Quick viewing(Text Mode)

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

The City of a Thousand Minarets began as a source document I wrote for a video game company that was dabbling with the idea of a MMORPG set in a 1930s Pulp setting. The first environment they were going to roll out was their Pulp setting. So I set about collecting as much "stranger than fiction" details about the city, trying to demonstrate that historical Cairo was more exotic and beautiful than any Arabian Nights fantasy. Part of the project was to include a good deal of information about how Cairo has been portrayed in so that level designers could weave their way between the expected Cairo of "orientalist" fantasy, and the surprising Cairo of real history. And of course, at the time I was already a huge Hollow Earth Expedition fan. Ever since Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, I had been looking for a role-playing game to recreate the heroic action of the Pulp Genre and always being disappointed. It wasn't until I read the Ubiquity System that I found the mechanics I'd always been looking for. Streamlined. Fast. Fun. The perfect system for punching Nazis off of zeppelins into dinosaurs!

That was over a decade ago. The computer game company moved on to other projects and my document sat gathering dust until I picked up Black Campbell Entertainment's The Queen of the Orient and The Sublime Port. Then I realized that I had something to offer my fellow fans of Hollow Earth Expedition. I hope you all fall in love with Cairo as much as I have.

Adam Scott Glancy Seattle, WA

When Scott (other Scott, not me Scott) inquired if we’d be interested in this project, it was an immediate “yes” for me. It’s strange that Cairo wasn’t one of the places that I had looked at exploring for the Thrilling Action Stories series of materials we’ve been doing for Ubiquity and Fate; it’s a classic setting for pulp- action. He shot me a précis of the material he had moldering from a cancelled project, and I was astounded by how close it was to a ready first draft. The research was excellent, the writing solidly good, and other than a few stylistic tweaks, it was nearly ready for prime-time. So we cut a deal for Black Campbell to do layout, art curation, and all the annoying bits and bobs that come with trying to publish good quality materials on a school teacher budget.

And here it is… Hopefully, you will find this as useful a sourcebook as I already have.

