Islands of the Blessed 15

Chapter 1 Islands of the Blessed

Rashda is located in Dakhla Oasis. Dakhla literally means “inside” in Arabic. As is suggested by its name, Dakhla Oasis is situated deep within the Western Desert in Egypt. In the pre-modern age, the existence of Dakhla Oasis was known in literature, but descriptions of it are almost just the images by a kind of imagination. As for the history of Dakhla Oasis in modern times, it was the process of its integration into the nation state of Egypt that began to be formed under the reign of Muhammad Ali (ruled 1805–48). This chapter describes its process particularly from the viewpoint of the vicissitude of local administra- tion.

Islands in the Sand

Historiography on Dakhla Oasis The Western (Libyan) Desert forms the eastern part of the Sahara Desert.1 The Western Desert covers an area of 1,600 km from near Kordofan in Sudan, extending north through Egypt to the Mediterranean coast. It includes all the land of Egypt west of the Nile, covering two-thirds of the entire country, more than 680,000 square kilometres (Sampsell 2003: 137). Beginning at the Nile Valley, it stretches west for 1,760 km. The first 500 km are within Egypt’s present-day borders, the desert thereafter extending far into Libya. It is also the most arid region on earth; 58°C (136 °F) was recorded south of Tripoli in Azizia on September 13, 1922, which is the highest temperature ever recorded (Vivian 2008: 4). In spite of severe natural conditions, since ancient times, the oases have been inhabited by people who made use of the artesian springs at the lowest parts of the depressions in this desert. Free-flowing wells fed by the Nubian aquifer system underlying the major oasis make irrigated agriculture possible. Nowadays, there are five known oases or depressions in the Western Desert: the Bahariya, Farafra, Kharga, Dakhla, and Siwa Oases.2 They are administered

1 According to Vivian, the name of the Western Desert was invented by the British to label their share of the North African wasteland. “Mountains separate the Libyan Desert from the Sahara Desert, but no natural barrier distinguishes the Western Desert from the Libyan Desert. The Western Desert exists only as a political demarcation” (Vivian 2008: 1). 2 Kharga and Dakhla mean “outer” and “inner” in Arabic.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004317390_003 16 Chapter 1 by the following governorates: Bahariya Oasis belongs to the Giza governorate, Siwa Oasis belongs to the Matruh governorate, and Kharga, Dakhla, and Farafra Oases belong to the New Valley governorate (see Map 1).3 It takes approximately 10 hours to travel by car from Cairo, the capital of Egypt, to Dakhla Oasis. It is located 750 kilometres south-west of Cairo in the Western Desert. There are many historical remains of the Egyptian and Roman civilizations, which are now buried by sand. These, which appear so impressive in the sunset, remind us that life in the oasis has continued under very unsta- ble natural conditions. Dakhla Oasis was known in ancient times, as shown by many historical remains. Many people stayed and lived there in settlements, some of which were prosperous. The following sentences on Kharga and Dakhla Oases are taken from the famous book entitled History by Herodotus, the Greek historian of the 5th century BC.

So fared the expedition against Ethiopia. As for those who were sent to march against the Ammonians, they set out and journeyed from (Egyptian) Thebes with guides; and it is known that they came to the city of Oasis, inhabited by Samians said to be of the Aeschrionian tribe, seven days’ march from Thebes across sandy desert; this place is called, in the Greek language, the Islands of the Blessed (Herodotus, Book 3 Chapter 6 Section 1).

Oasis was the name given to the oases in Egypt by the people of the ancient Mediterranean.4 The word “oasis” comes from Greek and is originally from the Arabic word “wah”. “Wah” probably meant “dwelling place” in Demotic Egyptian. For the ancient Greeks, the oases were those to the west of the Nile, which formed the Egyptian dominion between the Nile and Libya. Herodotus seemed to know only one, which was Dakhla Oasis. Ptolemy knew two of them, Kharga

3 Currently, the governorate division is under study. The new demarcation of provincial borders will be conducted in three stages. The first entails remapping the boundaries of the southern Upper Egypt governorates. The second encompasses Cairo, Giza, Suez, and the southern and northern Sinai governorates, and the third will see the birth of three new governorates: Central Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula, Alamein in northern Matruh, and Oasis (Wahat). According to the plan, the oases in the Western Desert will be divided into three governorates: Siwa will be under the Alamein governorate, Bahariya and Farafra under the Oasis governorate, and Kharga and Dakhla under the New Valley governorate. 4 Balat in particular, according to Garcier and Bravard (2014: 1).