320 chapter eight
own personal benefits and soon lost interest in the affairs of the
country. Before long, the viceroy from Istanbùl ceased to have any
real control over the land or the army, leaving that entirely in the
hands of the Mamlùks.
Under the dual form of control, the pashafrom Istanbùl and the
beysfrom the Mamlùks, native Egyptians became progressively poorer.
With heavy taxes, no proper irrigation systems, no reclamation of
land or proper cultivation drainage schemes, and with relentless treat-
ment from rulers, both the Turkish pashasand the local Mamlùk
beys, who were only interested in collecting the tax quota, the peas-
ants fell into a state of deprivation. The tax quota system, nizam al-
iltizam, was introduced with a view to delegating the administration
of the land to the overseer who provided the highest bid of tax rev-
enue to the bey, the province governor, in the contest for the post.
In his turn, the bey would provided the highest tax quota to the
pashaand the latter, in his turn, pledged the highest tax quota to
the Porte. In the end, the tax burden fell heavily upon the cultivators
of the land. Worse still, to maximize the net tax revenue the over-
seer had to ensure that his expenses on the land were kept to mini-
mum. Corruption and bribery prevailed, and insecurity, famine, and
pestilence added to the natives’ state of misery the population of the
land, which under the Romans reached some eight millions, had by
the end of eighteenth century decreased to one-third of its former
size (Hitti, 1970).
In the middle of the quarrel of the Mamlùks over the governor-
ship of Egypt and their attempt to breakaway from the Porte, France,
which was in a continuous rivalry with Britain, developed a sudden
interest in Egypt ostensibly under the pretence of punishing the
Mamlùks for trying to breakaway from the High Porte and restor-
ing the values of Islam which, in Bonaparte Arabic written war pro-
paganda words, the Mamlùks neglected. When Bonaparte landed in
Alexandria in 1798, only then, the misery of the native Egyptian
was put to a temporary rest, but not for very long. Britain became
aware of the real intention of the French expedition, which was to
control the British dominated trade route between Asia and the West
(ibid.). Almost a century later, Egypt ended up occupied by the
British forces and at the outbreak of World War I the country was
declared a British Protectorate.
In the middle of that political turmoil, an Egyptian reformer
appeared, the liberal reformer Muœammad Abdou (1849–1905). With