Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress: Ancient Egypt in the Writings of ʿAlī Mubārak

Author(s): Darrell Dykstra

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 114, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1994), pp. 54-
65
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 PYRAMIDS, PROPHETS, AND PROGRESS: ANCIENT
EGYPT IN THE WRITINGS OF CALIMUBARAK
DARRELL
DYKSTRA
WESTERN
ILLINOIS
UNIVERSITY

The Pharaonicperiod of Egypt's history has long representeda problem of interpretationfor Mus-
lim Egyptians. Physical relics of antiquity suggested distinctive and impressive achievement, while
popular culture retained at least some sense of continuity with ancient times. Yet ancient Egyptian
culture was exuberantlypolytheistic, and in the QurDana specific motif described Pharaohas the ob-
durate adversaryof the early prophet Moses. Despite these obstacles, a number of medieval Muslim
authors wrote positively of ancient Egypt, creating an interpretivetraditionwhich enduredfor centu-
ries. During the second half of the nineteenth century, several Egyptian intellectuals, of whom 'All
Mubarakwas particularlyimportant,combined that traditionwith the Europeanscience of Egyptology
to articulateboth a positive understandingof the full chronology of Egyptian civilization, and a vision
of Egypt's contemporarycapacity for progress. These values would in turn provide a foundation for
the development in the next generation of a territoriallydefined Egyptian nationalism.

1. INTRODUCTION While such questions of the use of ancient history

can be found in every part of the modern Middle East,
IN THE EFFORTS OF MODERN SOCIETIES to articulate au- Egypt provides a particularly significant example of va-
thentic definitions of community identity, the ancient riety and change in the cultural interpretation of the
past has variously been affirmed, neglected or rejected. distant past. Most discussions of modern Egyptian po-
Most states of the modern Middle East have museums, litical ideologies acknowledge that at least by the end
antiquities services, and research institutions which of the nineteenth century an appreciation of ancient
give at least some attention to pre-Islamic periods, yet Egyptian history had been made part of the system of
the act of showing intellectual interest in ancient Mid- meaning articulated by proponents of Egyptian nation-
dle Eastern civilizations has encountered multiple chal- alism. A "Pharaonic" component of identity would be
lenges. One has come from the perspective of pan-Arab significant in discourse about Egypt's national identity
nationalists for whom a concern about ancient matters for several more decades, but would be eventually
is either a relic of colonial scholarship or an assertion of shouldered aside by Arab and Muslim orientations.4
particularist and separatist loyalties.2 Another chal- The purpose of this article is to examine an important
lenge, highly audible and even violent, is explicit in the transition in the conceptual vocabulary of cultural eval-
rhetoric of the adherents of Islamic fundamentalism, for uation among highly placed Egyptians during the sec-
whom "Pharaoh" is an epithet reserved for the worst of ond half of the nineteenth century. The central figure
domestic enemies.3 is the Egyptian educator, engineer, public official and
writer, 'Ali Mubarak, one of the most prominent figures
1 I wish to
acknowledge my gratitude to Lois Aroian, Carl
Petry and Donald Reid for their helpful comments on earlier
versions of this study. (1985): 1-30; also Gilles Keppel, Le Prophete et Pharaon:
2 See, for instance, Rifaat
Abou-El-Haj, "An Agenda for Les mouvements islamistes dans l'Egypte contemporaine
Research in History: The History of Libya between the Six- (Paris: La Decouverte, 1984).
teenth and Nineteenth Centuries," International Journal of 4 See, for example, Charles Wendell, The Evolution
of the
Middle East Studies 15 (1983): 307-8. Egyptian National Image (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of
3 The phenomenon is most obvious in the rhetoric of the California Press, 1972), and Israel Gershoni and James P. Jan-
fundamentalist groups opposed to Anwar Sadat; see J. J. G. kowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian
Jansen, "The Creed of Sadat's Assassins: The Contents of Nationhood, 1900-1930 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
'The Forgotten Duty' Analysed," Die Welt des Islams 25 1986).

54

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 DYKSTRA: Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress 55

in the Egyptian government of that period. Themes and It has often been asserted that in the world view of
interpretations that are evident in Mubarak's writings Muslims the prophetic mission of Muhammad cast a
were important contributions to evolving concepts of great divide across time. Ancient Egypt was inescap-
Egypt's identity. ably on the wrong side of the divide, unavoidably and
extravagantly part of the jahiliyya. Thus, in the conven-
2. CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ON MUSLIM EGYPTIANS tional view, ideological hostility rendered positive
AND THE ANCIENTS evaluation impossible, so that for Muslims the ancient
world simply retreated into conceptual invisibility. In
The nineteenth century, of course, witnessed a great the words of Charles Wendell, for just one example,
increase in European interest in Egypt. Artists and later any sense of feeling about ancient Egypt "had been de-
photographers could travel and work in Egypt with stroyed by the irruption of Islam as thoroughly as it is
some confidence that their art and albums would sell possible to imagine..." and all that was left was "a
well to an eager public. Architects and decorators drew rubbish heap of broken 'idols', resin-soaked corpses,
on Egyptian models and motifs. Tourists in increasing and building material left behind by 'Pharaoh'and his
numbers cruised the Nile and published travel accounts. infidel hosts, to even the best-educated Egyptian .. ."6
Europeans, both privately and on behalf of ambitious To the enthusiasm of the European diggers, even the
institutions, collected Egyptian antiquities ranging from "best-educated Egyptians" responded with apparentin-
scarabs and mummy hands to papyri, sarcophagi, colos- difference, tempered with bemusement, at least accord-
sal heads and the walls and ceilings of tombs and tem- ing to C. E. Bosworth's reading of a key passage from
ples. The century saw the development of Egyptology al-Jabarti.7
as a profession within Western scholarship, and the Gradually, during the nineteenth century, indications
evolution of the techniques, purposes and standards of of Egyptian interest in ancient Egypt became more ap-
that profession. Interest in ancient Egypt was not a new parent. Jacques Tagher has described how the Egyptian
phenomenon for Europe; intermittent periods of such upper class, from the 1820s on, seems to have devel-
fascination dot European cultural history. But from the oped a bit of an imitative taste, expressed in the addi-
late eighteenth century, from the time of Volney, De- tion of a Pharaonic piece or two to domestic decor, or
non, and Bonaparte's scholarly outriders, the scale of in the assembling of a small collection of artifacts. Vil-
interest was undeniably greater than ever before. And, lagers who happened to be strategically located to ob-
with the decipherment of hieroglyphics, after centuries serve the avidity of foreigners quickly caught on to the
of ignorant but highly creative speculation in the West entrepreneurial potential of the moment, and turned
about the meaning and function of that script, the cen- from their plows to the more lucrative business of ex-
tury saw a major qualitative change in the basis of dis- cavating (or manufacturing) and selling portable anti-
course about ancient Egypt.5 quities. The great mass of Egyptians, spared the sight
How, if at all, did Muslim Egyptians respond to all of of the European diggers, collectors, and tourists, seems
this? And is it sufficient to speak merely of a response to to have been supremely indifferent to the whole thing.8
external interest? Did nineteenth-century Egyptians re- On the official side, the Egyptian government from
tain and perpetuatean indigenous appreciationof Egypt's the 1830s attempted sporadically to regulate the activi-
pre-Islamic past? ties of would-be Europeancollectors and excavators, to
check an unseemly competition among the foreigners,
and perhaps also to stock a supply of artifacts to distrib-
5 The most ute as politically useful gifts and rewards. Late in the
thoroughworkon Europe'sfitfuleffortsto make
1830s, Mariette was appointed director of excavations
sense of Egypt,with particularemphasison hieroglyphics,is
and supervisor of what would in time become the Egyp-
Erik Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in Euro-
tian Museum and the antiquities service. Between 1869
pean Tradition (Copenhagen: Gad, 1961). In The Egyptian
Revival: An Introductory Study of a Recurring Theme in the
History of Taste (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), James
Stevens Curl is concerned especially with the visual arts and 6 Wendell, Evolution, 122.
architecture
fromRomantimesto the twentiethcentury.Rich- 7 C. E. Bosworth, "Al-Jabarti and the Frankish Archeolo-
ard G. Carrott, The Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments, gists," IJMES 8 (1977): 229-36.
and Meaning, 1808-1858 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. 8
Jacques Tagher, "Fouilleurs et antiquaires en Egypte au
of California Press, 1978) emphasizes egyptianizing tenden- XIXe siecle," Cahiers d'histoire egyptienne, s6r. III (1950):
cies in American architecture. 72-86.

