Schools and pashas: Education in Egypt during the reigns of: ‘Abbâs I, Sa‘îd I, and Ismâ‘îl (1848–1879): A comparative perspective

Abstract

This study investigates the attempts of Europeanization of Egypt and its education system in the nineteenth century, specifically during the reigns of ‘Abbâs I, Sa‘id I, and Ismâ‘îl (1848–1879). A comparative methodology was employed to analyze the impact of these efforts on modernizing education in Egypt and the role of foreign debt and European powers in these efforts. The study demonstrates that Khedive Ismâ‘îl, rather than Muhammad Ali, was the founder of modern Egypt. The reason is that Egypt made more substantial progress in modernizing education than many countries in the same epoch. Additionally, the study evaluated the effect of the Suez Canal project on Egypt’s economy and society. Using a variety of primary documents, historical accounts, and scholarly literature, the study provides a nuanced understanding of the complexities of Egypt’s educational experience during this period. The findings of this study contribute to a more informed understanding of the country’s modern history, the impact of Europeanization on education in Egypt, and the relationship between political and economic conditions and the modernization of education. The study offers new insights into the multifaceted nature of education modernization in Egypt during the nineteenth century and emphasizes the importance of considering historical context and local factors in understanding the development of modern education in Egypt.

Keywords:

• Pashas of Egypt
• education in Egypt
• the reign of ‘Abbâs I
• the reign of Sa‘îd
• the reign of Ismâ‘îl

1. I-Introduction

Education in Egypt during the nineteenth century underwent fluctuations and various changes as it was affected by the educational philosophy of each of the three pashas who ruled the country from 1848 to 1879. Each phase was significantly very much affected by the educational philosophy of every Pasha who ruled modern Egypt. However, the changes that occurred in education and its purposes can be easily identified and compared among the three pashas of the dynasty of Muhammad Alî in Egypt: ‘Abbâs I, Sa‘îd I, and Ismâ‘îl, who ruled Egypt consecutively for thirty-one years. Applying a comparative method, one can easily find that the reign of Ismâ‘îl witnessed a substantial development of the country to the degree that one can safely argue that Ismâ‘îl, rather than Muhammad ‘Alî, is the real founder of modern Egypt. This study examines modern education in Egypt and its purposes during the reigns of the three pashas, and whether it led, in fact, to the modernization of Egypt.

The significance of this study is that it relates to the critical period of the modern history of Egypt. It illuminates several aspects and modifies accepted views about the attempts of the Europeanization of Egypt and its education in the nineteenth century. It provides some glimpses into the complexities of a unique educational experience in Egypt’s history during the reign of Abbas I, Sa'îd I, and Ismâîl (1848–1879).

By applying a competitive methodology. In addition, it seeks to educate the public in Egypt and developing nations that the development of modern education must be planted at home and grown organically. Additionally, education must be developed per se, not to serve a certain purpose or institution. A sustainable system must not depend on foreign debt. Furthermore, in an attempt to modernize Egypt, many swelling programs were expanded in parallel to each other, incapacitating the pashas’ performance.

The study also demonstrates that the exact European hands that extended to assist in modernizing Egypt during Muhammad Alî’s reign are the same hands that strangled Egypt with a silky rope of debt during Ismâ‘îl’s era, which ended with British occupation in 1882. The Suez Canal, which was a hope-to-be-prosperous project for Egypt, became the same one that killed its hope of benefit until 1956, when Jamâl Abd al-Nâsir, the president of Egypt, nationalized it.

This study is structured around three interconnected objectives. The first objective is to examine the role played by each pasha in modernizing education in Egypt. The second objective is to examine and analyze how Europeans leveraged modern education to gain control of Egypt, ultimately leading to the British occupation of 1882. The third objective is to evaluate Egypt’s overall modernization with a specific focus on education. A variety of contemporary references were used in this study, including historical and biographical works, first-hand accounts, and official documents.

2. Review of literature

Placing modern education in Egypt in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from a comparative perspective on one hand and among the three rulers on the other, one can identify some works that are of great significance to this study. The most outstanding historical and biographical work of the time is that of ‘Abd al-Rahmân al-Jabartî (d. 1822), who received a considerable amount of encouragement from his father Hasan al-Jabartî, a teacher in al-Azhar, and Muhammad Murtadâ al-Zabidî¹ and wrote his history and biographical work ‘Ajâ’ib al-athâr. Al-Jabartî gives critical accounts of education in Egypt as it was designed mainly by al-Azhar during the era before the time of the three pashas. Likewise, the other source of great significance that addresses Egypt’s social life prior to the era of the three pashas is al-Rajabî’s work Târîkh al-Wazîr Muhammad ‘Alî. In his work, the author gives first-hand experiences and eye-witness accounts, shedding some light on Egypt’s history during “al-Wazîr” (Muhammad ‘Alî) and on his efforts to modernize Egypt. ‘Alî Mubârak’s al-Khitât al-tawfiqiyah is an important work for this era given the fact that Mubârak was an official and one of the cabinet members in Ismâ‘îl’s court and played an important role in the educational life in Egypt. Furthermore, many other studies are indispensable and trustworthy because they rely on documents.

Among these works is a Collection of Correspondences of ‘Abbâs I, compiled by Muhammad ‘Alî, a prince descendant of Muhammad Alî. In addition, of significance are Ismâ‘îl as it appears in the documents collected by Jurj Jindî and Jak Tâjir, and al-Surbûnî’s work L’empire Egyptien sous Isma‘il et L’Ingerance Anglo-Francaise (1863–1879). Lastly, the outstanding work of Jamal Heyworth Dune, An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt, with more than 500 pages, was published in 1938. Finally, three works are also of importance to this study as they were published close to the era in hand and observed many of the events as outsiders: Arthur White’s Expansion of Egypt, 1899, Alfred Milner’s² England in Egypt, 1894, McCoan’s Egypt as It Is, 1882), and de Leon Edwin’s The Khedive’s Egypt, 1877); the latter was the American consul-general to Egypt who knew the three pashas personally.

3. II-Egyptians during the three pashas

Putting Egypt during the second half of the nineteenth century into perspective is in order. People were primitive peasants and had diseases and deformities,³ and the Egyptian social environment crumbled in the second half of the nineteenth century. Egypt had some of the worst experiences in the country’s modern history, including conscriptions and corvées.⁴ In addition, illiteracy and ignorance were widely spread among the people, especially among those who dwelled in rural areas and more so in the southern part of the country, whose past and present, the consul-general of the United States had described, had been far less pleasant and comfortable than that of the former southern slave in the United States.⁵ Consequently, lawlessness, mayhem, and avenge prevailed throughout the country, particularly in southern Egypt. Young Egyptian men were forcibly taken to serve in the army (jihadadiyah) and sent to fight wars, some of which were not in the country’s best interest. Similarly, most young men and women were collected from rural areas and driven to serve in the Suez Canal project for free and under the lashes of the Kurbages (whips) of their agents, who used to hit their backs mercilessly. This heinous act continued until Ismâ‘îl’s era. After so many criticisms—whether directed to him from European councils or the Port—in his inauguration speech, Ismâ‘îl promised that he would put an end to the corvée act, but he could not fulfill his promise. The results of collecting these young men and women mostly from rural areas left cultivating land without manpower. It should be noted that the soil alone accounts for the strength and wealth of Egypt; therefore, the land harvested much less than it used to. In addition, as a higher land taxation was imposed, some peasants escaped from their land, while others had their land taken away from them. Most peasants were then forced to work on it—though with low pay—for pashas and wealthy farmers. Similarly, most Egyptians were illiterate: many Egyptians, including officers in the army, remained unaware of basic reading and writing until 1871, when Ismâ‘îl issued a decree by which illiteracy had to be eliminated from society. It then became an obligation for the officers to know the basic principles of reading and writing, without which no one could be promoted to a higher rank. Unfortunately, the literacy ratio between officers and teachers was 1 to 60. Teachers, who were mostly foreigners, were given a low salary, and even those who were chosen to represent Egyptians in the first parliament lacked basic knowledge of both skills; this had persisted for eighteen years, since the establishment of parliament.

Another experience that Egypt experienced during the second half of the nineteenth century was the abnormal growth of its population. The reason for this was the perpetual breakouts of epidemics, such as plague and cholera; the latter, in particular, caused several deaths. In addition, Egyptians suffered from chronicle diseases such as bilharzia, tuberculosis, and ophthalmia—the latter being a scourge that its mark on many boys. Ophthalmia was the most widespread and constant disease, with Egypt having perhaps the largest proportion of blind or half-blind people in the world. It can be assumed that the government allocated a considerable part of its overall budget to find a cure to meet the demands of these epidemics.

Unfortunately for the pashas—especially Sa‘îd and Ismâ‘îl—most of their outstanding attempts worked against their intentions. They dreamed of making modern Egypt independent from the Port of the Ottoman Empire but fell into the Western trap and were controlled by Western councils. They made trips to the Port carrying a considerable amount of money and expensive gifts to the Ottoman sultans and those who surrounded them to gain their satisfaction, and it turned out that the money and gifts were not enough to harvest the Port’s dissatisfaction instead. They helped the Ottoman sultan in his war against Russia as well as the French Emperor in his war in Mexico but gained no appreciation. They sought assistance from the West but were slapped by the exact same hands on their faces. They went along with the projects suggested by the West, such as the Alexandria-Suze Railroad and the Suez Canal, with the hope that these projects would make Egypt economically prosperous and elevate the standard of living for Egyptians. However, Egypt lost its economic aspirations because of such projects, and Egyptians went from misery to misery in their lives. The pashas borrowed money to pay off a previous debt, but each debt was not wisely spent; therefore, they needed another debt until the Egyptian shares of the Suez Canal projects were sold. Yet, this was not enough to pay off the Egyptian debt completely. By the end of Ismâ‘îl’s era, Egypt completely surrendered its independence to the British occupation. Having established and understood these aspects of Egypt, we define the characteristic nature of each pasha to get a clearer picture of what really happened and how the flow of historical events was affected.

