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Brief History of Egypt A BRIEF HISTORY OF EGYPT ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT JR. Pennsylvania State University i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd i 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM A Brief History of Egypt Copyright © 2008 by Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldschmidt, Arthur, 1938– A brief history of Egypt / Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. p. cm. — (Brief history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-6672-8 ISBN-10: 0-8160-6672-8 1. Egypt—History. I. Title. DT77.G65 2007 962—dc22 2007007374 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can fi nd Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfi le.com Text design by Joan M. McEvoy Cover design by Semadar Megged/Jooyoung An Maps by Pat Meschino and Dale Williams Printed in the United States of America MP Hermitage 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd ii 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM Contents List of Illustrations iv List of Maps v Note on Arabic Transliteration and Spelling vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix 1 The Land and Its People 1 2 Ancient Egypt (c. 10,000 B.C.E.–525 B.C.E.) 11 3 Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab Rule (525 B.C.E.–1250 C.E.) 30 4 Mamluk and Ottoman Rule (1250–1798) 49 5 Early Westernizing Reform (1798–1879) 61 6 The British Occupation and Nationalist Resistance (1879–1918) 84 7 Ambiguous Independence (1918–1936) 108 8 The Palestine Question and World War II (1936–1952) 126 9 Military Rule and Arab Nationalism (1952–1961) 143 10 Arab Socialism (1961–1971) 168 11 Anwar Sadat (1971–1981) 187 12 Contemporary Egypt (1981–2007) 212 Conclusion 227 Appendixes 1 Glossary of Terms and Organizations 230 2 Basic Facts about Egypt 240 3 Chronology 244 4 Bibliography 255 5 Suggested Reading 258 Index 280 i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd iii 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM List of illustrations Upper Nile River Valley 3 Delta fi eld 4 Dakhla Oasis 5 Eastern Desert mountains 6 Suez Canal 7 Statues of Re-Hotep and his wife Nofret 9 Narmer Palette 14 Giza pyramids 20 Sample of hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic writing 21 Great Temple of Karnak, from Sacred Lake 26 Luxor Temple 27 Head of Nefertiti 28 Tutankhamun’s funerary mask 29 Temple of Philae 32 Roman amphitheater in Alexandria 35 Al-Muallaqa Coptic church, Cairo 36 Decorative page from a Quran 39 Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo 42 Entrance to al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo 44 Cairo Citadel 48 Sultan Hasan Mosque, Cairo 54 Qait Bey Fortress, Alexandria 55 Napoléon Bonaparte addresses his troops before the Battle of the Pyramids 63 Mehmet Ali negotiating with Europeans 70 Mehmet Ali’s palace at Shubra in the 19th century 71 Egypt’s rulers, 1805–1952 73 Building the Suez Canal 74 Khedive Ismail 79 Theologians at al-Azhar in the late 19th century 81 Ahmad Urabi on horseback 86 Delta Barrage 91 Mustafa Kamil 96 Cairo café with child bootblack 100 iv i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd iv 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM The Cairo Punch cartoon showing Gorst and Egyptian ministers (1911) 103 Lord Kitchener with King George V and Khedive Abbas 105 King Fuad I 109 Saad Zaghlul 110 General Sir Edmund Allenby 114 Nahdat Misr 116 King Farouk 132 Shepheard’s Hotel 141 Cairo Tower 151 Ramesses II statue 156 The fi rst Aswan Dam 158 Suez Canal Company headquarters before nationalization 160 Gamal Abdel Nasser (1966) 182 Anwar Sadat (1970) 188 Naguib Mahfouz 193 Cairo traffi c jam 198 Anwar Sadat with Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin (1979) 205 Egyptian couple eating beneath the golden arches 218 Aswan High Dam 219 Egyptian Muslims praying during feast day 224 List of Maps Contemporary Egypt and Its Neighbors 2 Ancient Egypt 13 The Middle East During Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab Rule 33 Islamic Egypt in the Era of Saladin, 1171–1193 45 Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 57 Egypt and the Middle East after World War I 124 Sinai Peninsula 179 v i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd v 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM Note On Arabic Transliteration and Spelling pelling in Roman letters the names of people and places that were Soriginally written in the Arabic alphabet can be a challenge. The Arabic alphabet includes consonants that do not exist in