Scott Rhymer SampleAlbuquerque, NM file

iii 1. The Conquerer City

" is full of dreams, mysteries, memories." -Janet Erskine Stuart

"[Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place." -Herodotus

It is an understatement to say that civilization (pre-3150 B.C.) in Egypt is old. Just how old being a matter of Stone age & invention of agriculture some debate. When Julius Caesar looked upon Early Dynastic Period (3150-2686 B.C.) the Pyramids at , he was closer to our Unification of Upper and Old Kingdom (2686-2181 B.C.) modern age than he was to the men who laid Golden Age of Pyramid construction the foundations of what are now the sole 1st through 6th Dynasties 1st Intermediate Period (2181-2055 B.C.) survivors of the “Seven Wonders of the Civil wars ending with dominance by Thebes Ancient World.” Egypt is what people like 7th and 8th Dynasties at Memphis 9th and 10th Dynasties at Heracleopolis Aristotle and Plato, in their time, thought of as Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 B.C.) ancient and mysterious. This section is meant Second Golden Age of Egypt 11th and 12th Dynasties to introduce Egypt before Cairo in the 2nd Intermediate Period (1650-1550 B.C.) broadest possible strokes. More detailed Invasion by and Kush balkanizes Egypt 13th through 17th Dynasties only rule parts of Egypt information on the various Egyptian Dynasties 15th Dynasty is Hyksos Dynasty prior to the Medieval Islamic period can be New Kingdom (1550-1069 B.C.) Third Golden Age found in the later section on Egyptology 18th through 20th Dynasties. Ramses the Great. beginning on page 53. 3rd Intermediate Period (1069-664 B.C.) Political chaos following Collapse 21st through 26th Dynasties There are several broad truths about Egypt. 22nd and 23rd Dynasties ruled by Meshwesh immigrants from . Religion was central to the life of all ancient 24th and 25th Dynasties ruled by Nubian invaders from Kush. . The gods of Egypt, though many, 26th Dynasty ruled by client kings installed by Assyrian invaders. did not travel far beyond the river, at least Late Period (664-332 B.C.) not in ancient times. They were never meant Egypt conquered and ruled by Persian . 27th Dynasty considered Persians Kings to be Pharoahs in to be universal. Modern pagans, like the Order absentia. of the Golden Dawn in the 19th Century, or 28th through 30th Dynasties were Kings who rebelled against th Persia. Alister Crowley in the 20 , often adopted the 31st Dynasty followed the Persian re-conquest of Egypt. styles and forms of ancient Egyptian religion, Greco- (332–30 B.C.) Argead and Ptolemaic dynasties if only to establish a kind of pedigree. conquered Egypt. The only covered Alexander the Great's rule, Following Alexander's death his general Ptolemy seized Egypt The religious was also tied to the political in was the longest single dynasty in Egyptian Egypt. The Egyptian god-kings, or , history. Roman and Byzantine Egypt (30BC-641 A.D.) were a creation of the state to ensure loyalty to Conquered by Caesar and ruled as an Imperial a divinely inspired rule, but they did not raise Province. Became a province in Eastern Roman/ after Samplemuch religious interest beyond the borders fall of Western to barbarianfile invasions. they controlled. Nevertheless, the monuments (619-629 A.D.) they left behind speak to the importance they Temporary occupation by pagan Sassanid Persia Empire placed on using one's lifetime to prepare for during war with Christian Byzantine Empire. Medieval Egypt the eternity of the afterlife. It is sometimes Rashidun Egypt (641-661 A.D.) speculated that the Egyptian cultural emphasis Conquest of Egypt by Islamic Arab forces. Egypt was part of the First Five successive Caliphs following on preparing for an eternal afterlife made them the death of the Prophet Mohammed. The murder of Caliph ready converts to . Certainly the Ali in 661 was the fracture point for the creation of the Sunni- Shia split in . Egyptians were among the most devout Umayyad Egypt (661-750 A.D.) adherents of this new Christian monotheism. Egypt was part of the first Sunni . Most inhabitants of Egypt were still Christians at this time. When Islam arrived in the 7th Century CE, the Abbasid Egypt (750-935 A.D.) Egyptians were again among the most fervent Egypt was part of the Sunni , based in . adherents to the new faith. The return to a The Abbasid's created the non-Arab slave soldiers, the combined civil and religious authority under . Following the destruction of Bagdad by the in 1258 CE, the Mamluks considered their Islam certainly harkened back to the combined succeeding dynasties to be a continuation of the Abbasid civil and religious authority of the Pharoahs. Caliphate. Tulunid dynasty (868-905 A.D.) Turkic dynasty ruled in the Abbasid's name. For the vast majority of its history, Egypt has (935-969 A.D.) Egyptian ruled in the Abbasid's name. also been fabulously wealthy. Prior to the Fatimid dynasty ( 969–1171 A.D.) Industrial Revolution, the wealth of nations A caliphate centered in Egypt, ruled by a Shia upper-class. Cairo founded in 969 CE to celebrate the Fatimid conquest was based on agriculture, making Egypt an of Egypt. economic powerhouse thanks to the fertility of (1171-1250 A.D.) , a Kurdish warlord, conquered Egypt. Saladin ousted the Nile. Seasonal flooding of the Nile, Crusader Kingdom of . strengthened its controlled by irrigations systems, meant Egypt hold on Egypt. Ayyubids controlled large areas of Arabia, , and . could produce two harvests a year and could The Ayyubids expelled from Egypt the Christian armies of the single-handedly feed the entire Mediterranean 5th Crusade (sometimes called the Damettian Crusade) in 1221 CE. world. The Caesars fed the million citizens of The Ayyubids were under rising pressure from Mongol the city of Rome only with the bounty of invasions of the Middle East throughout the 1240s. (1250-1517 A.D.) Egypt's agricultural output. The possession of Mamluks returned to overthrow the Ayyubid Dynasty. Egypt was the economic engine that allowed Mamluk armies prevented the Mongol invasion of Egypt and preside over the zenith of the . the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire to Early modern Egypt outlast the collapse of the Western Rome Ottoman Rule of Egypt (1517-1867 A.D.) Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt and Syria. Empire by several centuries. Egypt ruled an , or province, of the . French occupation (1798-1801 AD) Napoleon Bonaparte's attempt to conquer Egypt. Well into the modern age, Egypt remained an Ali dynasty (1805-1853 AD) agricultural gold mine of the medieval world. Albanian Dynasty took power as an Ottoman Tributary. Khedivate of Egypt (1867-1914 AD) Egypt’s wealth and population fueled the Ottoman Rule reduced to name only, with the Jihads that brought all of North and serving with the “assistance” of French and British advisors. Quickly, the British displaced French influence after the Spain under the control of Islam and defended construction of the Canal. the Holy Land from the invading Crusaders. Late Modern Egypt British occupation (1882-1922 AD) But Egypt, like most of the Islamic world, Begining with 'Urabe Revolt, British forces occupied Egypt to utterly missed the benefits of the European “aid” the Khedive, then the of Egypt. The occupation ended in 1922. , the Enlightenment, and (1914-1922 A.D.) ultimately the Industrial Revolution. Even as SampleThe British Mandate that started in 1882 continues through file this period. the Industrial Revolution changed (1922 A.D. - present…) forever, Egypt remained much as it had Post Mandate independence is declared in 1922.