4. III-Some characteristics of the pashas

‘Abbâs I (1848–1854)

‘Abbâs I⁶ was the pasha of Egypt between 1848 and 1854 and had an introverted personality. He was born and spent most of his life in Jeddah, currently Saudi Arabia. It is said that he was brought from Jeddah to assume his role as the pasha of Egypt. Being raised in a conservative Islamic atmosphere affected the formation of his personality; unlike his grandfather Muhammad ‘Alî, ‘Abbâs locked himself in his palace, refusing all contact with foreigners and believing, like many Muslims of that era on the eve of European colonization, that nothing good could come from the enemy of Islam, “the West.” He reduced the army and suppressed public institutions that owed their origin to artificial inflation; in other words, he adopted a severe reactionary policy. He was only thirty-six years of age when he became pasha of Egypt, and five years later, he was assassinated in his palace under mysterious circumstances.⁷ The unwavering ‘Abbâs was only to be seen by some foreign representatives under compulsion.⁸ He was a sullen, suspicious, timid tyrant, hating and fearing the European element his grandfather had introduced, and striving to cast a shadow on the progress that moved in the direction of European civilization. He understood and spoke no European language. He was also cruel to the core.⁹

A reactionary ‘Abbâs I abhorred Europeans and European innovations, closing down a number of the remaining institutions founded by his grandfather Muhammad Alî, dismissing many of the most capable Egyptians and foreigners from government service, and further reducing the size of the already small army. Only in one instance can he be considered to have carried forward Muhammad ‘Alî’s reforms, namely in the commencement of the construction of the railway from Alexandria to Suez, which had been tentatively discussed for more than two decades but had never materialized. ^cAbbâs was not in favor of the schemes, but he succumbed to heavy pressure from Britain, which wished to speed up travel and the shipment of goods from England to the far East—primarily India—and vice-a-versa.

Concomitantly, the French had been pressing him, without success, to allow them to cut a canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. The construction of the railway began in 1851, and George Stephenson, whose father had invented the Stephenson Rochet, was appointed as chief engineer. Under him were several European-trained Egyptian engineers. To exemplify how ill-educated ‘Abbâs was, it can be pointed out when he thought about completing the construction of the barrage, he suggested demolishing the pyramids. Edwin de Leon, the American council-general in Egypt, tells the following anecdote, whose truth lays solely on the shoulders of the council-general. He states that a curious story was told by one of the French engineers in connection with the barrage and ‘Abbâs pasha. Speaking to the French engineer, ‘Abbâs had said, “Those great masses of stone, the Pyramids, are standing there useless.” He had demanded that the engineer “pull down the Pyramids,” and the amazed engineer had stammered, aghast at the idea that his name would go down posterity in connection to that. “Why [do you] not take the stone from them to do the work? Is it not a good idea?” “Yes,” the ‘Abbâs had impatiently repeated, “Why not? Are you silly enough to attach any reverence to those ugly, useless piles of stone! See if you cannot make use of them for the barrage. They have already helped to build Cairo.” The Frenchman had made his salaam and retired in despair. What was he to do?¹⁰

‘Abbâs lived as he died—alone. Seldom seen by his people and never by foreigners, except for necessity, his favorite haunts were secluded palaces far from cities and people, which he built in the desert between Cairo and Suez. The remaining ruins of his palace witnessed psychological shrinkage. He shrouded himself like Tiberius at Capri and was solitary in death as in life.¹¹ Hence, there had been little love lost among the descendants of Muhammad ‘Alî. With this kind of mentality, one cannot expect much to be done to modernize education in Egypt in his era. It is not surprising that many writers, then, saw very little good in ‘Abbâs and did not say much about him. However, ‘Abbâs is to be praised for one quality: with his departure, Egypt was free of external debt. Nevertheless, the condition of education in Egypt took an unpleasant turn with his successor.

Sa‘îd (1954–1963)

Sa‘îd,¹² was the pasha of Egypt from 1954 to 1962. By his contemporary biographical writers, Sa‘îd could have been described as a strange mix of contrasts. Edmond About states that Sa‘îd’s nature was similar to the characteristic nature of Gargantua¹³: A man who was mingled yarn of virtues and vices. He was a good friend of soldiers and peasants¹⁴ and a good-hearted fellow who liked to joke. He was a shy, careless, and moody dictator. Contrary to his predecessor, Sa‘îd loved to have European friends and encouraged them to take adventures in Egypt. Bearing the traits of his fair Georgian mother in complexion and figure, he was well built body-wise and liked to drink, party, and insult. He was sarcastic, cynical, entertaining, and—at the same time—boring. Leon met him and described him as the Englishman who was more Eastern than Sa‘îd.¹⁵ He became sour and distrustful in his later days. Leon wrote “I can truly say that, in my widely varied experience of men and countries, I have met no nobler and manlier nature than his, either Christian, Turk, or infidel; and in his early prime, before disgust and disease had warped, though they never obliterated, his higher traits of character, he was every inch a king and a gentleman by God’s own patent.”.¹⁶ However, Surbûnî sees him differently. He states that as Sa‘îd lacked the solemnness of a strong ruler—especially with Europeans who took advantage of his mediocracy—he had a weak personality and affected all walks of life in Egypt.¹⁷

Unlike ‘Abbâs I, Sa‘îd had undergone a European form of education and was an admirer of Western civilization and innovations. Moreover, he intended to implement major reforms but was initially impeded by the fact that ‘Abbâs had bequeathed him a treasury deficit of 2,000,000 Egyptian pounds—not foreign but internal debt. One notable economic measure taken by Sa‘îd early in his reign to counter this deficit was the closure of all schools not directly training personnel for the armed forces, which he reopened later.¹⁸ During his first weeks in office, Ismâ‘îl reestablished the Council of Schools—Dîwân al-Madâris—which had been dissolved by ‘Abbâs I in 1854. Muhammad Sharrîf, one of the pasha’s most accomplished officials, was appointed director of the body. It appears that at that time, no primary or secondary schools were open, and the school of medicine was the only special one fully in operation.¹⁹ Conversely, the number of Katâtib in operation had markedly increased since Muhammad ‘Alî’s era, but they were generally in a severely degenerate condition.²⁰

Sa‘îd Pasha succeeded ‘Abbâs in August 1854.²¹ Sa‘îd was what one would call a gentleman; a good French scholar with some knowledge of English and a man of large and liberal views and extremely fond of association with Europeans.²² In this sense, Sa‘îd was the direct opposite of his predecessor and gave the first strong impulse for improvement and progress to both the agricultural and commercial development of the country.²³ As a benevolent autocrat, having been educated in France and being of an amiable and pliant disposition, Sa‘îd readily fell under the sway of European influence. He confidently gathered the government’s reins in his own hands, ignoring his native advisers.²⁴

Cahil Effendi, a Syrian who was the American Vice-Consul to Egypt during Sa‘îd Pasha’s reign, made a perceptive comment on the security of the pasha’s position of leadership,²⁵ arguing that Europeans had not affected Egypt much until the time of Sa‘îd Pasha. Foreign adventurers who had gravitated to Egypt in the wake of de Lesseps began to demand their capitulatory privileges, and de Lesseps made Sa‘îd pay 177,642 shares.²⁶ When these shares were resold, however, it was discovered that there were only 176,602; what happened to the missing 1,040 shares remains a mystery.²⁷ This shows how vulnerable Sa‘îd was to Europeans, and as he was more docile than his predecessors, he has succumbed to these demands; thus, foreigners were placed above the law of land.²⁸ Unfortunately, this condition continued during the reign of Sa‘îd’s successor.

Ismâ‘îl (1863–1879)

Ismâ‘îl was the Pasha, later Khedive (viceroy), of Egypt from 1863 to 1879. He succeeded Sa‘îd as Egypt’s leader in January 1863.²⁹ He was described as prodigal, a carnival of extravagance, and—similar to his predecessor—possessed by European culture. Ismâ‘îl spoke French as well and fluently as any man present.³⁰ Both his sons and daughters had been well educated by European instructors and spoke and wrote in French, and perhaps other foreign languages, with ease and fluency.³¹ He held Western education in high regard, and on the day of his investiture, he referred to it as “la base de tout progrès”³² He over trusted Westerners. From Alexandria to Wâdî-Halfâ, in what is now Sudan, and beyond, he delegated his authority to Gordon Pasha, his Highness—not only reigns but governs.³³ As a result, what Egypt saved, it lost ten times over in the debacle of Sudan and Lower Egypt, seeing the Khedive under the sway of foreigners who received large salaries for administering the government according to European and Christian methods.³⁴

Ismâ‘îl ran amok among the stockbrokers of Europe and carried despotism to the height of crime. In twelve years, he spent over one hundred million pounds and brought Egypt to the brink of bankruptcy. He created liabilities for which about ten percent were spent on the constitution and legitimate development of public works and native institutions. Because of his despotism, Ismâ‘îl’s mad career was brought to a close by the united actions of Europe.³⁵

Everything was in his favor when the prodigal pasha came to the throne. Egypt’s revenue was sufficient for all practical purposes of economic and national development, while its public debt barely exceeded three million. The American Civil War opened up immense markets for cotton, the staple product of Egypt, whereby exports rose in two years (1862–1864) from four to fourteen million in value, and imports rose from one to five million. However, Egypt fell into a trap created by European finance-mongers and concession-hunters. Thus, by the end of 1876, Ismâ‘îl had saddled Egypt with a debt of eighty-nine million owing to his ignorant and extravagant administrative expenditures. By 1880, the country’s total loans had reached 98,685 and 930 pound sterling. After this law was passed, it was found that half the revenue of Egypt had to be fully devoted to paying its debt, thereby causing a retrenchment in expenditure that crippled the country’s development and contributed, in a measure, to the dissent that found its expression in the ‘Urâbî revolt.³⁶

Ismâ‘îl’s accession engendered Egypt’s high hopes for Egypt among various perceptive European observers. French financier Edouard Dervieu said,

“With Ismail Pasha as Viceroy of Egypt, we are going to see the country prosper more than ever. He has a serious, thrifty disposition. We shall no longer see those government contracts yielding an incredible profit, those monstrous lawsuits, those rapid fortunes which characterized the reign of Said Pasha. We shall see business done regularly, coherently; we shall see a credit of Egypt establish and fortify itself”.³⁷

Ismâ‘îl seemed to not have realized that his expenditures were greater than his means.³⁸ One thing was clear to both Sa‘îd and Ismâ‘îl from their predecessor, ‘Abbâs I, who had been assassinated after resisting the European interference in Egypt’s internal affairs. They learned the lesson and tried to detach Egypt from its mother, the continent of Africa, and unite with Europe; instead, Egypt lost the characteristics of both continents and became a European maid. At the inauguration of the Suez Canal, Ismâ‘îl entertained European royalties, notabilities, and busybodies with princely hospitality.³⁹ Ironically, the money spent in that party for the pleasure of Europeans was obtained when Ismâ îl sold Egyptian shares from the same canal to them, whose art of creating difficulties for Egypt to escape its debt became well understood among Egyptians. Consequently, Egyptians, Egyptians had all the reasons to mistrust and lose their connections with pashas. Another common characteristic among pashas is that, while they were generous to foreigners from Europe, they insulted them. Judges were foreigners, and Egyptians could not be pashas or to be promoted in the army to receive the rank of “major general” (liwâ).⁴⁰ Furthermore, pashas were generous to foreigners in Europe, granting them lands while confiscating them from Egyptian peasants who were unable to pay land tax, which was as little as one pound per acre (feddân).⁴¹ In addition, the three pashas shared one more fact: although they were good listeners, they stood against any active opposition they faced, and their fiats were omnipotent—against old customs, prejudices, and habits; stronger than any written-law and more religiously followed.⁴² They made the whole country like a “house of bandage,” living a style of life as if it was life “without God in the World.”⁴³ With that said about the rulers, what about the conditions of the country they ruled, Egypt?