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 56 Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.1 (1994)

and 1874 the German Egyptologist Henri Brugsch tians to achieve high position in a governing structure
headed a small government school to teach ancient long dominated by an ethnic-minority elite. His educa-
Egyptian languages. Donald Reid has described recently tion continued through primary and secondary institu-
the slow emergence of the academic discipline of Egyp- tions and through a new engineering school in Cairo. In
tology among Egyptians, a process which by the last 1844 he was chosen one of a group of young men to go
two decades of the nineteenth century had attracted a to France for furthereducation. Mubarakbegan his gov-
bare handful of scholars.9 ernment career upon his return from France in 1849.
One can cite an increasing number of books written His career fluctuated in importance and stature for sev-
in Arabic which deal with ancient Egypt. In 1838 eral years, and then flourished during the reign of Is-
Tahtawi's school of languages produced a compilation maCilin the 1860s and 1870s. At one time or another,
of translated works on ancient history, Biddyat al- often all at the same time, he was the minister in charge
qudamda wa hiddyat al-hukamda, one of a number of of the government school system, the railroads, the de-
publications dealing with topics in non-Islamic history sign and implementation of ambitious urban construc-
to appear in the 1830s and 1840s. From the 1860s on, tion programs, the design and establishment of major
more works, including Tahtawi's important Anwdr irrigation projects, and the administration of pious be-
tawfiq al-jalil fi akhbdr misr wa tawthiq bani ismdcil quests. He served twice in cabinets after the British
(1868-69), dealt with ancient Egyptian matters. The military occupation of Egypt in 1882. He died in 1893,
periodical Rawdat al-madaris published in the 1870s a two years after retirement.
number of articles and short books on Pharaonic topics. Particularlyduringthe 1860s and 1870s, Mubarakwas
The conventional view is that these gradualmanifesta- a central figure in an unprecedented process of state-
tions of Egyptian interest in ancient Egypt came entirely building, as the Egyptian state dramaticallyincreased its
at the behest of Europeans and followed their example. ability to exert controls over people and resources. The
It was thus a derivative and flawed appreciation-an bureaucraticsystem was expanded and partiallyrational-
emotional and conceptual world borrowed from the ized. Institutionsof education were established by a state
value-system of nineteenth-century imperialism, and newly convinced of its need to train people competent
thus inherently dependent and unauthentic. Is the con- in new fields of expertise. Irrigation technology was
ventional view accurate or sufficient? substantially changed, an intervention in the economy
closely associated with the incorporation of Egypt into
3. CALI MUBARAK: CIVIL SERVANT AND WRITER the world economic system, dominated by Europe.
Through purposeful state action, European-modeled
Among the writers in whose works ancient Egypt was codes of law were written and instituted, crowding aside
given a particularly significant place was CAliMubarak, the sharica. Government policies encouraged the devel-
whose life is unusually well suited to illuminate major opment of private landowning and, eventually, the con-
developments in the political, economic, social and cul- centration of much land in the hands of relatively few
tural life of Egypt in the nineteenth century.10Born (in owners. The expanding ambitions of the state led to the
1823 or 1824) into circumstances which would seem to emergence of domestic challenges to "viceregal abso-
have indicated a career as a traditional religious func- lutism"-to borrow Robert Hunter'sphrase-and to the
tionary in a small village, a calling followed by his fam- increased participationof Europeaninterests in Egyptian
ily for generations, he chose rathera new direction, that fiscal, economic and eventually political affairs. The
of attending one of the primary schools recently es- prolonged crisis stimulated efforts to grapple with ideo-
tablished by the government of Muhammad CAli.That logical questions of national identity and purpose, in-
choice marked the first step of his entry into the Egyp- cluding the eventual rise of Egyptian nationalism."M
tian political class; he is customarily regarded as one of CAli Mubarak was important in these processes not
the first native-born, Arabic-speaking Muslim Egyp- merely because of his remarkablyactive public life, but
also because he was a prolific writer (publishing entirely
in Arabic). He wrote a number of technical handbooks,
9 DonaldM. Reid, "IndigenousEgyptology:The Decoloni-
zationof a Profession?",JAOS105 (1985): 233-46. l F. Robert Hunter, Egypt under the Khedives, 1805-1879:
10The basicsourcefor the
followingis Mubarak'sautobiog- From Household Government to Modern Bureaucracy (Pitts-
raphy which is included in his Al-Khitat al-tawfiqiyya al- burgh:Univ. of PittsburghPress, 1984);AlexanderScholch,
jadida, 20 vols. (Bulaq: al-MatbaCaal-kubraal-amiriyya, Egypt for the Egyptians! The Socio-Political Crisis in Egypt
1886-89), 9:37-61. 1878-1882 (London: Ithaca Press, 1981).

