Egypt • 171changes that occurred during his nap. Egypt made the fastest and most dra¬
matic transformation of any Middle Eastern country in the nineteenth cen¬
tury. Since 1517 the country had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, but
an early rebellion had taught Istanbul to leave local control to the Mamluks,
the aristocracy of ex-slave soldiers who had ruled Egypt since 1250. During
Ottoman times, the Mamluks continued to import Circassian boy slaves and
to train them as soldiers and administrators. It might have been a good sys¬
tem once upon a time, but by the eighteenth century the Mamluks had be¬
come rapacious tax-farmers and cruel governors. Caught up in factional
struggles, they failed to provide the irrigation works and security needed by
the peasants, whose well-being and population declined. Starved for rev¬
enue, the madrasas, including the ancient university of al-Azhar, declined
in intellectual caliber. Most ulama became incompetent, lazy, and corrupt.
Their Christian and Jewish counterparts were no better. The Ottoman gov¬
ernors could do nothing. Soldiers and peasants revolted, sometimes success¬
fully, but they too could not reform the system. Egypt was running down. It
took two extraordinary foreigners to get the country moving again: Napo¬
leon Bonaparte and Mehmet AH.
Napoleon's Occupation
Napoleon was sent by France's revolutionary government in 1798 to con¬
quer Egypt and, if possible, Syria and Iraq. That regime probably wanted to
get the ambitious young general out of Paris and may have hoped to retake
India, where France had lost its colonies to the British in 1763. Napoleon
aspired to emulate the conquests of Alexander the Great. To do this, he
would have had to lead his army from Egypt via the Fertile Crescent to Per¬
sia, Afghanistan, and what is now Pakistan. It was a fantasy never realized,
but Napoleon did defeat the Mamluks easily and occupied Cairo. Seeking
to win over the Egyptians, he posted manifestos, like this excerpt:
Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion.
This is an obvious lie; do not believe it! Tell the slanderers that I have come
to you to restore your rights from the hands of the oppressors and that I,
more than the Mamluks, serve God ... and revere His Prophet Muhammad
and the glorious Quran.... Formerly in the land of Egypt there were great
cities, wide canals, and a prosperous trade. What has ruined all this, if not
the greed and tyranny of the Mamluks?... Tell your nation that the French
are also faithful Muslims. The truth is that they invaded Rome and have de¬
stroyed the throne of the Pope, who always incited the Christians to make
war on the Muslims ... Furthermore, the French have at all times declared