The three pashas shared common characteristics. They were too ambitious to achieve personal gains within a short period of time and were looking forward to being independent from the Port in Istanbul. In 1841, the Port granted Muhammad Alî the possession of Egypt during his lifetime; upon his death, authority was transferred to the oldest man among his descendants. Only Ibrâhîm Pasha explicitly expressed his wish and that Egypt be independent from the Port.⁴⁴ Influenced by the famous saying of French Emperor Louis XIV, “L’etat, c’est moi,” a fine line existed between the treasury of the country and that of the rulers.⁴⁵ To achieve the independence goal, pashas had to offer generous bribes in the form of expensive gifts to the Ottoman sultan and even to the bureaucrats surrounding him. Often, these gifts were financed by loans obtained from European banks with a high usurious interest. The more common interest among the three pashas was that they insisted on militarizing education. It is therefore safe to say that any attempt to neutralize the education system—such as these of ‘Alî Mubârak, who himself was a military officer—was deemed to fail; consequently, most Egyptians were illiterate. This is partly because of the lack of funds allocated to education. In his report on the education budget in Egypt, Dor Bey states that during Sa‘îd’s era, the budget for education was 650 bags (approximately 18,750 US dollars). De Leon, the American consul-general in Egypt, put another budgetary comparison stating that in the year 1862, under Sa‘îd Pacha’s administration, the government’s appropriation for public instruction amounted to less than 6,000 pound sterling. In 1872, Khedive’s government appropriated 80,000 pound sterling for the same object, and several private subventions derived from Khedive and his sons were given to private, foreign, and native schools.⁴⁶

It would be helpful to provide a brief picture of some conditions that existed in Egypt during the reign of the three pashas. Politically, Egypt easily fell prey to the fangs and claws of three vigorously competing empires: France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire.⁴⁷ The three pashas tried hard to please these empires by offering financial easements, but they failed. The Suez Canal enterprise was a French idea, and as such, F. de Lesseps⁴⁸ supervised this project; therefore, France believed that it had the right to have Egypt as its sole adventurer. Egypt then became a means for the Canal, instead of the other way around. The Ottoman Port also thought it has its right as Egypt was considered a part of its empire. Britain had had the privilege to give Egypt the railway since ‘Abbâs I and before the idea of the Suez Canal had surfaced; therefore, Britain thought that its interests were endangered because of the heavy interference of the other two and its colonies in the East, especially in India, and it ended up occupying Egypt militarily in 1882. It was quite visible to the Egyptians that most of those holding key positions in Egypt were foreigners; hence, they could not expect too much work to be done for Egypt. In this atmosphere, a certain number of ambitious, clever young men, such as Ahmad ‘Urâbî and ‘Alî Mubârak, who sympathized with the modern idea, emerged, believing themselves capable of governing the country on progressive principles without external aid.⁴⁹ However, they lost every compiling opportunity.

Economically, Egypt passed the era of ‘Abbâs peacefully, without any debt to Europeans, partly because ‘Abbâs was born in Jeddah and raised in a conservative, restricted Muslim society. He highly mistrusted Europeans, refusing to get into debt with usury, even if that kept the country backward. Sa‘îd and Ismâ‘îl, on the other hand, were different. They went to Europe and spent part of their lives in France, of which they were fond, and wished for Egypt to be a similar country. They lived a princely life. With his accession to the throne of Egypt, Sa‘îd was extremely generous to his European friends, with precious gifts, and he could refuse any request that his French friend Ferdinand de Lesseps (d. 1894) had about the Suez Canal project. The Egyptian treasury soon dried out. In 1858, Sa‘îd issued government bonds with interest rates ranging between 12 and 28%. This interest doubled its capital value in three and a half years.⁵⁰ To pay it back, Sa‘îd sought loans from European bankers who were glad to offer. The Egyptian government took its first loan in 1862,⁵¹ and since then, Egypt has held a miserable financial position. The deficit in the country’s budget continued to grow to the degree that the government was unable to pay its employees for a few months. Al-Azhar was closed. By the time Sa‘îd had died, Egypt’s debt to Europeans amounted to 267 million francs.⁵² The financial situation worsened in 1863 with the accession of Ismâ‘îl, who extended his hand for more loans three times, in 1864, 1866, and 1868. In his eight years in office, Ismâ‘îl had accumulated a debt worth 2.25 billion francs, equivalent to ninety million sterling pounds.⁵³ Sixty-six percent of the Egyptian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was allocated to debt.⁵⁴ When Ismâ‘îl ran out of credit and could not borrow any further nor pay Egyptian employees working in the government for eight consecutive months (up to 18 months in the case of the army),⁵⁵ he sold the Egyptian shares of the Suez Canal Company to Britain with a hundred million francs, which were spent in the Canal’s inauguration party.⁵⁶ The anticipated financially blessed income from the Canal turned out to be a financial curse, which raises the question of why Ismâ‘îl was partying. Being in debt, Egypt lost its independence to European creditors, and in their hands, Ismâ‘îl became “as clay in the hands of the potter.”⁵⁷ Ultimately, Egypt too was lost completely when it was colonized by Britain in 1882.

5. IV-Education in Egypt on the eve of the nineteenth century

For a long time, education in Egypt was predominantly provided by al-Azhar, the most prestigious religious institution in the Muslim world. Al-Jabartî’s account of Ahmad Pasha’s talk with three of the Shaikhs of al-Azhar, which went to the effect that there were no scientific studies in al-Azhar, has been used to give the impression that eighteenth-century scholars in Egypt were interested only in religious studies. Al-Jabartî states that if science was not accompanied with work, piety, sobriety, dignity, and with a sense of justice that is inseparable from the love of truth, then it becomes confused and is disdained.⁵⁸ Therefore, it is fair to say that al-Jabartî himself has probably done more harm to the reputation of al-Azhar and the Azharites than he would have wished. Al-Jabartî adds that history and the belles-lettres were not taught either, and one rarely found an Egyptian who spoke a language other than Arabic. Those who spoke Persian or Turkish usually had roots in Iran and Turkey.⁵⁹ In this era of education, as illustrated by al-Jabartî, Egypt experienced a significant decline in learning. Astronomy (‘Ilm al-falak) seemed to have been the most popular of all other fields of science.⁶⁰ Nearly a hundred years later, Minlner summed up education in Egypt as “retarded.” He stated that education suffered from a sorely lack of funding.⁶¹

The famous Mosque of al-Azhar at Cairo was a university and a center of Islamic Culture for some hundred years before many of the oldest European Universities were founded, and it has long been known as a chief university in Islam; to date, it still enjoys a high prestige of any seat of learning in the Muslim world. The influence of this established university rests like blight upon the country’s religious and intellectual life. The ‘Ulama (“men of learning”), whose alma-mater and head-quarters is al-Azhar, are at once the ‘ulama of Egypt.⁶² The system of education, which has its root in al-Azhar, has innumerable branches in mosque schools, several thousand of which are spread across the country. However, the teaching in these schools was influenced by the sterility of al-Azhar, which directly or indirectly molded all the teachers. The children learned a little reading, less writing, and repetition of the Quran from masters who did not know the rudiments of the art of instruction. Milner noted that under these circumstances, it is not surprising that no more advanced education has grown spontaneously out of the system followed in mosque schools as these have gone on for centuries without developing further.⁶³

6. V-Education under the three pashas

Education suffered enormously during “Abbâs” era, who closed most of the schools built by his grandfather. Continuing to further damage education in Egypt, Sa^cîd demolished most of them; by his death, the only remaining schools were medicine, pharmacy, and midwifery, with 69 students, and the army, with 116 students.⁶⁴ From a comparative perspective, Ismâ‘îl’s efforts in this direction are praiseworthy.⁶⁵ During his reign, some new institutions were opened, others were revived, and major reforms were promulgated.⁶⁶ From Mr. Dor’s statements, Leon extracted a few of the most salient features of the new plan to regenerate Egypt during Ismâ‘îl’s reign by educating and enlightening the rising generation.⁶⁷ However, Ismâ‘îl did not adhere to this view for Egypt and began his era by recklessly borrowing money from the West and spending it lavishly.⁶⁸ Blinded by money, Ismâ‘îl allowed himself to fall into the hands of money-lenders from high to low. All continental usurers threw themselves into Egypt as easy prey.⁶⁹ The people of Egypt, who had to bear the loan of Ismâ‘îl’s extravagance, received less consideration than bondholders and other creditors did.⁷⁰

Unfortunately, the system did not seem to make education compulsory, which seemed to be a mistake. The advantages offered had thus far been confined to the cities and not yet been generally extended into the countryside, where the rural population, who needed it most, might have availed itself of the benefits of instruction—in something more than the Quran—free of cost.⁷¹ What it should have done, then, was to utilize the borrowed money to elevate the standard of equality of the poor fallâhîn (peasants) by educating them socially and politically as they knew their rights and their duties.⁷²

In 1873, De Leon, the American consul-general, reported that the accession of Ismâ‘îl Pasha took place early in January 1863, and the educational progress during that period had been truly remarkable and would be considered so in any country around the globe. At the time of Muhammad ‘Alî, only 6,000 children received public instruction. During the first six years of Khedive’s reign, the number had increased to 60,000, a portion of the credit for which was due to Sa‘îd Pasha, his predecessor. In 1873, the figure attained was almost 90,000, and at this time, it doubtless exceeded 100,000.⁷³ Unfortunately, of the 90,000 pupils in primary schools, only 3,000 were girls and mostly—if not entirely—the children of Christian parents, foreign and native.⁷⁴ Ismâ‘îl instituted at Cairo, on a liberal scale (in the name of Jashm ‘Iffat, one of his wives), the first school for women ever known in the Ottoman Empire.⁷⁵ Higher education had only 49 students—a number that increased to 350 in 1879. At the elementary education level, the report continues, and by the end of Muhammad ‘Alî, the number of pupils was 3,000. In 1873, in the age of education, Egypt had 350,000 students, of which approximately 89,000 were pupils. This number reached 90,000, at a rate of 173 per 10,000 Egyptians.⁷⁶ This number has steadily increased since then. In the school year 1871–72, the number of pupils was 46,518. In the school year 1874–75, this number jumped to 167,215.⁷⁷ The move to educate Egyptian girls is an important turning point in modern history, which Dor Bey called a “social revolution.” Ismâ‘îl opened 4632 schools. During Muhammad ‘Alî’s reign, the number of students was approximately 300,000, reaching 600,000 students under Ismâ‘îl.⁷⁸ De Leon put it in a more coherent way, stating that the number of native boys old enough to attend school was estimated to be about 350,000 and that “the proportion actually receiving instruction was about twenty-three per cent; while in Turkey it is about ten percent, and in Russia but three; and even in Italy it is but thirty-one.”⁷⁹

