the beginning of a lifelong enmity The eviction of the Mamluks from Cairo Sending Husrev packing 3 CONSOLIDATION OF POWER The elimination of local rivals The Mamluk massacre 4 ENTRENCHMENT Building an alternative power base An economic policy takes shape The Hijaz campaign Absolute power Tightening the screw Investing in infrastructure Lingering anxieties Commercial successes "The old spider in his den" 5 EXPANDING HORIZONS A fortuitous year The Greek war The involvement of the European powers Husrev's reappearance The "Auspicious Event" Disaster at Navarino Preparation for the next round 6 THE FINAL SHOWDOWN The Benefactor Nagging worries The invasion of Syria Crossing the Rubicon Reorganization and retrenchment The second Syrian crisis Seeking hereditary rule Jubilation 7 TRIUMPH The Pasha and his elite: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?...

Although official data suggest that Egypt avoided the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors have warned that the reality is far more grim. Their attempts to speak out have been met with harsh repression. A glance back at Egyptian history from the origins of the modern nation in the early nineteenth century reveals a consistent disregard for citizens’ health, apart from their usefulness as military conscripts.

This article studies the difficulties that befall the teaching of the humanities in Egyptian universities. It argues that as is the situation globally, the humanities are in crisis in Egypt. This crisis stems from a complete lack of support by public figures, antiquated pedagogical methods in universities, and distorted admissions policies that disadvantage the humanities. The dismal failure to encourage Egyptian university students to consider Egyptology as a major and the depressing state of the country's museums and archives are cited as particularly poignant signs of the crisis of humanities in Egypt.

... notably, Ahmad Fathi Zaghlul and Aziz Khanki) 4 and the majority of subsequent Egyptian legal historians (most significantly, Abd al-Rahman al-Rafi'i and ... The problem for the members of Majlis al-Ahkam was that Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi doctrine, did not agree that ...

For nearly thirty years, Ruud Peters has been publishing pioneering work that has considerably enriched our understanding of Islamic law. In addition to path-breaking books, scholarly articles and book chapters on such diverse topics as jihad,  qasāma, the development of madhhabs, Ottoman criminal law and the application of Islamic criminal law in modern times, he has also produced pioneering work on nineteenth-century Egyptian law. The significance of Peters’ work on the history of Egyptian law lies not only in revolutionizing our understandings of the origins of the modern Egyptian legal system or in his unique ability to combine thorough knowledge of fiqh with a deep command of archival material, but also in painting a detailed picture of the complex ways in which Islamic law was applied in a modern state context.

This article studies the difficulties that befall the teaching of the humanities in Egyptian universities. It argues that as is the situation globally, the humanities are in crisis in Egypt. This crisis stems from a complete lack of support by public figures, antiquated pedagogical methods in universities, and distorted admissions policies that disadvantage the humanities. The dismal failure to encourage Egyptian university students to consider Egyptology as a major and the depressing state of the country's museums and archives are cited as particularly poignant signs of the crisis of humanities in Egypt.

هذا الفصل يستعرض تاريخ تأسيس جيش نظامي حديث في مصر على يد محمد علي باشا. ويتناول الفصل الخطوات المختلفة التي اتخذها محمد علي لكي يقيم جيشا مبنيا على تجنيد الفلاحين،. كما يستعرض الفصل تأثير الجيش على الاقتصاد والمجتمع ووضع مصر الدولي. ويتناول الفصل أيضا تاريخ الحروب والمعارك العديدة التي خاضها هذا  ويختتم الفصل بطرح أسئلة عامة عن طبيعة هذا الجيش وأثره على المجتمع المصري.الجيش، ويتساءل عن أغراض وأهداف هذا الحروب.

بالرغم من الاختلافات العديدة التى تفصل بين محمد على و عبد الناصر، ومن أن انقلاب يوليو أتى ليقضى على حكم الأسرة العلوية التى أسسها محمد على فى مصر، فإن كثيرا ما تعقد المقارنات بين الرجلين، بل إن كثيرين يرون عبد الناصر، محتذيا حذو محمد على وسائرا فى ركابه ومستلهما الكثير من رؤاه فى كيفية حكم مصر والنهوض بها.