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 DYKSTRA: Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress 57

primers and short scientific books. He wrote magazine traditions, has honored earlier prophets of scriptural
articles on justice and education, a lengthy treatise on the monotheism, and has conceived of itself as the reasser-
proper administration of the Nile, and a translation of tion and culmination of a long tradition of revealed
Sedillot's Histoire des arabes. His best-known work, truth. But there are several other possible approaches.
Al-Khitat al-tawfiqiyya al-jadlda, is a densely packed One might strive to pull the "other"within the category
twenty-volume compendium of topographical, historical of revelation, extending the lineage of prophethood. Or
and biographical informationon Egypt; it is itself a great one might stress the importance of human reason, effort
and much-cited source of information about nineteenth- and good intentions as the necessary complements of
century Egypt. One of his most unusual and original revelation. These more complex, diverse, and occasion-
books is a four-volume, 1400-page work of fiction, CAlam ally competing responses have also been present within
al-din, which presents itself as the travels and conversa- Islamic cultural history.
tions of a traditionally educated Muslim intellectual, Pharaonic Egypt represented a particularly complex
Shaykh CAlamal-Din, and a British orientalist. His pub- challenge. Not only was Egypt itself, with it inescap-
lications, and his government positions in education, po- able and relentlessly polytheistic monuments, incorpo-
sitioned him to have significant impact on the ideas rated early and fully into the territories of Islam, but
expressed by the Egyptian political class. Egypt, especially as the site of the Qur'anic account of
This paper will utilize Mubarak'swritings to explore Pharaoh and Moses, was part of the history of all
and define directions of change in the cultural under- Muslims, not just that of Muslim Egyptians who lived
standing of ancient Egypt among influential nineteenth- among the physical relics.12 Islam could not and did
century Muslim Egyptians. Other important topics, not ignore Pharaonic Egypt.
particularlythe persistence of ideas and images about an- Recent studies by Ulrich Haarmann, A. Fodor,
cient Egypt within popular culture, cannot be dealt with Michael Cook and others have noted that there are sev-
here; my intent is to examine the redefinitionof an intel- eral Muslim traditions of interpreting ancient Egyptian
lectual tradition among people in positions of political materials. Interpretations of the most distinctive of
and social influence. The principal questions are these. Egypt's physical relics, the pyramids of Giza, can be
What in fact were the evaluations of ancient Egypt cur- used to illustrate the variety of Muslim traditions. Al-
rent among Arab-Muslimwritersof earlier centuries, and though the pyramids are variously explained in Islamic
how did Mubarak'sinterpretationsof Egyptian antiquity texts as observatories, granaries, or tombs, there are
compare with theirs? How was his understandinginflu- other, more ambitious versions of interpretationwhich
enced by the great surge of EuropeanEgyptological fas- associate the pyramids with efforts to circumvent the
cination and activity in the nineteenth century? How did effects of anticipatedcatastrophes,particularlythe scrip-
his perceptions of Egypt's distant past fit into his vision tural Flood.
of Egypt's place in the world in his own time? How might Fodor has discussed three such legends, and has
his ideas, in turn, have contributed to the formation of speculated about their origins.13 One legend, perhaps
new ideologies within Egyptian intellectual and political Yemeni in origin, makes the pyramids the tombs of
life? Yemenite hero-kings, particularly, one named Shaddad
b. CAd,who had invaded and conquered Egypt; Shaddad
4. ISLAMIC INTERPRETATIONS OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITY
is said to have built the pyramids because of a dream

Islam, as it expanded, absorbed lands that possessed 12 Although for most Muslim commentators the Qur'anic
rich histories of civilization, heritages which chal- pharaoh was unequivocally rejected, as the tyrannic oppressor
lenged cultural interpretation. How, if at all, could a of the monotheistic prophet Moses and as the embodiment of
culture which proposed that revelation is the essential prideful opposition to divine order, it was possible for some
source of knowledge and truth, account for and come to authors to arrive at more subtle evaluations; in addition to the
respect the wisdom, knowledge, and achievements of article "Fircawn"in the Encyclopedia of Islam, see especially
other periods and civilizations? One response, not ab- Denis Gril, "Le Personnage coranique de Pharaond'apres l'in-
sent within Islam, is simply to deny the possibility of terpretation d'Ibn Arabi," Annales islamologiques 14 (1978):
such wisdom and achievements. But denial certainly 37-57; see also R. Paret, "Le Corps de Pharaon, signe et aver-
has not been the only approach within Islam. It is un- tissement pour la posterite," Etudes d'orientalisme dediees a
controversial that Islam does make positive evaluations la memoire de Levi-Provencal (Paris, 1962), 1:235-37.
of certain elements of the jahiliyya: Islam has con- 13 A. Fodor, "The Origins of the Arabic Legends of the Pyr-
stantly declared its receptivity to established scriptural amids," Acta Orientalia Hungarica 23 (1970): 335-63.

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58 Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.1 (1994)

foretelling disaster. According to a second legend, it metic literature, that is, the concept that knowledge, in
was a king of Egypt named Siirid who dreamed of im- whatever subject-religion, cosmology, ethics, astrol-
pending catastrophe. The priest Philemon interpreted ogy, medicine, or alchemy-is conveyed through reve-
the dream as providing royal confirmation for a more lation, rather than through empirical observation or
detailed dream of his own about a catastrophic flood. philosophical argument.15In these writings, revelation
Suiridthen ordered the pyramids built to serve both as is often conferred directly on Hermes himself, or by
his own tomb and as places to store and protect trea- Hermes upon Asclepius or others; often, a worthy ini-
sures, magic statues, and the precious sciences of Egyp- tiate obtains heavenly wisdom by the discovery of a
tian wisdom. Only Philemon, among the Egyptians, concealed book or inscribed tablet.16
survived the eventual Flood; his wisdom was handed Most of the large body of texts attributedto Hermes
down through many generations. The most common Trismegistus had its origin in the hellenistic culture of
version of the Surid legend is presented within a frame the second through fourth centuries, and was undeni-
story involving the discovery of a papyrus scroll, whose ably current in hellenized Egypt.17The degree to which
hieroglyphics were translatedby two brotherswho were hellenistic hermeticism had a continuous intellectual
the recipients of Philemon's wisdom. linkage with ancient Egyptian ideas has been a matter
In both the Shaddad b. CAdand the Surid legends, a of dispute.18 There is also controversy over the con-
forecast of cosmic destruction leads to the building of tinuity and relevance of the hermetic understanding
the Giza pyramids. Both legends involve the theme of within Egypt after the hellenistic age, through the
dream interpretation, which the Bible and the Qurdan Christian and medieval Islamic centuries. The Egyptol-
alike associate with ancient Egyptian wisdom. Both ogist Maspero argued that the hermetic history repre-
also associate the pyramids, at least in part, with a se- sented the survival, through Coptic rescensions, of an
cretive priesthood's determination to preserve esoteric authentic Egyptian native tradition. More recently,
knowledge from destruction and from the profanation Haarmannhas argued for the existence of an "age-old,
of exposure to unworthy eyes. Arabized Muslim-Egyptian civilization."19
A third and particularly important line of interpreta- Fodor and Michael Cook, on the other hand, argue
tion retains many of the same elements but understands against continuity: in their view, the hermetic interpre-
the pyramids to be the work of Hermes Trismegistus, tation was squeezed out of Egypt under the pressure of
who ordered their construction in order to conceal and official Christian orthodoxy, and found its way back in
preserve books and tables of knowledge against de- to Egyptian intellectual culture only after a gap of sev-
struction by flood. According to Arabic tradition, the eral centuries; Cook and Fodor agree that Iraq was the
name Hermes was applied to a number of ancient sa- probable locus from which the tradition was reintro-
vants. The one meant here is an antediluvian figure
also known, by a syncretism recognized within the
Arabic tradition, as Idris and as the Enoch of Hebrew
tradition. Modern scholarship has established that Her- 15 M.
mes, although primarily a hellenistic creation, had as- Plessner, "Hermes Trismegistus and Arab Science,"
similated the major characteristics of the much more Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 45-59.
16
ancient Egyptian deity Thoth; further, the Hermes- For analysis of further examples of hermetic themes in
Thoth figure came to be regarded as the origin of all medieval Arabic texts, see A. Fodor, "The Metamorphosis of