Right after he was replaced by his son Tawfîq, Ismâ‘îl wrote to ‘Abd al-Hamîd II (d. 1918), the Ottoman sultan, that his sixteen years of service as viceroy were full of achievements, among which a reticulate of the railway that covered all Egypt, establishing two major harbors in Alexandria and Suez, and inaugurating the Suez Canal and gifting it to the world.⁸⁰ He was right, however he did not mention the debt. De Leon states that

“this much, I think, is due to the Khedive to admit, whatever his sins or his shortcomings may have been as a ruler and a financier; however, much of the public money he may have wasted in needless extravagances for his own or his children’s luxury or state”.⁸¹

However, as the Times correspondent in Egypt was wondering in his article written on 18 January 1879, what good did all these accomplishments do to regular Egyptians? The issue was that the people were under a heavy burden of debt.⁸²

Muhammad ‘Alî’s immediate successors, ‘Abbâs I (1849–54, Sa‘îd (1854–63), and Ismâ‘îl (1863–79), were uniformly less capable than he was. After giving a brief characteristic natures of the three pashas, it is safe to say that ‘Abbâs I was described as reactionary; Sa‘îd as a jovial, gargantuan sybarite; and the latter, although he initiated the building of the Suez Canal, also began those colossal expenditures and personal extravagances which, enlarged under Ismâ‘îl, finally bringing a bankrupt Egypt under British control in the latter part of the nineteenth century.⁸³

During Muhammad ‘Alî’s era, education in Egypt began with a fresh philosophy. A firm link between the army and education was established. Unfortunately, the founder of the dynasty, Muhammad ‘Alî, was only interested in progress as far as it concerned the strengthening of his military power. When forced to reduce his army to a fraction of its former size after the Second Syrian War, he lost interest in all other areas of development.⁸⁴

A large majority of students from the education system subsequently entered the armed forces, and following the Second Syrian War, when the army and navy underwent their aforementioned reductions in size, several schools were closed. Later in the same year (1841), the pashas, Ibrâhîm, ‘Abbâs, and Sharîf (Sharîf Pasha was a nephew of Muhammad ‘Alî and had been governor of Syria) submitted a plan of economic measures to the disillusioned Muhammad ‘Alî. According to Hamont, this included, among its proposals, the abolition of all primary, secondary, vocational, and private schools, most of which were soon closed while in operation.⁸⁵

“Egypt is the black hole of development assistance.” These were the words of an official international development agency when I mentioned that I was conducting my study on the impact of development assistance on basic education policies in Egypt during the 1990s. Similar statements have been repeatedly disputed by the Egyptian state and development agencies and analyzed by academics and development lists. The main question is as follows: why does development assistance work or fail? The failure or success of aid has engaged public discourse in Egypt for many years, and the debate has often been oriented toward the conspiracy theory, claiming⁸⁶ that some hundreds Egyptian scholars have been maintained in Europe at the cost of the state during the present century. Schools destined to spread European education were founded, suppressed, and re-founded.⁸⁷ Religious prejudices against European education began to wore off. In 1875, the number of scholars (students) in these European schools was 8,961, of whom approximately two thousand were Egyptians (22%). By 1887, it had increased to 22,764 (200%), of which 15,132 were Egyptians (66% increase).⁸⁸ Of the native scholars who attended European schools, only a minority belonged to the dominant faith. The majority are either children of Syrian Christians established in Egypt, and therefore mostly members of the Roman Catholic Church, or Copts. Until recently, the reputation of government schools was so bad that Muhammadans of the better class, even when they felt the value of European education, hesitated to send their children to those institutions.⁸⁹ There were three main evils in the old system of training in government schools, against which the war had to be waged. The first was the practice of cramming memory instead of developing powers of thought. It is clearly derived from the traditions of Muslim religious education as practiced at al-Azhar and mosque schools. A kind of instruction that consists of learning a set of texts or formulas, the ideal of which is to stereotype knowledge as naturally relying almost exclusively on memory. Reflections and observations were made with little account.

The first attitude of the Oriental culture toward the Western culture was to condemn its roots and branches. The second attitude was to appropriately grasp the number of sciences but miss the spirit of science. It was based on these principles that the old curriculum of government schools was framed. No subjects were taught, but none were learned. In several European languages, pupils were taught either English or French, but they were taught one language well. The importance of learning European languages is evident, not so much for the sake of the language itself but for that which it contains. Thus, in learning English or French, young Egyptians were not only making a useful practical acquisition.⁹⁰

If the spirit of reform was slow in reaching the educational system, there was no branch in which, in recent years, it had borne a richer fruit. The government had often been criticized for spending very little on education. Two factors must be considered in this regard. People must live before they can be taught as famine is worse than ignorance. What the Egyptian government had to fight for six or seven years ago was the very existence of the people; although education was essential, its provision was not so much a primary duty of the government as were the defense of the individual and property and the maintenance of justice in a country like Egypt, where human life depended on public works.⁹¹

The government was still far from being in a position to offer decent education to the majority of inhabitants. It did not have a sufficient number of properly trained teachers, even for the 6,800 pupils in its existing primary and secondary schools. Egypt had yet to create a native professional class and educate men who were destined to complete the government service. The efficiency of a few schools whose pupils would, in turn, spread the light of knowledge was vastly more important than the multiplication of schools of an inferior description.⁹² In the post-period after the three pashas and by 1894, Egypt had forty-two government schools: six primary of the lower grade, thirty-four primary of the higher grade, and two secondary both of which were in Cairo.⁹³ In addition, there were four colleges—law, medicine, engineering, and agriculture—and three training colleges for teachers who were native speakers of Arabic, English, and French, as well as a technical school, the Ecole des arts et metiers in Bûlâq.⁹⁴ Indeed, one thing seemed clear as a result of education, however limited: Egypt never went back to mayhem, as it had been in the reign of the Mamluks or even during the era of Muhammad Alî and his son Ibrâhîm.

Although a rapid improvement is now expected, it is obvious that the general standard of education was low. Things began to go wrong, but it was hardly likely for everything to go wrong all at once: corruption and favoritism would once more raise their heads; a fair field and no favor; hands off all around; Kurbage (whip) and corvée—why wait to deal with evil in its final stage? The chief aim was to substitute the wolf for the sheepdog to be the guardian of the flock.

Until the nineteenth century, educational institutes in Egypt were limited to kuttâbs and al-Azhar.⁹⁵ Both upheld the traditional system of education limited mainly to Arabic and Islamic studies and the basics of some natural sciences, such as mathematics and physics. History and belles-lettres were close to being ignored⁹⁶ and did not receive their full share in the intellectual life of scholars. Historians, litterateurs, and poets were scarcely ever mentioned. Occasionally, al-Jabartî gives us the name of a shaykh who read history akhbâr, and literature adâb, but his main object seems to have been to pick up anecdotes and stories to be retold in society.⁹⁷ This remained so until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Muhammad ‘Alî started several general reforms, including the introduction of modern education. However, this Western type of educational reform was confronted with problems such as the absence of educational philosophy, a cohesive plan, and clear goals. These problems continued during Muhammad ‘Alî’s era and the rule of his successors. Therefore, the educational reform degenerated by the end of Muhammad ‘Alî’s rule collapsed during the reigns of ‘Abbâs I and Sa‘îd and revived during the reign of Ismâ‘îl. Therefore, Ismâ‘îl’s attempts to modernize education in Egypt took the lion’s share of this study, mainly because little can be said about this subject under the first two pashas.

When Ismâ‘îl Pâshâ, later Khedive, became the ruler of Egypt (1863–1879),⁹⁸ the only government schools were those of medicine, midwifery, and the military.⁹⁹ Although there were no modern primary or preparatory schools, Muslim kuttâbs and al-Azhar carried on with their traditional teaching. J. Heyworth-Dunne claims that neither kuttâbs nor al-Azhar contributed in any way toward the new cultural movement in Egypt.¹⁰⁰ The reign of Ismâ‘îl was, therefore, a critical turning point in modernizing education in Egypt.

The importance of Ismâ‘îl’s reign has been evaluated by some historians with sympathy, while others have looked at it critically. Ismâ‘îl is known by many historians as a ruler who brought misery to the country. It is now time to rethink the rules of Ismâ‘îl Pasha and his era, and it is important to examine “modernization”—a Western term¹⁰¹—to determine whether it applies to Egypt in general and Egyptian education in particular, and whether Egyptian society could maintain its independence as a result of such modernization. The analysis should also be put in a broader framework of the social, economic, and political factors of Egypt during Ismâ‘îl’s era. These factors continued to influence reform policy in general and education in particular until the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. It is equally important to compare the eras of Muhammad ‘Alî, ‘Abbâs I, Sa‘îd Pasha, and Ismâ‘îl Pasha in terms of educational reform to determine how each one of the Egyptian rulers looked upon and evaluated the necessity for modern education.

Muhammad ‘Alî is known to many historians as the founder of Modern Egypt. This opinion is based on his numerous attempts to establish contact with Europe and, more specifically, with France.¹⁰² At one point, he sent several educational missions to France, and during his reign, secular institutes of higher learning, such as those mentioned above, were established in various fields. However, Muhammad ‘Alî’s motivation stemmed from a desire not to modernize Egypt in general but to build a modern strong army and navy. The main purpose of building such an army and navy was to support his rule in Egypt as well as his wars of conquest in Arabia, Greece, Sudan, and Syria.¹⁰³ It is important to note that none of the higher-ranking officers were Egyptian.¹⁰⁴ This attempt at modernization slowed down when some of the projects collapsed under European pressure and sanctions. For example, the army was forced to reduce its force from 300,000 to 18,000. The number was then further reduced to 15,000.¹⁰⁵ Because modern education was not the main goal of Muhammad ‘Alî per se, but rather, it was designed to serve the army, its reduction led to the halving of the educational budget. As a result, most secular schools were closed and continued to be so even during the reign of his successor, ‘Abbâs I.¹⁰⁶

The state of Western-type education during the reign of ‘Abbâs I (1848–1854) declined as he continued to close more of the schools that were left over from his predecessor’s era. He had no need for them since, in his view, education was tied to the army, which was being reduced in size. Furthermore, as al-Râfi‘î believes, ‘Abbâs I hated education and closed many schools for economic purposes. He also exiled many scholars, such as Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî, to Sudan,¹⁰⁷ and even worse, the policy toward the education of nineteenth-century Egypt was adopted by ‘Abbâs I’s successor, Sa’îd Pasha.

