Education and Translation in Nineteenth Century Egypt
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© Copyright 2016 Archana G. Prakash NEGOTIATING MODERNITY: EDUCATION AND TRANSLATION IN NINETEENTH CENTURY EGYPT BY ARCHANA G. PRAKASH DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Kenneth M. Cuno, Chair Associate Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi Associate Professor Emeritus David Prochaska Associate Professor Omnia El Shakry, University of California, Davis Lecturer Hilary M. Kalmbach, University of Sussex ii ABSTRACT Between the French and British occupations, Muhammad Ali Pasha (r. 1805-48) and his successors ruled Egypt as an autonomous Ottoman province. In order to establish and maintain that autonomy from both Ottoman and European imperial interests, Muhammad Ali sought European technical expertise to aid in the rapid modernization of the country – reorganizing the military, building new infrastructure, and reforming the civil service. Establishing a state-of-the- art education system was fundamental to this process, and yet it remains a neglected subject in contemporary historical scholarship on the modernization project initiated under Pasha’s rule. The dissertation focuses on two institutions that served as the original sites where European knowledge was transmitted and translated: the first student missions to France (1826-49) and the School of Languages in Cairo (1836-51). Using archival documents, correspondence, and published records in both French and Arabic, it uncovers the complicated mediations integral to the acquisition of this expertise through the missions, in the context of defensive modernization against European encroachment. The dissertation further explores how those educated in the student missions used their experiences to choose and localize useful knowledge. It also traces the ways in which Egyptians envisioned a hybridized government and religious education system by advocating for this new knowledge in educational practice and intellectual life through an examination of debates published in the first Egyptian educational journal Rawdat al-Madaris al-Misriyya (The Garden of the Egyptian Schools). By investigating the role played by those in favor of the inclusion of indigenized European knowledge, it highlights the implications of early nineteenth century Egyptian experiments with education on larger literary, religious, philosophical, and political trends in the Middle East in the latter half of the nineteenth century. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to the people and institutions that have supported me in completing this dissertation and would like to thank them here. My deepest gratitude goes to Kenneth M. Cuno. He is a generous advisor, providing tough, incisive criticism and candid encouragement of my work. He believed in my abilities even when the task at hand seemed insurmountable. I am truly grateful for his mentoring and the friendship we have developed over the years. I am lucky to have experienced the guidance of exceptional professors in the Department of History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I am thankful for the support of Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, my informal “co-advisor,” whose positivity and encouragement is incomparable. It was in courses I took with Antoinette Burton, Maria Todorova, James Brennan, David Prochaska, and Teresa Barnes that I developed a deeper understanding of history as a professional practice. I am also grateful to David and Behrooz for serving on my dissertation committee. Along with Omnia El Shakry and Hilary Kalmbach, they all devoted considerable time and effort to improving my work. I hope that I will be able to do justice to their detailed comments and criticism as I work to transform the dissertation into a book. I was fortunate to receive grants and fellowships to support almost all of my graduate education. My three years of coursework were funded through multiple Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships from the University of Illinois’ Center for South Asian and Middle East Studies and Center for Global Studies. I first examined the fonds related to nineteenth century education in Egypt in the summer of 2010 while on a pre-dissertation travel grant funded through the Department of History at the University of Illinois. I conducted archival research in Cairo and Sohag while on a 10-month Fulbright IIE grant in 2011-12. I am especially thankful to Amira Ibrahim, Senior Program Specialist at the Egyptian Fulbright Commission, for working tirelessly to iv acquire the many security clearances that ensured my research progressed smoothly at a very tenuous time in Egypt. My years of dissertation writing were funded by the Department of History at the University of Illinois, as well as the American Educational Research Association’s Minority Dissertation Fellowship in 2015-16. I