practical (and magical) human sciences.14 Hermes is Imhotep: A study in Islamic syncretism," Akten des VII Kon-
thus a cultural hero of multiple dimensions: recipient gresses fur Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft (Gottingen,
of divine revelation, inventor of useful knowledge, pre- 1974): 155-81.
17In additionto
server of wisdom, and source of revelation to subse- Fowden,see especiallyJean-PierreMahe,
Hermes en Haute-Egypte, 2 vols. (Quebec: Les Presses de
quent figures. The pyramids were thus constructed to
be tombs of ancient prophets, and to protect the trea- l'Universit6 Laval, 1978, 1982).
18 Fowden deals at length with this issue, and concludes that
sured collective wisdom of the first inspired men.
The hermetic interpretation of the pyramids clearly "the Hermetists combined openness to the internationalcivili-
reflects the common feature of the diverse body of her- zation of Hellenism with a deep, sometimes even aggressive
awareness of their roots in Egypt" (The Egyptian Hermes, 74).
19 G. Maspero, "L'Abr6g6 des merveilles," in his Etudes de
14The most recentanalysisof hermeticismis GarthFow- mythologie et d'archeologie egyptiennes, 6 (Paris: E. Leroux,
den, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late 1912); Ulrich Haarmann, "Regional Sentiment in Medieval
Pagan Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986). Islamic Egypt," BSOAS 43 (1980): 55-66.

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 DYKSTRA: Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress 59

duced, and Cook suggests the reintroduction came no This enduring way of understandingregarded the an-
earlier than the early fifth/eleventh century.20 cient Egyptians as possessors of a knowledge that was
Whether or not there was true continuity, certainly not automatically to be feared and rejected, of a magic
the hermetic interpretation and related or derivative which could convey protection for individuals and for
modes of evaluation were well established by the elev- the entire nation against dangers, and of a worthy and
enth century, and thereafter were serviceable for a long valuable wisdom whose survival and retrieval were
time in making sense of the manifest traces of the dis- welcome. One might compare the stimulating effect
tant past.21 And, as Haarmann has emphasized, such upon European humanist scholarship of the early Re-
modes of interpretation allowed for positive apprecia- naissance of the rediscovery of manuscripts of the
tion. According to the literary genre upon which Haar- "Corpus Hermeticum"; for many humanists, Hermetic
mann relies, fa.dail misr, Egypt is set above other knowledge was seen not as contradictory but as antici-
countries precisely by its abundance of Cajdaib.In me- patory of Christian revelation, and thus Hermes could
dieval Islamic thought in general, Caja'ibwere wonders be accepted as a "pristine"theologian.23
and miracles that demonstratedGod's unlimited creativ- The fate of the enthusiastic hermeticist Giordano
ity. The imposing physical relics of the Pharaonic past Bruno, burnedas a heretic in 1600, suggests the obvious
were regarded as particularlyimportant.Haarmannuses point that not everyone in Europe agreed with such a
especially a work titled Anwdr Culuw al-ajrdm fi'l-kashf welcoming approach to ancient ideas; so also in medi-
Can asrar al-ahrdm (by Abu Jacfar al-Idrisi, writing be- eval Islamic Egypt. As Haarmannhas pointed out, there
fore 1238), which presents a model for positive evalua- was a wave of anti-pharaoniciconoclasm in the middle
tion of Egypt's monumental Cajadib.By their very size and late fourteenth century, associated with religious
and grandeur-which seem to transcend mere human fundamentalism and with extremist Sufism, but he
competence-the pyramids inspired thoughts of God's treats this as a deviation from a far more tolerant and
miraculous power. The pyramids were legitimized as flexible norm.24
well, at least for many in Egypt, through association In summary, it is clear that within Islamic cultural
with the blameless companions of Muhammad, "who history there was a wide range of categories, ideas and
did not mind living, dying and being buried in the labels to use in understanding the relics of ancient
shadow of the pyramids and the temples." And the pyr- Egypt. The choices made from that complex interpre-
amids were associated, through the Hermes connection, tive vocabulary by individuals in specific historic cir-
with matchless and desirable wisdom.22 cumstances presumably depended not only on religious
orientation but on social, political and economic factors
20 peculiar to the time. The remainder of this paper will
Fodor, "Origins," 344-46; Michael Cook, "Pharaonic
examine changes introduced into that vocabulary of
Historyin MedievalEgypt,"StudiaIslamica57 (1983): 67- cultural appreciation during the nineteenth century,
103.
made evident in the work of CAliMubarak.
21 Many of the texts which reflect these interpretive tradi-
tions are discussed in the introductions to three significant edi-
5. MUBARAK AND ANCIENT EGYPT
tions and translations: Carra de Vaux, ed., L'Abrege des
merveilles (Paris: Librairie Klincksieck, 1898), xi-xxxvi;
Erich Graefe, ed., Das Pyramidenkapitel in al-Makrizi's To begin with, Mubarakoften insisted that any person
"Khitat," Leipziger Semitistische Studien, V.5 (Leipzig: J. C. ought to be well informed of the history of his commu-
Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1911), v-xii; Gaston Wiet, ed., nity or watan. For example, in his preface to the Khitat,
L'Egypte de Murtadi, fils du Gaphiphe (Paris: Paul Geuthner,
1953), 1-15. Arabic-Islamic Science, 1988). For further discussion of some
22 Haarmann, "Regional Sentiment," 57-61; see also Haar- of the fada'il misr material, see Cook, "Abu Hamid al-Qudsi
mann, "In Quest of the Spectacular: Noble and Learned Visi- (d. 888/1483)," Journal of Semitic Studies 28 (1983): 85-97.
tors to the Pyramids around 1200 A.D.," in Islamic Studies 23 See Karl H. Dannenfeldt, "Egypt and Egyptian Antiqui-
Presented to Charles J. Adams, ed. Wael Hallaq and Donald ties in the Renaissance," Studies in the Renaissance 6 (1959):
P. Little (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 57-67. I have not been 7-27; Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic
able to consult Haarmann'scritical edition of Idrisi's work, as Tradition (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1964); Yates,
published in the Beiruter Texte und Studien in 1990; Ursula "The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science," in Art, Sci-
Sezgin has published a facsimile edition of one manuscript, ence and History in the Renaissance, ed. Charles S. Singleton
under the title Light on the Voluminous Bodies to Reveal the (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), 255-74.
Secrets of the Pyramids (Frankfurt:Institute for the History of 24
Haarmann,"Regional Sentiment," 61-66.