Sa‘îd Pasha (1854–1863) had a “double standard” policy toward education. While he kept funding foreign schools in Egypt, he went a step further than his predecessor ‘Abbâs I. Thinking that restructuring the school system was hopeless, he closed down the rest of the schools at the beginning of his reign and sent the remaining teachers on military expeditions. ‘Alî Mubârak, the director of the School of Engineering, for example, was sent to fight against the Russians in the Crimean War.¹⁰⁸ Sa‘îd then sent all students who were ten years old or younger back home and placed the remainder of the older students into the army. Finally, he closed down the Diwân al-Madâris (School Department) in 1854, arguing that there was no longer need for it.¹⁰⁹ Thus, Western-style educational institutions were demolished. Many historians of education in modern Egypt, such as Heyworth-Dunne and Husayn al-Jayyâr, state that the eras of ‘Abbâs I and Sa‘îd Pasha were not even remotely significant in the history of education in Egypt.¹¹⁰ Vatikiotis agrees, writing that “neither ‘Abbâs I (1848–1854) nor Sa‘îd Pasha (1854–1863) showed any marked interest in this field of endeavor during their relatively short reigns.”¹¹¹ Contrary to his predecessors, lsmâ‘îl had several radical ideas regarding modern education. He appointed a team of educational experts to revise the existing system and started an entirely new system to modernize Egyptian education.

7. VI-Reconstruction of Muslim men’s schools

Having lived and been educated in Paris, Ismâ‘îl was fascinated with Europeans, especially French modernization, and believed that education was the main path to European development. He also thought that to help Egypt catch up with Europe, educational opportunities had to be offered to all sectors of Egyptian society rather than only to one part, namely the military, as had been the case during the reign of Muhammad ‘Alî. Ismâ‘îl’s understanding of modernization was broader than his grandfather’s, partially because his experience was radically different.¹¹² As Ismâ‘îl himself assured, “I have decided as of now to abandon the system followed by my predecessors and to set myself a civil list that I shall never exceed.”¹¹³ He also profoundly believed in a radical program of modernization of education based on the conviction that there must be a total change in the social structure of Egyptian society before a truly progressive modern state could emerge. One item on his list was the establishment of the Department of Schools.

Shortly after his inauguration as the ruler of Egypt in January 1863, Ismâ‘îl reestablished the Department of Schools (Diwân al-Madâris) on 20 January 1863, and he also appointed Muhammad Sharîf and ‘Alî Mubârak to prominent educational positions. Both were French-educated, highly motivated, and experienced Egyptian men. Simultaneously, Ismâ‘îl hired a number of European experts to assist in this endeavor, among whom was Swiss educator Dor Bey.¹¹⁴

Like any other department in the government, Diwân al-Madâris had its own budget. Thus, it enjoyed a degree of independence. Ismâ‘îl proceeded to increase the annual education budget from the six thousand pounds of Sa‘îd’s era (most of which had gone to the military school) to seventy-five thousand pounds, twenty-seven thousands of which came from land taxation and waqfs (endowments).¹¹⁵ Added to this sum, the income from twenty-two thousand feddâns of land (23,980 acres) was donated by Ismâ‘îl himself.¹¹⁶ This was an enormous increase compared to previous education budgets.

Two economic factors helped the Diwân al-Madâris obtain such a budget. First, the Crimean War was over, and Egypt no longer needed to send people to fight abroad at Egypt’s own expense, which meant that the budget appropriated for fighting abroad could be used for internal needs. Second, because the American Civil War had occurred (1861–1865), American cotton exports were curtailed, and Egypt was almost the main cotton supplier to the world market. Due to worldwide shortages, the price of Egyptian cotton increased by 1,200 percent (from one pound per qintâr [360 English lbs], to twelve Egyptian pounds).¹¹⁷ The total revenue from cotton was four million Egyptian pounds in 1862. In only two years, in 1864, income from cotton reached fourteen million Egyptian pounds¹¹⁸ and the government was thus able to finance most of its educational programs.

Ismâ‘îl then was able to revive, in different stages, most of the schools—both religious and secular—that had functioned during Muhammad ‘Alî’s era but had been devastated during the reign of ‘Abbâs I and Sa‘îd. Teachers, whom Egypt had spent a lot of money to educate in Europe and who, later, had been deported to Sudan or sent to fight wars by ‘Abbâs I and Sa‘îd, were called back to start work in the reopened schools. Students were also recalled from their homes and units in the army to return to their schools to complete their education.¹¹⁹

In addition to reopening schools, higher institutions of learning in new fields were initiated. Among these institutions were the School of Accounting (Madrasat al-Muhâsabah) in 1867, The School of Law (Madrasat al-Huqûq) in 1869, and the School of Hieroglyphics (Madrasat al-Lisân al-Misrî al-Qadîm) in 1869. In addition, a school for people with special needs (i.e., mute and blind students) and a school for girls were opened to provide free education for their students.¹²⁰

In the area of elementary education, kuttâbs and other primary schools were not neglected. In the early part of his reign, Ismâ‘îl realized the need for these schools to provide the higher institutions with well-prepared students; thus, he decided to provide religious teachers of the kuttâbs with monthly salaries. In addition, more primary schools were built. Furniture, stationery, uniforms, food, and sometimes housing were provided to students. The number of kuttâbs and primary schools was tied to the density of the population in the urban and rural areas in which they served; thus, there were more of these institutions in areas with a greater population.

More importantly, ‘Alî Mubârak (1824–1893), who was the Minister of Education at the time, instituted Rajab Law, which reformed the educational system in Egypt in 1867.¹²¹ The significance of this law was, as Cochran writes, “The resulting Law of 19^th Rajab … provided for the total reorganization of education and recognition. the necessity of spreading education among the people.”¹²² Rajah Law contributed to the development of education in many ways: first, secular education was taught side by side with religious education in the same school for the first time. Even the kuttâbs themselves were no longer restricted to religious teaching, but along with the primary schools, they taught some of the basics of Western secular knowledge, such as math, geometry, geography, and foreign languages.¹²³ Undoubtedly, such a mixed system created a different experience for students from that of a singularly focused educational system, whether secular or religious. Second, unlike Muhammad ‘Alî’s system, which had been called a reversed educational pyramid system favoring the top ranks,¹²⁴ Rajab Law developed curricula for primary and secondary schools in a manner that prepared students for their extensive courses of study in higher institutions. Third, the educational curriculum was tied to the environment of the student, and it became market needs-oriented.¹²⁵ In other words, more agricultural schools were established in agricultural areas, along with more accounting schools where trade centers were located. It was hoped that every graduate from these schools would find a suitable job near home once they had completed their education. Fourth, educational institutions no longer had to be boarding schools, similar to military camps, where children were isolated from their parents; rather, students now had a choice either to stay with the old system or to obtain their education through daily attendance. Fifth, the populace was asked for civic engagement with these schools to provide voluntary contributions to support these institutions.¹²⁶

Later, this became very successful as, when the budget decreased, many of what were called domestic schools (al-Madâris al-Ahlîyah) survived with the help of the populace.¹²⁷ Sixth, teachers had to have two letters of recommendation written by two of the most knowledgeable and well-known people in the village before he could teach. Finally, all national schools were placed under the supervision of Diwân al-Madâris, which helped improve the financial, technical, and administrative stability of the school system by putting it under a single organizational authority.

Unfortunately, Rajab Law neglected the surviving vocational schools founded by Muhammad ‘Alî and the new ones established by Ismâ‘îl. Although Cochran claims that Rajab Law was never fully implemented,¹²⁸ it seems fair to say that it was a first step in reforming educational institutions that later led to greater improvements. Because of Rajab Law, and owing to ‘Alî Mubârak becoming the minister of both education and Religious Affairs (Awqâf),¹²⁹ the number of schools and kuttâbs increased remarkably. In 1869, for example, there were 1,178 students in four primary schools, averaging 295 students per school, and 44,095 students in 1,219 kuttâbs averaging, approximately 330 students per kuttâb. Six years later, in 1875, there were 13,490 students in 102 schools, averaging 132 students per school, and 112,047 students in 4,696 kuttâbs,¹³⁰ averaging about twenty-four students per kuttâb. There is no comparison between These numbers and the number of students in Muhammad ‘Alî’s era are not comparable. There were, as ‘Alî Mubârak stated, only nine thousand students in the era of Muhammad ‘Alî; by the end of his reign, this number had further declined to three thousand students.¹³¹

During Ismâ‘îl’s era, al-Azhar was not neglected either. Muhammad ‘Abbâs al-Mahdî, the new Shaykh of al-Azhar in 1865, initiated important reforms at this institution, among which were improvements in the selection of instructors. The traditional method (ijâzah)¹³² was replaced by a certificate that could only be obtained after passing an examination, administered by a committee headed by al-Shaykh al-Mahdî himself. Furthermore, to graduate, students had to undergo written and oral examinations.¹³³

Technical education, which took different names, also began during this period. The first school of this kind was established by Muhammad ‘Alî in 1839. It was called the School of Operations (Madrasat al-‘Amalîyât) and was designed to provide skilled technicians to the army and navy. However, the school did not last long after the size of the army was reduced. It was later closed, only to be reopened by Ismâ‘îl in 1868, not merely for the purpose of training personnel for the army but also to provide skilled workers for Egypt. The students were required to study for a period of three years, during which they were trained in different laboratories and workshops. Graduates possessed the skills necessary to work as railroad engineers, ship captains, smiths, and so on. The technical school was headed by French engineer Eloi Guigon Bey and only had thirty students in its directorship. Later, ‘Isâ Shâhîn, an Egyptian engineer who had returned from educational missions to Europe, held this position.¹³⁴

The School of Arts Crafts in Bûlâq had been closed by Sa‘îd Pasha. Under Ismâ‘îl Pasha, it was reopened through the efforts of Nûbâr Pasha who was helped by M. Monnier in its organization. The cholera outbreak in 1867 nearly ended this enterprise, but the government managed to reopen it in January 1868. It was given the name Madrast al-‘Amaliyât¹³⁵ under the direction of Eloi Guigon, a French engineer, and had thirty students. The course lasted for three years. As Guigon did not know Arabic, he used to write his lecture in French and had his assistant translate it into Arabic. Later, to overcome the difficulty of the formation of technical terms, Guigon compiled a French—English–Arabic technical terms dictionary with the aid of Egyptian masters.¹³⁶ Sabry notes that the Egyptian government did not grant any Egyptian a patent for his innovation.¹³⁷ As a result, Egyptians either did not bother to become innovators or had to sell their innovations to non-Egyptians.