would like to thank the staffs of the National Archives of Egypt (Dar al-Watha’iq), Public Records Office (Dar al-Mahfuzat), and Library of Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi (Maktabat Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi). I would especially like to thank Emad Helal, director of the Documentary Research Unit of the National Archives for his assistance with obtaining clearances, as well as Madam Nadia Mustafa and Madam Nagwa Mahmud, who were helpful with navigating the archives. At the Public Records Office, I am deeply grateful for the assistance of Nermin Khalil, Nermin Abdel Monem, Shimaa Hamed Kotb, and Nour al-Huda Mahmoud. I would also like to thank Gamel Sayed Mohamed, director of the Library of Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi. I will never forget my first meeting at Cilantro coffee shop in Doqqi with Ali Rifaah Tahtawi, who proudly brought his forefather’s ceremonial sword in the trunk of his car to show me. I cannot express the enormity of my gratitude to him and to his family for inviting me into their home and allowing me to look through their precious family library and archive. I am deeply grateful to Walid Kfoury and Aileen Byrne for introducing me to him. Any student of the University of Illinois recognizes the great boon we have in the expansive collection and services of the Library of the University of Illinois. In writing the dissertation off- campus, I also made use of Stanford University Libraries and the Hoover Institution Archives, as well as the Library at the American University in Cairo. The work of a historian can be a lonely business, but I was fortunate to have good friends whose companionship enriched my time in graduate school. I am a better historian and a better person for the friendship of T.J. Tallie and Zachary Sell. The company of my “Fulbright family,” v Ania Szremski, Magdi Mostafa, Alexandra Schindler, Maurice Chammah, Emily Smith Chammah, Munir Sayegh, and Ghazzal Dabiri, made my time in Cairo unforgettable. I am also indebted to Anuja Kumaria Saggi and Sarah Jawaid, whose unconditional love and support has carried me for most of my adult life. It seems inadequate to simply thank my parents, Rama and Surya Prakash, to whom I owe so much. My father instilled in me a love for education and intellectual pursuit, a passion that inspired him to leave India and settle in the United States. My mother is unflaggingly supportive of her children’s endeavors, despite our pursuits being off the beaten path. I am so fortunate to have a friend in her. To Arjun, my creative and stoic brother, thank you for your quiet, yet strong encouragement all these years. I love you all. And to Arun, my constant, who has grown with me and with this project from the very beginning. Thank you for reading every word many times over, attempting to calm every crisis, and being my writing and otherwise companion through it all. It’s for you and for Inque, that I keep on. vi NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION I employ a simplified version of the transliteration system of the International Journal of Middle East Studies for all Arabic and Turkish words which do not have a standardized English spelling (i.e., kuttab), or are familiar names or terms (i.e., Ismail). My transliteration style differs in that it omits diacritical marks and uses symbols for the letters ayn (‘) and hamza (’) only when they occur in the middle or at the end of a word. I make use of Arabic plurals that are commonly understood in English (i.e., ulama). Otherwise, I pluralize Arabic words by adding an “s” to the end of the transliterated word (i.e., madrasas). All translations from Arabic and French are my own unless otherwise indicated. In places where my translation needs clarification, changes are indicated in brackets. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: KNOWLEDGE AND THE ORIGINS OF EGYPT’S NEGOTIATIONS OF MODERNITY…………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER 1: WHY FRANCE? THE CONTINGENT ORIGINS OF THE STUDENT MISSIONS TO PARIS…………………………………………………………………………...16 CHAPTER 2: CREATING INDIGENOUS EXPERTISE: EGYPTIAN STUDENT MISSIONS TO PARIS, 1826-49………………………………………………………………….43 CHAPTER 3: TRANSLATING A COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION: RIFA‘A AL-TAHTAWI AND MADRASAT AL-ALSUN………………………………………………...96 CHAPTER 4: EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE: TRANSLATION AND EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSE, 1831-77…………………………………………………………………………..133 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………162 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………….167 APPENDIX: PARTIAL LISTING OF RELEVANT BOOKS FROM AL-TAHTAWI FAMILY LIBRARY……………………………………………………………………………..178 1 INTRODUCTION: Knowledge and the Origins of Egypt's Negotiations of Modernity Virtue is not a characteristic of only one group of people over all