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60 Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.1 (1994)

he wrote that "ignorance of our country does not suit us, record, fitting logically into his topographical survey;
nor does indifference to knowledge of the relics of our he also devoted considerable attention to the pyramids
ancestors."25The destruction or vandalizing of material in the dialogues of CAlam al-din.29 The Khitat passage,
traces of antiquity was a specific and particularlylamen- in particular, demonstrates his willingness to draw in-
table symptom of ignorance about the past of the watan, formation from a wide range of sources. He was famil-
which resulted from centuries of deterioration and stag- iar with the writing of a number of classical authors,
nation.26He conceded that whereas past generations of especially Herodotus, but also Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny,
Muslim Egyptian scholars (and Mubarakso clearly took Plutarch and others. Of books in Arabic, he relied most
Maqrizi to be a personal model) were attentive, careful, heavily upon the Khitat of al-Maqrizi (d. 1442) and
and thoughtful, more recent generations have been ne- Husn al-muha.dara of al-Suyuti (d. 1505), each of
glectful. This perception is explicit in the charactersand which in turn incorporates lengthy passages from a
dialogues of the fictional work 'Alam al-din, where dozen or more earlier Arabic sources.30 Mubarak was
consistently it is not the Azhar shaykh who gives also familiar with Europeanswho, as travellers,oriental-
information concerning ancient Egypt, but Europeans, ists, excavators, or philosophical speculators, concerned
particularlythe British orientalist. Shaykh CAlamal-Din themselves with the pyramids. In his Khitat account he
is able to discourse at length about Islamic and even cited, among others, de Sacy, Volney, the contributors
Coptic customs, but when it is a question of Pharaonic to the Description de l'Egypte (especially Jomard),
Egypt, the Egyptians must learn from the Europeans. Champollion, Belzoni, Caviglia, Lepsius, Nestor l'H6te,
The shaykh's son, who accompanies his father on his Howard Vyse, Letronne, Mariette, and Piazzi Smyth.
travels in Europe, laments to his father that he had been His references reveal familiarity with a representative
embarrassed when people at a party asked him for in- survey of nineteenth-century European work on the
formation about ancient Egypt and he knew so little to subject up to the time of his own writing-which, as he
tell them.27Elsewhere, in the preface to Khildsat tdarikh indicated, was 1877.31
al-'arab, his translation of Histoire des arabes, by the In the following paragraphs attention is directed at
French orientalist Sedillot, Mubarak frankly acknowl- Mubarak'streatmentof two substantive issues-identifi-
edged that if a nation's scholars have neglected some- cation of the builders of the pyramids,and clarificationof
thing important, one ought not to be reluctant or afraid the purpose for which the monuments were erected-and
to learn from scholars who have not been neglectful, i.e., at his use of his sources. The Khitat serves as virtually a
from interested outsiders.28 survey of the literature, bringing together great masses of
Mubarak'swritings on the pyramids-to consider the information and ideas, but without always conveying
topical field which we have already used as a precis of Mubarak'sown opinions and preferences. The pyramid
earlier Islamic understandings of the pharaonic past- passages in 'Alam al-dln, by virtue of being more selec-
are extensive. His lengthy account in the Khitat of the
Giza pyramid complex is essentially his statement of 29
Khitat, 16:2-47; CAlamal-din, 3:913-40.
30
An edition of al-Maqrizi's Al-Mawa'iz wa'l-iCtibdr bi-
25
Mubarak,Khitat, 1:2. dhikr al-khitat wa'l-athar was published by the Bulaq press in
26
Mubfrak, Nukhbat al-fikr fi tadbir nil misr (Cairo: Mat- 1853, while al-Suyuiti's Husn al-muhd.darafi ahkbar misr
ba'at Wfdi al-Nil, 1879-80), 25. wa'l-qdhira was available in a lithographic edition by 1860
27 The discussion about
pharaonic and Coptic popular cele- and a printed edition by 1881. Al-Suyuti's chapter dealing
brations is in Mubarak, 'Alam al-din, 4 vols. (Alexandria: with the pyramids has been translated: Leon Nimoy, "The
MatbacatJaridatal-Mahrusa, 1882), 1:132-63; for the conver- Treatise on the Egyptian Pyramids,"Isis 30 (1939): 17-37.
sation between the shaykh and his son, see 2:634-36; other 31 Khitat, 16:29; in the Khitat Mubarak'stextual references,
sections of CAlamal-din which feature discussions of ancient following traditional practice, are minimal, usually consisting
Egypt are cited below. For general discussions of CAlamal- only of an author's name (his transliterations of European
din, see Wadad al-Qadi, "East and West in CAli Mubarak's names into Arabic are often careless), rarely a book title, and
CAlamuddin," in Intellectual Life in the Arab East, 1890-1939, never a page reference. For example, he identified his source
ed. MarwanR. Buheiry(Beirut:A.U.B. Centerfor Araband for a lengthy portion of the Khitat account (pp. 26-27) deal-
Middle East Studies, 1981), 21-37, and B. F. Musallam, "The ing with half a dozen medieval European travellers in Egypt
Modern Vision of CAll Mubarak," in The Islamic City, ed. only as "Latr0n";the work he was using was Jean Antoine
R. B. Serjeant (Paris: UNESCO, 1980), 183-99. Letronne, "Sur le revetement des pyramides de Gizeh .. ," in
28 Mubarak,Khildsat td'rikh al-'arab (Cairo: MatbacatMu- Melanges d''rudition et de critique historique (Paris, 1860),
hammad Afandi Mustafa, 1891-92), 3-4. 377-424.