8. VII-Women’s education

When the Council of Public Instruction in 1836 recommended the foundation of girls’ schools, Muslim conservatives considered the suggestion immoral.¹³⁸ However, Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî had a different view on the issue, which he had adopted during his stay in France. During his educational mission in Paris, Rifâ‘ah had seen, for the first time, that girls went to school. This sight attracted his attention to the possibility of educating Egyptian girls side by side with boys. However, as a Shaykh from al-Azhar, Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî had to look at this matter in Islamic terms. In his work al-Murshid al-amîn fî ta‘lîm al-banât wa al-banîn, published in 1872, Tahtâwî states that according to the teaching of Islamic laws sharî‘ah, there is “no harm” (Lâ darar) in girls going to school.¹³⁹

The attitude of the three pashas toward educating Egyptian peasant girls is worth briefing. According to Leon, Ismâ‘îl, for example, was less than enthusiastic about educating Egyptian girls. In delivering his plans for the improvement of his people, he spoke of his educational ideas with reference to the female children of his fellahs (peasants). Ismâ‘îl proposed to substitute, in domestic duties of the household, as servants in place of the slaves; who, he declared were more of a necessity to a class fitted, by training and intelligence, to take their places. He said,

“For you know very well we have no such class here, but let the fellah girls be educated, and taught the duties of cleanliness and household virtues, and we can do away with the slaves who are a great expense and a great nuisance”.

With education, girls will make good wives and mothers as well as good household servants, and the name of the Egyptian queen, ‘Iffat, who instituted this great reform (which must and will prove as the first grain of mustard seed with so imitative a people as the Arab) deserves a credit. She bids fair to go down to posterity, with the blessings of the male as well as the female of her people, who would enjoy the benefits and blessings of the reform she had so well and wisely begun.¹⁴⁰ If Leon’s narration were true, one could determine the reasons why opening schools for girls did, in fact, take a long time in the history of modern Egypt.

However, with the financial support of Jashm ‘Iffat, the third wife of Ismâ‘îl, the first school for girls, called al-Sanîyyah, was opened in 1873.¹⁴¹ It started with 200 students, a number that continuously increased, and its students could graduate after five years.¹⁴² Although it was one school and a drop in the ocean among the Egyptian population, some of its graduates, such as Hudâ Sha‘râwî¹⁴³ and Bâhithat al-Bâdîyah,¹⁴⁴ led the Women’s Liberation Movement in Egypt and played an important role in the development of women’s movements in the Near East. However, one problem that Rifâ‘ah and other Egyptian educators faced was determining the kind of education that should be offered to girls as, at that time, it concentrated on domestic arts and moral education.

9. VIII-Other institutions

Schools were not the only factor that improved the quality of education. lsmâ‘îl and his cabinet thought that some other institutions were needed for modern education. These institutions included public libraries,¹⁴⁵ printing houses (matb‘ah),¹⁴⁶ public auditoriums,¹⁴⁷ newspapers,¹⁴⁸ and laboratories,¹⁴⁹ and so on. All of these institutions were open to the public and were regulated and managed mostly by the Diwân al-Madâris (Ministry of Education). ·

This ambitious expansion of schools throughout Egypt and the acceptance of many new students every year without a clear plan created some serious problems. Among these was the lack of well-trained teachers for the staff at the schools. In 1872, “Alî Mubârak established a teachers” college called Dâr al-‘Ulûm to solve this problem.¹⁵⁰ It was not very successful, and the problem persisted, affecting the quality of the education that the students received. Ismâ‘îl’s attempts to educate the masses remained to a large extent unsuccessful because educational efforts were limited to urban areas such as Cairo and Alexandria. As for small villages, such as al-Harâdnah in upper Egypt, a kuttâb was the highest educational institute that they could expect; yet they did not get it. In addition, graduates from rural areas, instead of returning home to offer instruction and education, chose to remain in Cairo or took up residence in one of the large cities elsewhere. This created a surplus of well-educated people in urban areas compared to a shortage in rural areas. Moreover, higher education was almost exclusively for the elite who could afford to pay for it. Al-Tahtâwî unexpectedly for him, condoned this condition and summarized the policy of education by saying that free primary education should be available to everyone, poor, rich, male, or female.

Secondary education should be available to whoever has the skills required for such a level of education. Regarding higher education, al-Tahtâwî promoted the already instituted policy of restricting it to those who could afford it, mainly the wealthy.¹⁵¹ Offering scholarship was not an option for those who were less fortunate. Clearly, Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî had a class-oriented philosophy of education where education and class structure were tied together; perhaps this was something al-Tahtâwî had seen during his mission in Europe. Furthermore, the idea that free education ought to be available to everyone in society, regardless of social class, was not widespread at the time of al-Tahtâwî in Egypt or elsewhere. Nevertheless, one can rightly expect that al-Tahtâwî, who emerged from the mainstream Egyptian society, should have treated education in Egypt differently from education in Europe because the former was far behind the latter in the field of education at that time. Therefore, the restrictions and obstacles faced by Egyptians should have been removed, and opportunities for talented students should have opened up.

10. IX-The education of minorities: Coptic and Jewish schools

All the different ethnic and religious groups in Egypt were encouraged by Ismâ‘îl to build schools and choose their own instruction or curriculum in education without any supervision from the government. Thus, Ismâ‘îl did not discriminate against schools with different denominations or nationalities, and educators such as al-Tahtâwî rationalized this philosophy.

In his work Minhâj al-albâb, Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî¹⁵² arrives at a rather novel Islamic view on the treatment of non-Muslims known as Ahl al-Dhimmah in the Islamic society. Combining justifications derived from Islamic teachings and his own observations during his stay in France on the civil rights of French citizens, al-Tahtâwî concludes that all the citizens of one geographical and ethnic nation—Muslims and non-Muslims alike—should receive the same basic rights.¹⁵³ Education was one of the rights available to all Egyptians regardless of their religion; this belief has gained acceptance among intellectuals and the society at large as well as among government officials.

However, although no attempt had been made to reform the Coptic Church until the reign of “Abbâs, a reform party appeared during his period, at the head of which was a Coptic monk who became the Patriarch and was known as Cyril IV (also Cyrillus). In 1853, Dawûud was selected as Archbishop on probation with the permission of Abbâs; in the very next year, having proved his worth, he was made Patriarch and took the name of Cyril IV. Immediately, he was made Archbishop; however, he set to work to introduce more up-to-date schools. His first school was the Coptic Patriarchal College, which he began building in 1853, and in the same year, he started three other schools: a girls school in al-Azbakiyah quarter, another girls” school in Hârit al-Saqqâiyyn, and a boys’ school in the same quarter.¹⁵⁴ This was the first attempt by the Copts to set up their own schools with a view to introducing Western methods, and it is significant that Cyril paid as much attention to the education of girls as he did to that of boys. As the development of these new Coptic schools belongs to a later period, I do not address them in depth here. Suffice it to say that ‘Abbâs had helped Cyril to the office of Patriarch and did not stand in the way of his reforms, and that the nomination of Cyril marked a turning point in the cultural history of the Copts.¹⁵⁵

‘Abbâs left four schools, two of which were very large and supplied the government services with the required number of officials; this was all that he intended to do. It was not implied that people’s education was being encouraged or was receiving the ruler’s support, and there was no demand for public education; in other words, the schools of ‘Abbâs were not created to supply men for armies.¹⁵⁶ Apparently, Ismâ‘îl adopted the same belief.

During the decline of education in Sa“îd’s reign, the Copts had already begun to build their own educational institutions in a pattern similar to that of Muslims” kuttâbs. However, they had received little encouragement or financial support from Sa‘îd’s government. Unlike his predecessors, Ismâ‘îl encouraged the Copts to design their own school system (similar to charter schools in the United States today), which was their first attempt to set up their own schools with a view to introducing Western methods. Catholics, for example, established nine schools in Egypt. Overall, Ismâ‘îl granted Coptic schools 1,500 feddans from their own land. According to ‘Atîyah Faraj, the income from these feddans was sufficient to finance schools.¹⁵⁷ Due to the efforts of Pope Cyrillus IV, the Coptic Patriarch, twelve Coptic schools were built in Cairo alone. For the first time, schools of theology, optic language, and religious “customs” were opened, along with two Coptic schools for girls.

By 1872, Jews had seven primary schools in Cairo and four in Alexandria. The largest Jewish institution was established in their quarters in Cairo with eighty-three students. Jewish students were taught Hebrew, French, and Italian in addition to other subjects of modern education, and most of these schools provided free education.¹⁵⁸

These schools for religious minorities were the beginning of education in non-Muslim, Egyptian communities. Although Coptic schools had already existed under Sa‘îd, they were greatly expanded under Ismâ‘îl, whose role in facilitating the construction and expansion of schools proved that, unlike his predecessors, he was open-minded about Egyptians who happened to have a different religion from his own and believed that they could contribute to Egypt’s progress. He also had an interest in supporting foreign schools, known as language schools, and wanted to use all available resources to modernize Egypt.

11. X-Foreign education

Foreign education started early in Muhammad ‘Alî’s era. Until 1848, there had only been ten foreign schools in Egypt.¹⁵⁹ While national education was neglected during Sa‘îd’s era in Egypt, the number of foreign educational institutions increased dramatically. Heyworth-Dunne believes that Sa‘îd’s negligent policy toward Egyptian cultural interests is blameworthy. He says,

“He could see the growth of European schools all around him and actually gave several of them great help; government buildings … the amount of money which he gave to the Freres in Cairo and to the Italians in Alexandria, was probably more than he spent on his educational budget during the whole of his reign”.¹⁶⁰

However, Lois Araion sees a positive result in Sa‘îd’s negligent policy, stating that

“Sa‘îd by funding foreign schools while neglecting the national system, may have contributed to a growing interest in education among an Egyptian population which had not previously demanded it”.¹⁶¹

This policy led to a lasting Western influence on education in Egypt, particularly by foreign schools. As a result of Sa‘îd’s policy, national feelings in favor of education grew among Egyptians.

This trend continued under Ismâ‘îl and was encouraged by him. In the first meeting of the General Assembly (Majlis Shurâ al-Nuwwâb) in 1866, for example, it was decided to legally require that after eighteen years of this educational reconstruction, all voters, as well as elected members of the General Assembly, be literate.¹⁶² This suggests that some members of the representatives were illiterate, which indicates the failure of the education policy of ‘Abbâs I and Sa‘îd. Although this was not a direct result of the improved education system under Ismâ‘îl, at least it showed that a certain level of education would be demanded from political leaders from then on.