2 centuries before, like an insect trapped in Egyptian Demographics amber. The traced their ancestry to the Arabian Egypt was the crossroads of the world, Peninsula and Syria. The Islamic conquests connecting north with south and east with spread Arab culture, language and bloodlines west. A canal connecting the Mediterranean across the Middle East, , Asia and Sea with the (and hence the Indian the Far East. In the 1930s, Pan-Arabism did Ocean) had been a dream since the time of the not take hold in Egypt, and few people there Pharaohs. An ancient canal connecting the Red identified as Arab unless it was their actual Sea to the Nile (and hence the Mediterranean) ethnicity. was probably begun by the legendary Sesostris in the second millennium B.C. and The Egyptians in the 1930s saw themselves as completed by the Persian King Darius I around Egyptians, not Arabs, despite their use of the 500 B.C. By the time of the Macedonian language and the adoption of Islam. Ptolemaic dynasty of , the canal had The dominant “nationalist” ethnic philosophy become impassable due a combination of of the era was called "Pharaonism" and changes in the course of the Nile tributaries, stressed the Egyptians connection with their changing water levels in the Red Sea, and ancient past. millions of tons of silt deposited by the Nile river. Later attempts to reopen these canals The are an Orthodox Christian faith led were only temporarily successful. Egypt, by a pope, although they are not Roman nevertheless, continued to serve as a major Catholic. Coptic Christians were perhaps the route through which trade from Europe, most purely ethnic Egyptians in the country. Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East They were the remnant of the Christian passed. And whoever controlled Egypt was community from the period of Roman and able to take their cut of that wealth. Byzantine rule. They represented 20 percent of the population but control 50 percent of the Egypt has also been a prize worth fighting for country’s wealth. Traditionally banned from since the dawn of civilization. First, the participating in politics or the military, Copts Egyptians struggled among themselves for concentrated on succeeding in business. control of this prize, from until the Early Dynastic Period. Egyptians then The and Egyptians have conquered continued to fight among themselves for each other again and again since antiquity. The family, clan, and even regional dominance result was that by the 1930s most Nubians had until the modern age. Waves of invaders converted to Islam and spoke Arabic. They, besieged Egypt looking to seize it and its nevertheless, retain their ethnicity as sub- wealth. The timeline on the preceding pages Saharan Africans. notes when Egypt fell to outside invaders who, more often than not, would assimilate into the The Greek communities in Egypt existed since culture. Of all those who conquered Egypt, antiquity. From 323 to 30 B.C. the perhaps only Islam left a stronger imprint on Macedonian Ptolemaic kings ruled Egypt. The SampleEgypt than Egypt left on Islam. last “Greek” ruler of Egypt wasfile Cleopatra. In