English, such as the ‘ayn, which is pronounced deep in the throat, and the ghayn, which sounds almost like gargling. Some sounds, such as those rep- resented by the letters p and v, in English, do not exist in Arabic, and short vowels, which do exist in Arabic, are not actually written and may be pronounced differently by speakers from various parts of the Arab world. The Arabic j, which is usually pronounced like the second letter in the English word azure, becomes a g in the dialect used in Cairo and the Nile Delta. This book uses the transliteration system established by the International Journal of Middle East Studies; exceptions are words found in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, personal names in Merriam Webster’s Biographical Dictionary, and place-names in Merriam Webster’s Geographical Dictionary. vi i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd vi 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM Acknowledgments t is one of the pleasures of authorship to thank those people who Ihave helped to turn the writer’s vision into a reality. My thanks go, fi rst and foremost, to Claudia Schaab, who fi rst approached me in the spring of 2005 about writing this volume on Egypt for the Brief History series and who has goaded me and guided the editorial pro- cess, patiently and persistently, ever since, sometimes working in her offi ce late into the night. I would also like to thank Kate O’Halloran, who edited my manuscript. Melissa Cullen-DuPont helped me with the photo research. Melissa Ericksen and Dale Williams designed the maps, hardly an easy task, given the long span of Egypt’s history and the place-names mentioned in the text. Dr. Jason Thompson, a histo- rian and author of the defi nitive biographies of Edward William Lane and Sir Gardner Wilkinson, has supported me during many telephone conversations, rummaged through his extensive collection of Egyptian photographs and scanned some of the best ones (aided by his son, Julian), taught me how to access the ones he sent me on the Internet, and discussed historical and current issues. He has done all this while writing his own general history of Egypt for another publisher. Walker Yeatman, a student in the Schreyer Honors College of Penn State University, helped me to proofread the galleys and made many histori- cal and literary corrections, as he moves toward becoming a historian in his own right. vii i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd vii 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM i-x_BH-Egypt_fm.indd viii 10/31/07 3:35:36 PM Introduction gypt is the most important country in the world,” Napoléon “EBonaparte said in his fi rst interview with the governor of St. Helena, where he was imprisoned after his fi nal defeat in 1815. This sounds grandiose, but Egypt does rank high among the countries of the world for its longevity as a civilization, the roles it has played in history, and its strategic location. Most people in the world have heard of it. No doubt Egypt owes its fame in part to its historic infl uence over other civilizations and countries. We may include the infl uence of pharaonic Egypt on the ancient Hebrews, Mesopotamians, and Syrians, and on classical Greece and Rome. It appears often in both the Bible and the Quran. Egypt has been a leading player in the history of Islam, at times as its political leader, usually as a trading entrepot, and almost always as a religious and cultural center. Modern Egypt is the most populous Arab state, and it has led the Arabs in education, literature, music, architecture, cinema, radio, and television. Its capital, Cairo, is the larg- est city in Africa and in the Arab world, and it hosts the headquarters of the Arab League. Hardly any Middle Eastern political issue, from the War on Terror to the Arab-Israeli Confl ict, can be addressed without considering Egypt. Egypt is important and indeed interesting to study because of the Egyptian people. Although it is hard to generalize, most Egyptians are friendly, hospitable, patient in a crowded and hence challenging envi- ronment, and fond of cracking jokes. Devoted to their families, they believe that nothing is as important as loving one’s spouse, rearing one’s children wisely, caring for one’s aging parents, and standing up for one’s brothers, sisters, and cousins. Although Egyptians are rightly proud of their nation’s history, they worry about its present and future condition. They also want to be liked and respected by foreigners, and some are sensitive to critical remarks about Egypt, Arabs, or Islam.
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