As a result of the economic prosperity in Egypt during Ismâ‘îl’s era, due in part to his belief in free trade al-tijârah al-hurrah, Western investment was encouraged in Egypt.¹⁶³ The number of foreigners in different European countries dramatically increased,¹⁶⁴ and subsequently, the number of schools increased under Ismâ‘îl’s policy of encouraging the opening of more schools; most of these were operated by missionaries. For example, Ismâ‘îl granted the Protestant American Mission a piece of land next to the Shepherd Hotel¹⁶⁵ and seven thousand Egyptian pounds to build their schools.¹⁶⁶ Ahmad ‘Izzat ‘Abd al-Karîm states that thirty-eight American schools were built all over Egypt from 1865 to 1878.¹⁶⁷ In general, the number of foreign schools increased from ten in 1863 to 152 in 1878,¹⁶⁸ and Forty-three foreign schools out of the total number of foreign schools established in Ismâ‘îl’s era still exist.¹⁶⁹

Since the languages of instruction in these foreign schools were European, Ismâ‘îl valued what these schools could do to strengthen education through the translation of European books, which aligned with his plan to modernize Egypt as a country in Europe. In practical terms, graduates of these foreign schools played a considerable role as translators in mixed courts, consulates, trade centers, and other places. Moreover, these schools enjoyed privileges that national schools did not. Among these privileges, foreign students were not under the supervision of Diwân al-Madâris or any other element of government administration; therefore, they had the freedom to design their own curricula and choose pedagogical methods—for example, by greatly expanding their curricula to teach foreign languages. In some schools, up to five foreign languages were taught.¹⁷⁰ Moreover, unlike the national institution of higher education, these schools had no places or scholarships for poor students, and they had the opportunity to choose their own pupils. However, Greek and Jewish schools gave poor students partial grants, and the students in these schools were also generally better off than those in national schools. Graduates from foreign schools could obtain better jobs with higher salaries in institutions such as foreign banks and big companies, where knowledge of a foreign language was essential. In addition, graduates of foreign schools were exempt from mandatory service in the army and from taking part in building railroads, both of which were highly undesirable types of work.¹⁷¹ Despite the privileges granted to them by the Egyptian government, foreign schools in Egypt remained more loyal to their mother countries than to Egypt. Moreover, Egyptian graduates of these schools knew more about the country of the schools they attended than about Egypt. These schools tended to ignore the local culture and exerted influence in favor of Western culture, which later helped spread Western political influence and control. Foreign schools had another unfortunate effect: by teaching up to five foreign languages, they became a serious threat to the dominance of Arabic as well as Islam, both of which presumably should have been taught, since fifty-two percent of the students in these schools were Egyptian.¹⁷²

Despite Ismâ‘îl’s decision in 1870 to make Arabic the official language of the government’s bureaucracy,¹⁷³ foreign languages became the preferred language of daily life for most individuals who had graduated from foreign schools. Georgie Hyde writes:

“After the opening of modern language schools, the middle classes, like the aristocracy, showed their superiority by conversing in the European language in which they had been educated, while their illiterate servants communicated in a local Arabic dialect”.¹⁷⁴

As a result, indigenous Egyptian Muslims did not send their children to foreign schools but instead built their own schools independent of the government; thus, private Muslim schools began to appear. These schools also played a part in the revival of education under Ismâ‘îl, who, even with all these foreign schools, continuously sent educational missions to Europe to sustain education in general and technical and vocational education in particular.

This educational awakening had many positive effects on Egypt, one of which was political awakening among Egyptians. Opposition to absolutist rule appeared in both Arabic political newspapers, such as Wâdî al-Nîl, and in foreign language newspapers, such as Le Progres Egyptien,¹⁷⁵ In addition, the first opposition political party, al-Hizb al-Watanî (the National Party),¹⁷⁶ and Arabic became the official language. Muhammad ‘Abduh, a Muslim reformist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emphasized the significance of Arabic in the revival of Islam and Islamic literature. Nationalists used it as a national weapon to influence the public to appreciate the importance of education in a national language.¹⁷⁷ Egyptian nationalistic feelings began to rise during Ismâ‘îl’s era through the influence of non-Egyptians. AI-Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, for example, who was in Egypt in 1869, often reminded Egyptians of their glorious past and asked them to resist European interference. Hence, the movement toward Egyptianization (tamsîr) began. Salîm al-Naqqâsh a Syrian journalist, gave the Egyptians their slogan “Egypt for the Egyptians” (misr lil-masryyîn)—a catchword that the Egyptians often used against European domination. Jews and Copts were also able to publish in their journals. James Sannû‘, a Jewish writer, published Abû Nadhdhârah—a paper of great significance as it was written in colloquial Arabic and hostile to Ismâ‘îl himself. The Coptic paper Watanî, which still exists today, was established as the official Coptic newspaper. It was initially neutral, then gradually starting to criticize Ismâ‘îl as his rule weakened.¹⁷⁸

Modern education also affected the Egyptian social structure, inducing native Egyptians to seek an advantage over the old Turkish elite. Through Western education, they were able to learn not only Turkish but also at least one European language. This gave the new class of educated Egyptians a feeling of superiority over Turkish-speaking bureaucrats, who knew only Turkish. This class, whose knowledge of Turkish had given them prominence, was now replaced by a new class, whose knowledge of at least three languages gave its members the edge.

Another result was that many associations and educational corporations were born in Ismâ‘îl’s era. One can mention al-Jam‘îyah al-Jughrâfîyah al-Misrîyah (The Egyptian Geographical Association, 1875)¹⁷⁹ and Dâr al-Ma‘ârif (The House of Knowledge, 1869), which now stands as one of the largest publishing houses in Egypt. By and large, most institutions in different fields that start with “Dâr,” such as Dâr al-Ubrâ (Opera House, 1869)¹⁸⁰ and Dâr al-Kutub (National Library of Egypt 1970),¹⁸¹ were established during lsmâ‘îl’s era.

12. XI-Conclusion

It can be concluded that every pasha had his own characteristic nature, which was reflected in his philosophy of education. However, in general, the modernization of Egypt was limited to modernizing Egyptian armies. Education was expanding when the army was large and strong; however, when this was small and weak, education had a reactionary mood. More schools were closed down and modernization was put on hold, especially during ‘Abbâs’s reign, and it started to ease up during Ismâ‘îl’s era.

The principal theme around which this analysis of education under ‘Abbâs I, Sa‘îd, and Ismâ‘îl’s was organized is that among the three pashas, Ismâ‘îl’s radical ideas of modern education put him in a position where he, not Muhammad ‘Alî, should be considered the real founder of modern education in Egypt. He was enthusiastic and ambitious in his desire to modernize education in Egypt by reopening the schools that had been established during the reign of Muhammad ‘Alî, to which he added those that he felt were necessary. He differed from his grandfather also in terms of goals; in fact, he was more realistic than Muhammad ‘Alî in his conception of modernization. Ismâ‘îl realized that Egypt was more likely to become “modern” through people educated in a Western manner than through a strong modern army, as in the case of Muhammad ‘Alî. Ismâ‘îl wanted to keep the school system developing and reformed, and as a result, he encouraged people to play an active role in building schools and running them alongside the government. The number of students as well as the number of schools increased significantly.

In terms of female education, girls had the opportunity to be educated outside their homes in institutions designed exclusively for them. Ismâ‘îl was also concerned with other educational institutions that could contribute to the development of education among the public by establishing a public library and auditorium, a printing house, and other such institutions. The purpose of these educational institutions was to modernize Egypt by creating modern, educated Egyptians. Ismâ‘îl was open-minded toward Egyptian minorities, mainly the Copts and Jews, recognizing their basic human rights; he helped them open their own schools, as he did with foreign communities and their missions. All of these helped modernize education in Egypt. By and large, this emphasis on education in Ismâ‘îl’s era had a considerable positive result in the sense that many associations, born as a result of the educational awakening of that time, still function today. Another product of Ismâ‘îl’s policies was the political awakening of Egypt, which led to the formation of opposition parties and the appearance of political newspapers, some of which, such as al-Ahrâm and al-Watanî, are still being published.¹⁸²

However, since all these efforts were launched in a relatively short time, and Ismâ‘îl’s ambition lacked a clear plan, some negative aspects emerged, such as the lack of teachers and the neglect of Arabic in foreign schools. More seriously, despite the government’s efforts to educate the masses, higher education remained chiefly for the elite. This situation continued until the 1950s, when Tâhâ Husayn, the Minister of Education at the time, made higher education free.

Furthermore, modern education during Ismâ‘îl’s era influenced political and social life in nineteenth-century Egypt. Opposing political parties to the government emerged; newspapers voiced criticism of the ruler, and Egyptian nationalistic feelings of hostility toward foreigners emerged among Egyptians. Furthermore, education changed Egypt’s social structure: a new class appeared in Egyptian society because of the knowledge acquired, mainly in foreign languages, with superiority over Turkish-speaking bureaucrats. Egypt would not have had such changes had Ismâ‘îl not had progressive ideas about modernization. His concept of modernizing Egypt was more modern than that of his grandfather Muhammad ‘Alî or of ‘Abbâs I and Sa‘îd. In fact, Ismâ‘îl’s reconstruction of education was one of the most remarkable contributions to modernizing Egypt, to the degree that Ismâ‘îl should be considered the real founder of modern education there.

One can also conclude that the modernization of Egypt was artificial, where Egyptian armies were the center of modernization. Education was expanding when the army was large and strong, but when this was small and weak, education was reactionary. More schools were closed, and modernization was put on hold. Pashas sought Europe’s hand to modernize Egypt—the same hand that made Egypt fall prey to European countries and led to the British occupation of 1882.¹⁸³

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ali Bakr Hassan

Ali Bakr Hassan Associate Professor Effat University – Jeddah –Saudi Arabia My academic training has been multi-disciplinary in the fields of the Early Islamic studies, international relations, and library and information science. I obtained two Master Degrees and a Ph. D. in these fields from the University of Washington, Seattle, and the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). I have extensive teaching experience in the US and in the Middle East in the fields of Islamic history, World Civilization, Arabic, and Arabic as a foreign language. Furthermore, I have ten years of experience in managing the Arabic and Islamic Studies collections in three major universities in the US (University of California-Berkeley, Brown University, and Ohio State University). I am fluent on both Arabic and English. I have good working knowledge of Persian, French and German. I authored four books in the field of the Islamic history, American history, and literature of Arab emigrants in the new world. I published a number of articles about Arabic in Medieval Europe.

Notes

1. ‘Abd al-Rahmân al-Jabartî, ‘Ajâ’ib al-athâr fî trâjim al-akhbâr, Cairo: 1205 A. H., v. 3, p. 191.