3 the 1930s, were involved at every level Armenians, mostly Christians, had a large of government and business. community in Egypt. In fact, many members of the Mamluk warrior caste were originally The lived continuously in Egypt since slaves brought from Armenia. Its population 600 B.C., stories of the Exodus not with- peaked in the late 1920s, bolstered by refugees standing. The community was mostly of the Armenian Genocide carried out by the Mizrahic Jews until 1492, when Sephardic Ottoman Turks. Jews began arriving thanks to their expulsion from Spain. Despite the community’s long The Turks have been in Egypt since the residency 90 percent of the Jews in Egypt Ottoman Empire conquered it in 1517, but were denied citizenship even in the 1930s. The Egypt always proved hard to hold onto, and situation for Jews became more precarious over the next four centuries Ottoman control with the Arab-Jewish violence of the Arab was often reduced to a mere fiction. Turks in Revolt in and the arrival of Egypt, except for the Mewlewi Dervishes (see increasing numbers of Ashkenazi Jews fleeing below), did not maintain the same kind of Germany. Meanwhile the tight-knit communities as the Jews, Greeks, continued to stir up anti-Semitism against the and Armenians. Turkish-Circassian 80,000 or so Jews residing in Egypt at this landowners controlled a lion's share of wealth time.

Sample file

4 in the kingdom, often through large cotton they also rebelled against their rulers when the plantations. mood suited them. leaders initiated 1925-1927 Syrian Revolt against French rule, The Dervish were not an ethnic group but with Druze warriors providing much of the were followers of a mystic form of Islam military muscle. After the French Foreign known as . They were famous for their Legion brutally suppressed the revolt, many “whirling” dance rituals. The Monastery of the former Druze rebels living in Egypt solicited Mewlewi Dervishes, located on the west end help from nationalists like the Muslim of Saladin Square in Cairo, has housed the Brotherhood and the . order ever since the nationalist Turkish government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk A Brief History of Cairo. outlawed the practice of Sufism in 1925. Cairo, often described as a city straddling the The , famous for their desert survival modern and ancient worlds, conjured notions and navigation skills, were a nomadic Arab of oriental intrigue and romance. It existed in ethnic group who range between the Red Sea the shadow of the ancient wonder of the Giza and the Persian Gulf. They were extremely Pyramids and yet was within striking distance clannish, holding their tribal identity as their of the modern marvel — the . Cairo ultimate identifier and eschewing any was a place of danger, where the Great Powers identification with the countries they travel struggled for control of Egypt's strategic through. Their culture was dominated by a location, just as ancient struggled to system of pre-Islamic honor codes that many control her vast wealth. Not only did Cairo sit Westerners find unduly harsh and inflexible. at the crossroads of the modern and the The Bani Rasheed tribe, also called the al- ancient, it also occupied a crossroads between Rashaydah, ranged as far as Egypt and the Islam and Christianity, with the Coptic Sahara Desert to the west of Cairo. Christians being the largest concentration of Christians in the Islamic world. Cairo sat The were an ancient pre-Islamic nearly astride a line drawn directly between population and the principal ethnic group of Rome and Mecca. Furthermore, Cairo's North Africa and the Sahara. They had their position on the Nile made it a crossroad own language and culture but were almost between the Mediterranean and the heart of universally Muslim. There were many Africa. Cairo had been a center for trade and subgroups, including the well-known Tuaregs, commerce along the north-south axis, and with concentrated in North-West Africa, but the the creation of the Suez Canal, it connected Siwi Berbers were based in Egypt at the Siwa Europe to the Indian Sub-continent, the Far Oasis. East and the Pacific.

The Druze were another unusual religious and Romantics imagined Cairo to be a place of lost ethnic group from Syria and Palestine. Their secrets and deep mysteries. Cairo is seen by religion was an offshoot of Islam heavily many as mysterious, romantic, ugly and mixed with Gnosticism. Since the time of the dangerous; a squalid presence covering a SampleCrusades, the Druze had a reputation as gilded past that has long sincefile crumbled. The steadfast warriors. They served Egypt’s old gods still walked there, silent and Mamluk rulers and later the Ottomans, but unbidden. The Mohammedans who lived there

5

Top View