في هذا المقال أعرض صورة مختصرة لتلك الرؤية التى يبدو فيها الرجلان مكملين لبعضهما البعض ومنتميين لنفس المشروع النهضوى الواحد. ثم سأقوم بتقديم نقد لتلك الرؤية مبنيا على قراءة لسيرة محمد على وسياساته، قراءة نابعة من إطار عثمانى وليس مصريا خالصا. ثم سأختم بطرح تساؤل عما ستبدو عليه المقارنة بين الرجلين إذا نظرنا إلى محمد
على من داخل هذا الإطار العثمانى.
(نُشر في جريدة الشروق على حلقتين في يومي ٦ و٧ يناير ٢٠١٥)

The period of Muhammad ’Ali’s reign, which started in 1805 when he was appointed by the Ottoman sultan as wali of Egypt and ended in 1848 with his deposition as a result of mental illness, offers one of the most interesting epochs of modern Egyptian history. During this period Egypt, while still forming a part of the Ottoman empire, assumed an increasingly independent stance, and was finally granted as a hereditary domain to Muhammad ’Ali by the sultan ’Abd al-Majid in 1841. The Pasha, as Muhammad ’Ali came to be known in Egypt (or the Viceroy, as he was commonly known to Europeans), managed in a long and effective reign to bring to an end Mamluk power in Egypt and to create in its stead a loyal elite composed of members of his own family, of friends and acquaintances from his home town of Kavalla, and of members of the expanding bureaucracy that he founded in Egypt. Moved by a desire to turn his tenure as governor into a more secure and permanent position, Muhammad ’Ali undertook various radical measures that changed Egypt’s position within the Ottoman empire, strengthened its economic ties with Europe at the expense of older links with other provinces of the empire, and radically changed its social and cultural map. Most significantly, by creating a massive naval and military force, the Pasha was able to expand Cairo’s control not only over the entire province of Egypt, but also much beyond the traditional borders of the province to include the Sudan, Crete, the Morea, the Hijaz, Yemen, Syria, and even parts of Anatolia, the heartland of the Ottoman empire.

This entry covers the history of the 19th-century Egyptian Empire in the Sudan, Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Crete, and parts of southern Anatolia. By placing this imperial expansion in the context of the Ottoman Empire, the entry argues that this expansion was triggered by Mehmed Ali's dynastic ambitions. It also discusses the economic causes of the Egyptian Empire as well as its consequences both on Egypt and on the conquered territories.

On 24 January 2015, Shaymaʾ al-Sabbagh, a thirty-two-year-old mother of one and a member of the Egyptian Socialist People's Alliance Party, was walking with flowers in hand alongside her colleagues in a preauthorized march to Tahrir Square to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the January Revolution. Suddenly the police opened fire at close range and within a few minutes Shaymaʾ dropped dead. Despite strong evidence implicating the police, who were present at the scene in overwhelming numbers, and despite the wide circulation on social media of a video clip showing a masked policeman aiming in Shaymaʾ's direction, the attorney general initially refused to arraign the police officer in question and instead decided to charge Shaymaʾ's colleagues. After a massive public outcry, the suspected police officer was finally arraigned (although his identity was never revealed); however, he was charged not with manslaughter or excessive use of force, but with the much lesser charge of “beating that results in death.” Most crucially, the official cause of Shaymaʾ's death was slimness. In a TV interview, Dr. Hisham ʿAbd al-Hamid, the spokesperson of the Egyptian Medical Forensics Authority (EMFA), said that the birdshot that hit Shaymaʾ “was not fatal given that it was fired more than eight meters away, but since she was too skinny, the birdshot was able to penetrate her body easily and ended up hitting the lung and the heart. This is a very rare case.”

This is an audio  podcast. to listen go to:

http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2014/11/law-crime-ottoman-egypt-fahmy.html

How have the immense transformations of the nineteenth century impacted Egyptian state and society? Our guest Dr. Khaled Fahmy has devoted much of his work to the study of that very question in the realms of military, medicine, and in this episode, law, which is the subject of his forthcoming book. In this episode, we explore the emergence to of new legal institutions under Mehmed Ali's government in Egypt and ask Dr. Fahmy what this meant for Egypt and how it fits into the broader changes afoot in the Ottoman world.

NB To listen to the podcast click the url above.