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 Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress
DYKSTRA: 61

tive and purposeful, are invaluable in clarifying his own writings of "Europeans and other non-Arabs" (a cate-
choices and judgments about the mass of material. gory within which he grouped together authors from
Volumes 8-17 of Mubarak'sKhitat are organized on Herodotus to Mariette) show diversity of opinion.33
the skeleton of an alphabetical list of Egypt's towns Mubarak was decisive on a related issue, however.
and villages outside Cairo, with topographical, bio- Some of the classical sources stressed the oppression
graphical, and other information grouped in association and coercion that must have been involved in the
with relevant locations. Material on ancient history and building of the pyramids, and concluded that the Egyp-
monuments appears in conjunction with many place tian people must have felt great loathing for the pha-
names. The long section on the pyramids is attached to raohs who so tyrannized them. Mubarakcited Mariette
the entry for the town Manaf (= Memphis) and is and Nestor l'Hote to the contrary, and insisted that the
divided into eight sections (mabhath), each given a pyramid-building pharaohs were held in high, worship-
separate subtitle. In the first section (p. 9) Mubarak ful regard by their people.
reviewed efforts to establish the etymology not only of But why were the pyramids built? Mubarak cited a
the Arabic word haram/ahram but also of the Euro- range of theories-that they were intended to be as-
pean word "pyramid." The second section (pp. 9-12) tronomical observatories, or granaries, or barriers to
is a discussion of the identities of the builders of the the encroachment of desert sands onto agricultural
main Giza group of pyramids, as well as the era of land, or hiding-places for treasure troves, or caches to
their construction. The total number of pyramids in protect the secrets of mathematics, astronomy, medi-
Egypt, as well as the likely methods of construction are cine, and other useful and/or magical sciences.34 He
treated in the third section (pp. 13-16). Section four leaned slightly in favor of the conclusion that they were
(pp. 16-21) is titled, "On the distinguishing character- primarily intended to be tombs, citing Mariette and
istics of the pyramids and their contents." In section Jomard to the effect that the pyramids are, after all, lo-
five (pp. 21-26) Mubarak investigated the purpose for cated in the midst of a vast necropolis. But here too he
which the monuments were built, while in the sixth was finally non-committal; in the words of the British
part (pp. 26-30) he looked at various efforts, particu- orientalist in CAlamal-din, "It may well be that there
larly during Islamic centuries, to open the pyramids. was an original motive for their construction, but be-
Section seven (pp. 30-44), the longest, examines spe- cause of their great antiquity, and because of the lack of
cial features of the measurable dimensions of the Great sound information from the historians, no one truly re-
Pyramid at Giza. The last portion of the treatise is a corded their reality, so one is left only with various con-
discussion of the Sphinx (pp. 44-47). jectures."35Mubarak did argue that it is important to
In his discussion of the problem of identifying the realize that "the pyramids are among the magnificent
builders of the Giza pyramids, Mubarakcited the opin- structures which past nations have made holy and have
ion and names that have become accepted in Egyptol- greatly honored, whether they were in fact tombs, or
ogy: that the three main pyramids of the Giza group temples, or places to preserve knowledge and secrets
were built by three members of an early dynasty, against the Flood."36That is, the values ascribed by past
named-in the version of the names as filtered through generations to the monuments are still worth knowing,
classical Greek sources-Cheops, Chephren, and My- and in this context he reviewed again the hermetic in-
cerinus, or-in the names provided through hiero- terpretationsas retained in the medieval Arabic authors.
glyphic inscriptions-Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure.32 Mubarakclearly intended to be respectful of the earlier
And yet, Mubarakcontinued to give time, space and re- Muslim interpreters;he did not dismiss their arguments
spect to the medieval Arabic traditions. He mentioned as silly stuff, nor treat al-Maqrizi, al-Suyuti and their
the Shaddad and Surid theories, as well as other identi- sources as mere curiosities. Indeed, in the course of
ties contained in medieval Arabic texts, and included his Khitat account Mubarak quoted virtually all of
lengthy quotes from Maqrizi. Ultimately Mubarak al-Maqrizi's pyramid chapter, and much of al-Suyuti's,
hedged, refusing to dismiss the medieval accounts; just although he reorganized the texts to suit the purposes of
as the Arab writers disagree on the issue, so also do the his own structure of inquiry and argument. What had
been learned by nineteenth-century investigators did
32 To
my knowledge the "Cheops" form does not appear in
any Arabic text until the mid-nineteenth century, while the 33 Khitat, 16:10-11.
"Khufu" form is not used by anyone until after both the deci- 34 Khitat, 16:21-26; CAlamal-din, 3:916-18.
pherment of hieroglyphics and the discovery of unambiguous 35 Alamal-din,3:918.
36
inscriptions. Khitat, 16:23.

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62 Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.1 (1994)

not necessarily negate the ideas and interpretationsheld Mubarak did not pursue the measurements theory,
to be valid by earlier generations. certainly one of the great tangled webs of (at least
There was, however, one particular issue on which Western) pyramidology, as far as many others did. He
Mubarak definitely committed himself to a point of was thoroughly familiar with the main contributions; in
view, and that was the supposed significance of the the Khitat he provided a lengthy paraphraseof the mea-
measured dimensions and placement of the Great Pyra- surements and derivative mathematical computations of
mid. Indeed, the longest portion of Mubarak'streatment Taylor, Herschel and Piazzi Smyth.41But he certainly
deals precisely with questions concerning those mea- did not share the conclusions of these authors, for
surements and the mathematical relations derived from whom the only possible explanation for the wonderful
them.37The subject appears again in a lengthy discus- expertise of the ancient Egyptians was that it came
sion in CAlamal-din, where the British orientalist ac- through divine inspiration; in the Khitat Mubaraksim-
knowledges that, of the various conjectures about the ply ignored Piazzi Smyth's explanatory speculations.
purpose of the pyramids, he finds very attractive the Nor did he opine that one could link the dimensions of
theory that the pyramids were intended to epitomize the pyramid to astronomical data in such a way as to
Egyptian scientific expertise.38That is, the dimensions make the pyramids an intricate record of chronology (as
and proportions of the great pyramid were based on did the Armenian-Egyptian Joseph Hekekyan).42Nor,
units of measurement which not only themselves neatly of course, did he take the pyramids to be a predictor of
interrelated but which also related to the accurate mea- chronology, that is, as a prophetic device. This is an ap-
surement of a degree of latitude of the earth. The ori- preciation which has been de-magicked. He was not
entalist attributes the theory to a French author not concerned with the supposedly divine origin of this
identified by name in 'Alam al-din; the argument and kind of expertise, but only with the reality of its exis-
the measurements cited as evidence are essentially tence. The pyramids are no longer valued as the dem-
those put forward by Jomardin several contributions to onstration of God's unfathomable mysteries, the proof
the Description de l'Egypte, and then debated vigor- of divine powers transcending the limits of human rea-
ously by a number of authors throughoutthe nineteenth son; the pyramids are now representations of the his-
century.39The pyramids thus were proof that the an- toric competencies of real human beings.
cient Egyptians had so mastered the arts of engineering But this removal of the magical element does not
and geometry that they had been able to calculate fun- mean that Mubarak had lessened his appreciation of
damental measures of the earth itself. Furthermore(and ancient Egypt. Quite on the contrary, the conclusion he
this is the particularemphasis of a later, short work by insisted upon from the evidence of the measurements is
Mubarak entitled Al-Mizdn fi'l-aqyisa wa'l-awzdn), the that ancient Egypt was in fact the source of the knowl-
Egyptian measuring system would be the source for all edge and capabilities that defined civilization itself.
systems of measurement in the ancient world.40 Not only did Egypt originate sophisticated systems of
measurement, as the basis for and representation of ex-
37 Khitat, 16:30-44. quisite skills in geometry and engineering; it was also,
38 CAlam in Mubarak'smind, the place of origin of the science of
al-din, 3:913-40.
39 The primary statement of Jomard'sthesis in the Descrip- agriculture, on which rested all other elements of so-
cial complexity. From Egypt these fundamental ac-
tion is titled "Expositiondu systeme metriquedes anciens
complishments were transmitted to all other nations.43
Egyptienscontenantdes recherchessur leurs connaissances
et astronomiques
et surles mesuresdes autrespe- Egyptians, Mubarak felt, could and should take pride
geom6triques in this primacy; the Egyptian watan was not merely the
uplesde l'antiquite."His andothertheoriesof the purposesof
the pyramidswere summarized(and extended)by A. Dufeu place where one lived, it was a nation marked by genu-
ine historical accomplishment.
aroundthe time Mubarakwas workingon boththe Khitatand
CAlamal-din: Decouverte de l'tige et de la veritable destination
des quatre pyramides de Gizeh (Paris: V. A. Morel, 1873). The 41
Khitat, 16:39-44; the earliest of Piazzi Smyth's many
nineteenth-century debates over the measurements issue are publications on his pyramid theories was Our Inheritance in
summarized in John David Wortham, The Genesis of British the Great Pyramid (London: A. Strahan, 1864); Mubarakused
Egyptology, 1549-1906 (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, and cited a French translation by the abb6 Moigno (Paris,
1971), and in a popularizedaccount, Peter Tompkins, Secrets of 1875).
the Great Pyramid (New York: Harper& Row, 1971). 42 Joseph Hekekyan, A Treatise on the Chronology of Siri-
40 Mubarak,al-Mizdn fi'l-aqyisa wa'l-awzdn (Biulq: al-Mat- adic Monuments
(London:privatelyprinted,1863).
baCaal-amiriyya, 1892). 43 CAlam
al-din, 3:1012-24; al-Mizdn, 2-5.

