the three empires and the islamic phoenix 301privileges to foreign investments could be beneficial to the country
and could spur economic development but when the host state is
economically weak and politically feeble, privileges could lead to the
concentration of power, first economic, and second political, in the
hands of foreign agencies.
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century the political penetration
of Western power became obvious. The opening of the Suez Canal
in 1869 increased the political interest of the Great Powers, England
and France, in Egypt even further. In 1879, almost a century after
Napoleon’s unsuccessful campaign to occupy the Egyptian soil, England
and France put the country under their dual control, and Khedive
Ismàìl, in whose reign the Canal was opened, was deposed. The
defeat of the Egyptian army by the British in 1882 provided England
with the right opportunity to occupy the country and send Ahmad
Orabi, the Egyptian officer who led the campaign against the British,
to exile. The country was later to be declared a British protectorate
after World War I, and to remain under the British occupation, though
with a quasi-independent government, until 1952. In 1936, however,
and as a result of the Egyptians struggle against the British occupation,
an Anglo-Egyptian treaty was concluded that confined the British army
to the Canal Zone, over one hundred kilometers from the capital
Cairo. The country, however, with its king and people, remained under
the British command, and it was only in 1954 that the British sol-
diers departed from Port Said.
The countries of the Arab Crescent were under the British and
French mandates, Palestine and Iraq were under the British and
Syria and Lebanon were under the French. That remained the case
until, as a result of the intensive struggle of the people under occu-
pation, the last French soldier leaving Syria in 1945 gave the coun-
try its independence, and in 1927 Iraq, which was governed under
a twenty-five treaty with Britain, was declared independent.
Theflafawìd Empire
The flafawìd dynasty (1502–1736) was named after the great grand
father of its founder, Sheikh flafi-al-Dìn (the highly refined man of
the faith), whose family was said to be descendants from the sev-
enth Shì"ah Imam Musa al-Kazim. The founder, Ismàìl, the sixth
descendant of the Sheikh, conquered Tabriz in 1501 and subjugated