220 • chapter 5
with this very name in contemporary egypt. In the three decades pre-
ceding the 1909 publication of at- Talmūd, there had already been two
incarnations of parties named al- Ḥizb al- waṭanī.^136 the first such Na-
tional party was founded in 1879 and had some role in the ʿurabi
movement against european domination in egypt (known by the slo-
gan “egypt for the egyptians”).^137 “the leaders of the ʿurabi move-
ment,” write historians Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, “repeat-
edly expressed their loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan, ‘the Sultan of the
Islamic Milla,’ [and] emphasized their desire to see ‘Islamic- Ottoman
egypt’ continue under formal Ottoman sovereignty.” after the British
invasion of egypt in 1882, this National party disintegrated.
a decade later, in 1893, this party (or one with the same name, in
any case) was revived, first as a secret society, and eventually as an
open party. importantly, this second incarnation of al- Ḥizb al- waṭanī
had strong ties to the ottoman government; its leader, Mustafa Kamil,
was a firm proponent of egyptian solidarity with the ottoman empire.
the members of al- Ḥizb al- waṭanī, explain Gershoni and Jankowski,
“were consistent advocates of egyptian political collaboration with the
Ottoman empire.”^138 this position concerning the Ottoman empire was
certainly not unanimous among egyptian political movements in the
first decade of the twentieth century. a rival party, Ḥizb al- umma (the
people’s party^139 ), “unambiguously rejected the idea of a continuing
egyptian political bond with the Ottoman empire.”^140 It would seem to
be of some importance that Moyal chose to label Bar Kokhba’s move-
ment, which he described in the most laudatory language, not as Ḥizb
al- umma but as al- Ḥizb al- waṭanī. this terminology might suggest that
Moyal did not, ultimately, wish to have Bar Kokhba’s “full indepen-
dence” movement seen as a paradigm that would demand a complete
separation from the Ottoman empire.
regardless of Moyal’s precise political intentions, he wrote about
the Jews and Jewish history in unmistakably nationalist terms. In this
sense, at- Talmūd can be read not only as a religious apologetic- polemic
but also as a subtle argument for the historical antiquity of Jewish
(^136) Moyal was clearly not thinking of palestine’s al- ḥizb al- waṭanī al- uthmānī, which
was formed in 1910— that is, after the publication of at- Talmūd. See Muslih, The Origins
of Palestinian Nationalism, 82.
(^137) on the ʿurabi movement, see Schölch, Egypt for the Egyptians! On the development
of nationalism in egypt more generally, see Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and
the Arabs
(^138) Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, 5– 7.
(^139) as umma may also be rendered “nation,” the name of this party might also be
understood as the party of the Nation.
(^140) Ibid., 8.