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 DYKSTRA:Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress 63

6. THE ANCIENTS AS MODELS Beyond quantifiable standardsagainst which to mea-

sure nineteenth century Egypt, Mubarak believed that
Mubarak's thinking about ancient Egypt went be- ancient Egypt provided examples of irrigation technol-
yond the simple expression of a general pride in its ogy which were well worth emulation.47He felt, for ex-
accomplishments. ample, that in ancient times the Nile branched into
For one thing, he felt that the ancient past presented seven outlets, fanning across the entire Delta, and that
several quantifiablestandardsagainst which it was valid only two of the seven were natural while the other five
to measure current achievements. One of these was the were the creation of human engineering skill. In modern
amount of land under cultivation, a subject Mubarakdis- times, of course, only two outlets survive, the Rosetta
cussed at length both in CAlamal-din and in Nukhbat al- and Damietta branches. The ancient system provided a
fikr fi tadbir nil misr, his treatise on the proper adminis- better means of distributing irrigation water, and more
tration of the Nile.44 He concluded, in 'Alam al-din, that important,constituted a far more efficient drainage sys-
a likely maximum for cultivated area in ancient Egypt tem than existed in the 1870s. The ancients also had a
was 7,000,000 feddans. A Mamluk cadastralsurvey pro- system of canals which provided for irrigation in sum-
vided a figure of about 3,000,000 feddans for the four- mer, at low-Nile season, i.e., a sayfi or perennial irri-
teenth century, while the Frenchin 1798-1801 calculated gation system. Centuries of neglect had led to the
it at 3,200,000 feddans. By the 1870s the cultivated area condition which prevailed in the early nineteenth cen-
was a little over five million, bringing the country closer tury, when all canals were nill, carrying water only dur-
to its ancient maximum. In the words of the British ori- ing flood season. MuhammadCAli'sefforts to establish
entalist in CAlamal-din, "The existence of progress in perennial irrigation thus were an attempt to re-establish
Egypt is an undeniablefact. The land of Egypt is capable a successful technology. According to Mubarak,the an-
of reaching the point of having twice as much land culti- cients had also conceived and created large reservoirs
vated and more. If attentionis devoted to it, it is possible (of which the Fayyum oasis was asserted to be the chief
that all that was previously cultivated could again be cul- example) which greatly extended cultivation west of the
tivated, and that Egypt will returnto its ancient level of Nile. Much discussed in the 1870s and after, a reservoir
prosperity."45 system "would not be something newly invented, for
The question of Egypt's population was of even the ancients preceded us in this."
greater importance for Mubarak's goal of connecting In several important ways, then, ancient Egypt pro-
past and present Egypt. The country's ancient popula- vided models and standards by which to measure
tion was said to have been the greatest "in the days the progress of the nineteenth-century state. Modern
when the old, just and equitable laws prevailed."46Al- Egyptians, by this interpretation, were not marching
though estimates for the Pharaonic maximum ranged as into a place where Egyptians had never trod; they were
high as 40 million, Mubarakconservatively figured it to following in the ways of ancient forbears. But how
have been no higher than 7, perhaps no more than 5.5, had those ancient accomplishments been achieved?
million. With the intrusion of foreign conquerors and Mubarakacknowledged, of course, that Egypt did not
the commencement of decline, population dwindled. It remain at that peak of innovative capacity. Its history
was probably about 4.6 million at the time of the Is- encompassed decline, deterioration, the onset of the
lamic conquest in the seventh century, and had fallen as kind of ignorance and self-neglect which Mubarak la-
low as 2.6 million at the French occupation. By the mented. Mubarak often discussed the fluctuations of
time Mubarak wrote in the 1870s, Egypt's population human civilizations and the reasons for progress or de-
had reversed its decline and had reached 5.25 million, cline, considerations which were part of his developing
or close to the level it had enjoyed at its zenith. ideology of progress. In a narrative summary of the
Mubarakbelieved the increase was fully desirable, and course of Egyptian history which comprises most of the
attributed it to the renewed dedication of the govern- preface for Nukhbat al-fikr,48 for example, he suggested
ment to the restoration of the country's prosperity. that Egypt's decline was partly (but only partly) due to
external intervention, invasion and conquest. He recog-
nized and lamented that long periods of Egypt's history
44 CAlam had been spent under foreign domination, and he even
al-din, 3:987-91; Nukhbat al-fikr, 140-43.
45 CAlam
al-din, 3:991.
46 47 The following paragraphis based on Nukhbat al-fikr, 52-
'Alam al-din, 3:993; Mubarak'sdiscussions of the popula-
tion issue are in CAlamal-din, 3:983-1007 and Nukhbat al- 59, 189, and 191.
fikr, 176-84. 48 Nukhbat
al-fikr, 3-28.

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64 Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.1 (1994)

argued, elsewhere in Nukhbat al-fikr, that that circum- flourishing in agriculture.... By the cultivation of
stance had a detrimental effect upon Egyptians' moral land,includingmuchthatis now of poorquality,to the
character.49But foreign invasion and foreign rule could amountpreviouslycultivated,this countrywill reacha
not be seen as totally and unequivocally bad. The inva- level at whichit will be numberedamongthe powerful
sions of the Hyksos or of the Persians had little to rec- countrieswhich possess might and capability,and it
ommend them, but Alexander the Great was always will returnto its ancientinfluence,forcefulness,andes-
rated positively by Mubarak, as were the early Ptole- teem.The attainment of this end is greatlyhopedfor.51
mies. And, after all, Islam itself had come to Egypt in
the form of conquest. Flattery for his khedivial patrons is obvious here and
Just as foreign rule could have both positive and elsewhere in Mubarak,52as is the effort to justify his
negative effect, so also did changes in religion have own professional and intellectual involvements in policy
diverse effects on the fluctuations in Egypt's fortunes. and administration,but the idea that respect and influ-
Mubarak was certainly a good Muslim, and had a ence in the modem world could be achieved by striving
strong appreciation for the importance of religious vir- to equal ancient standardsis equally persistent. Progress
tues in society. But it is clear that in his view the most was desirable and possible, if modem Egyptians would
important factor in determining the fate of a particular take heart from the example of their pyramid-building
human society was the moral and intellectual quality of ancestors-and neither the objective nor the model were
the ruler and his chosen associates. And that was true nullified by prophetic Islam.
under Islam too. While there were certainly some com-
petent and very worthy Muslim rulers, there were oth- 7. CONCLUSIONS
ers who had been deficient in ability and concern, and
the rule of such as these had led to Mubarak'suse of ancient history shows that an ap-
preciation of ancient Egypt was not totally derivative
the destructionof the prosperityandgood reputewhich from European exploration and scholarship. Positive
the countryonce had. Egypt,once the "motherof all
interpretationof that history had appeared much earlier
countries,"the wellspringof all theirgood thingsand in Islamic cultural history, and with particular strength
theirblessings,cameto be clothedin the garbof igno- in the form of the hermetic interpretation. Mubarak
rance,its people surrounded by afflictionand poverty. drew on that tradition to formulate his ideas. Never-
Manyof its people departedfrom it, and muchof its theless, in various ways the terms of evaluation had
landlay uncultivated;it was deprivedof its honorand shifted away from an association with magic and wis-
its pride . . . 50 dom toward a rationalistic appreciation of the human
achievements represented by the age of the pharaohs.
The key to recovery and prosperity is a good and just The pharaonic period represented a standardof great-
ruler who respects, encourages, and is usefully advised ness which the Egypt of the present could emulate. To
by an inquisitive, broadly competent, and service- Mubarak's mind, Egypt was moving ahead. The posi-
minded intellectual class. By Mubarak'sreckoning, just tive evaluation of ancient Egypt contributed signifi-
such were the conditions that prevailed in his own cantly to the perception of the continuity and distinc-
time. As he wrote in Nukhbat al-fikr, in concluding his tiveness of Egypt through the millennia, and thus to the
discussion of the modern increase in Egypt's cultivated formation of the idea of the watan as the object of
land area, intense patriotic loyalty. It contributed, as history
often does, to the definition of community (although
All these achievementscall forth abundantpraisefor Mubarakcertainly did not want to obscure or eliminate
the Khedivialgovernment,and compeleach of us, as a concurrent loyalty to an Islamic community; loyalties
sons of this homeland,to do whateveris in his power, and identities can be complex).
accordingto his ability,knowledgeandposition,to dis-
seminategood adviceandto pushaside the veils from
advantageand reality,and to cooperatefor that end. 51 Nukhbat al-fikr, 184.
The countrywill obtainthe full extentof success and
52 He was not
always a flatterer;much of Nukhbat al-fikr is
a criticismof key featuresof khedivialagricultural
policy.Be-
cause of that criticism,Mubarakwrotein his autobiography,
49 Nukhbat al-fikr, 171-76. he was brieflydismissedfrom his officialpositions(Khitat,
50 Nukhbat
al-fikr, 24-25. 9:54).

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 DYKSTRA: Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress 65

The appreciation of ancient Egypt and the assessment larly during the first thirty years of the twentieth cen-
of Egypt's status as a progressive nation in the present tury. It would contend with, and eventually be eclipsed
world were tied to concepts of the state and the nature by, two alternative notions of political identity, which
of good rule, an administrative and technocratic vision, stressed not Egypt's uniqueness but its linkages to the
which certainly served Mubarak-the quintessential Arab world and the Islamic faith.53Among the reasons
administrator and technocrat-as a form of personal for the demise of Pharaonism were precisely those of
justification. Although religious virtue was certainly discernible in Mubarak,who linked his appreciation of
not unimportant, other qualities were equally impor- ancient Egypt both to concepts of "progress" in West-
tant, and perhaps more importantin determining a soci- ern terms and to the role of an educated, technocratic
ety's progress or decline. Among them were the quality, elite in state service. Those in later generations who
expertise, breadthof learning, and openmindedness of a were not of that elite class, who came to be disillu-
state-serving intellectual class, and the moral and intel- sioned by the state and its failures, and who were
lectual qualities of the ruler. The evaluation of ancient offended by the incursions of the West, would find it
Egypt was thus closely integrated with a vision of the easy to reject the Egyptian national identity and turn to
capabilities and activities of the state. Mubarak'sopti- its competitors, pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism.
mistic idea of the progress of the watan was especially
appropriate to people who were being drawn into par-
ticipation in the state, and who thus shared in the
projects, loyalties and advantages of the state; such
people were the primary constituency for his ideas. 53 In additionto the book by GershoniandJankowskicited
This was a valuable legacy for the development of earlier,see additionalstudiesby Gershoni:"Arabization
of Is-
discussions of Egypt's identity, but it may have been a lam:The EgyptianSalafiyyaand the Rise of Arabismin Pre-
mixed legacy. A specifically Egyptian nationalism, em- Revolutionary Egypt," Asian and African Studies 13 (1979):
phasizing the territorialdistinctiveness of Egypt and its 22-57; The Emergence of Pan-Arabism in Egypt (Tel Aviv:
uniqueness and continuities as a society, an ideology ShiloahCenter,1981);and"TheEmergenceof Pan-National-
which drew strongly upon the Pharaonic connection, ism in Egypt:Pan-Islamismand Pan-Arabism
in the 1930s,"
would become an ideology of considerable political Asian and African Studies 16 (1982): 59-94.
significance a generation or so after Mubarak, particu-

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