2. It is worth mentioning that Alfred Milner was an official bureaucrat serving the Khedive. See his England in Egypt, London: Edward Arnold, Milner, 1894, p. 413. In addition, he was in Egypt during Ismâ‘îl’s era and regularly used to be a guest of his. See William Fraser Rae Egypt To-day: The First to the Third Khedive, London: Richard Bentley and Son, Rae, 1892, p. 10.

3. Milner, p. 388.

4. See John P. Dunn, Khedive Ismail’s Army, London, and New York: Routledge, Dunn, 2005, ff. 31.

5. Leon, p. 161.

6. ‘Abbâs I, sone of Ahmad Tusun son of Muhammad ‘Alî, was born on July 1, 1812 in Jeddah and was raised in Cairo. Being the oldest descendant and grandson of Muhammad ‘Alî, he succeeded his uncle Ibrâhîm Pasha in ruling Egypt and Sudan in 1848. He died on July 13 1854.

7. Sylva White, The Expansion of Egypt, London: S. White, 1899, p. 58.

8. Leon, 173.

9. Leon, pp. 81–82.

10. Leon, p. 263. See also Samir Raafat, “The Delta Barrage”, Cairo Times, August 21, 1997. Raymond Flower, Napoleon to Nasser: The Story of Modern Egypt, London: Tom Stacey Ltd, Flower, 1972, chapter 6. William Fraser Rae Egypt To-day: The First to the Third Khedive, London: Richard Bentley and Son, Rae, 1892, pp. 155–156.

11. See Leon, pp. 86–87.

12. Muhammad Sa‘îd son of Muhammad ‘Alî, known as Sa‘îd, was born January 17, 1822 and died January 17, 1963.

13. Quoted by Mohamed Sabry al-Surbûnî, L’Empire Egyptien Sous Ismail et L’Ingerence Anglo-Francaise (1863–1879), tr. By Najî Atiyah, Cairo: al-Markaz al-Qawmi lil-Tarjamah, Al-Surbûnî, 2010, v.1, p. 60. The main character and the voracious giant appeared in collection title of five comic novels entitled Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (d. 1553), published between 1532 and 1564. The novels present the comic and satiric story of the giant Gargantua, his son Pantagruel, and various companions, whose travels and adventures are a vehicle for ridicule of the follies and superstitions of the times.

14. Leon described how these peasants were living. He states that fellahs were miserably lodged in huts of mud, with no demands for cleanliness or comfort; that they were insufficiently clothed in dirty blue cotton shirts (men and women), and underfed while, at the same time, overworked and overtaxed; and that the proportion of those who were comfortable in those circumstances or conditions was so small that it almost counted as nothing in the calculation. If they asked for bread, they received stones instead as their rulers were busy building costly palaces with piles of stones and marbles. See Leon, pp. 230–231. One can expect no request for education to come from those people as long as their stomachs were empty.

15. Leon, p. 94.

16. Leon, p. 95.

17. Surbûnî, p. 81.

18. Derek James Overton, Some Aspects of Induced Development in Egypt Under Muhammad Ali Pasha and Khedive Ismail, Vancover: University of British Columbia, the Department of History, unpublished master theses, Overton, 1967, 94–95.

19. McCoan, p. 227.

20. Overton, p. 140.

21. Leon, p. 90.

22. Leon, p. 91.

23. Leon, p. 92.

24. White p. 59.

25. Overton, p. 18.

26. Overton, p. 127.

27. Overton, p. 127.

28. Overton, pp. 103–104.

29. Ismâ‘îl son of Ibrâhîm son of Muhammad ‘Alî, was Born in 1830, he received a Western education in Europe, which he completed in 1849. He devoted himself initially to farm management, being the owner of extensive land holdings. During this period, he increased his holdings threefold and, by progressive efficient farming, multiplied his income fivefold. His cotton was the finest in Egypt and his sugar refinery the most advanced. When, in 1861 and 1862, Sa‘îd visited Mecca and Europe, Ismâ‘îl acted as Regent and revealed himself to be a strikingly more efficient administrator than his uncle Sa‘îd. He died on March 2, 1895. See David S. Landes, Bankers and Pashas: international finance and economic imperialism in Egypt, London: Heinemann, Landes, 1958, pp. 129–130. See also Overton, p. 97.

30. Leon, 167.

31. Leon, 171.

32. Georges Douin, Histoire du Règne du Khédive Ismaïl. Le Caire: Impr. de l’I.F.A.O. du Caire pour la Société Royale de Géographie d’Egypte, 1936–41, v. 1, p. 2.

33. Mccoan, Egypt as It Is, p. 86.

34. McCoan, Egypt as it is, p. vii.

35. See White, p. 60.

36. White, pp. 60–62.

37. Overton, p. 98.

38. Leon, 170.

39. Sylva White, The Expansion of Egypt, London: S. White, 1899, p. 63.

40. See Surbûnî, p. 501.

41. Ismâ‘îl Pasha granted the Portuguese council 300 faddâns, with an income of 300,000 francs a year. Similarly, he granted the Spanish council 400 faddan with an income of 400,000 francs a year. See Surbûnî, p. 335. Furthermore, Ismâ‘îl granted the American missionaries a piece of land in Muskî, Cairo, and assessed them to build a residence for them, which cost fifteen thousand Egyptian pounds. The missionaries were able to build ten male centers for men and seven centers for women, which extended from Alexandria to Asyût. See Leon, pp. 275–276.

42. Leon, p. 131.

43. Statement was taken from the English poet Charles Lamb (d. 1834): “Living without no God in the world.”.

44. Al-Surbûnî, v.1, p. 68.

45. Wathâ’iq Ismâ‘îl, pp. 39–40.

46. Leon, p. 162.

47. See Surbûnî, p. 113.

48. Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps (d. 1894) was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between Europe and East.

49. Milner, p. xv.

50. See Surbûnî, pp. 185–187.

51. See Surbûnî, p. 156.

52. See Surbûnî, pp. 147–158, 175.

53. See Surbûnî, pp. 175–178.

54. In his report, Lord Derby of the British Council states that, in 1878, the Egyptian GDP estimated to be nine and half million pounds sterling. The government paid seven and a half million pounds for its debt. After paying its obligation to the Port, only one and half million pounds were left for the Egyptian government to pay salaries and other expenditures. See Surbûnî, p. 200, 292.

55. See Surbûnî, p. 522.

56. Foreign employees who were working for the Egyptian government received their salaries regularly. See Surbûnî, pp. 230–232.

57. Jeremiah 18:6; Leon, p. 221.

58. Heyworth-Dunne, p. 71.

59. Strangely, this impression is stronger in Egypt than elsewhere. See Muhammad ibn Mahmûd ibn ^cArnûs, Ta’rîkh al-Qadâ’ fî al-Islâm, Cairo: al-Matba‘ah al-‘Asriyah, ‘Arnûs & Muhammad, 1934.

60. Heyworth-Dunne, p. 79. Also see , Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, (1977), `Ajâib al-âthâr fî al-tarâjib wa-al-akhbâr, ed. by A. A. Abd al-Rahîm, Cairo: Matb`at Dâr al-Kutub, v. 2, p. 395.

61. Alfred Milner, England in Egypt, London: Edward Arnold, Milner, 1894, p. xi.

62. Milner, pp. 364–365.

63. Milner, pp. 366–367.

64. Wathâ’iq Ismâ‘îl, p. 126.

65. Leon, p. 271.

66. Overton, p. 140.

67. See Leon, p. 272.

68. Rae, Egypt to-Day: the first to the third Khedive, 4.

69. Rae, 7.

70. Rae, 8.

71. See Leon, p. 272.

72. See Abdel-Maksud Hamza, The public Debt of Egypt, 1854–1876, Cairo: Hamza, 1944. p. 7.

73. Leon, p. 160.

74. Leon, pp. 160–61.

75. Leon, p. 161.

76. Wathâ’iq, pp. 134–135.The percentage was 23.6%. Although this percentage was lower than that of Europe, it was higher than Turkey (10.5%) and Russia (5,7%). See Wathâ’iq, p. 135.

77. Wathâ’iq, p. 136.

78. See Surbûnî, p. 202.

79. Leon, p. 162.

80. See Surbûnî, p. 570.

81. De Leion, p. 369.

82. As quoted by Surbûnî, p. 562.

83. See Foreign Areas Studies division, Area Handbook of the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Washington DC: The American University of Washington Dc, 1964, p. 21.

84. Overton, p. 164.

85. Hamont, op. cit., v.1, p. 514, as it has been quoted by Overton, p. 76.

86. Sayed, Fatma. (Sayed, 2006). Transformation of Education in Egypt? In Transforming Education in Egypt: Western Influence and Domestic Policy Reform, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.pp. 1–6.

87. Milner, p. 367.

88. Milner, p. 368. According to the census of 1882, which is fairly accurate, the population of Egypt numbered 6,715,000 natives and 91,000 foreigners (1.35%). Of the former no fewer than 4,204,000, or 62 percent, belonged to the agricultural class. See Milner, p. 387.

89. Milner, p. 369.

90. Milner, pp. 370–371.

91. Milner, p. 372.

92. See Milner, p. 373.

93. Milner, p. 373.

94. Milner, p. 374.

95. Kuttabs, (kuttâb pl. katâtîb), are small traditional elementary schools offering primary education limited to the Quran and basic knowledge of Arabic reading and writing. They are similar to primary schools, most of which date back to the early years of Moslem rule in Egypt, and every village possesses one or more of these elementary nurseries of learning. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, and according to McCoan, the total number of them throughout the country probably exceeded 5,000 (though confessedly imperfect), registering an aggregate of 4,685 kuttabs attended by 111,803 pupils. Kuttabs were entirely free from government control or inspection. See McCoan, Egypt as It Is, New York: McCoan, 1882. Their chief aim and limit are to teach reading and learning the Quran by heart, supplemented or not by writing and the most elementary arithmetic, beyond which a modest range of the scholarship of the fikh was taught. Al-Azhar offered higher education to those who graduated, primarily from the kuttabs, and wanted to continue. Al-Azhar stands now as one of the Egyptian universities receiving students from kuttabs as well as secular schools.

96. Except for some works in poem and literature such as Maqamât al-Harîrî. Some instances of this work were learned by heart. A certain amount of attention was paid to Persian literature, especially by those who spoke Turkish; the Shâh Nameh, the Diviin Hâfiz, and the Gulistân were the works read most frequently. See Heyworth-Dunne, p. 76. In the pashas’ eras, some works were no longer mentioned because some people were not interested in knowing any languages other than Arabic. However, al-Jabartî, who himself knew Persian and Turkish, regretted that not many people knew eastern languages. These people were either non-Egyptian or had a Turkish background. Few Mamluks seem to have taken a deep interest in Arabic. See Heyworth-Donne, p. 77.

97. Heyworth-Dunne, p. 75.

98. lsmâ’il ibn Ibrâhim ibn Muhammad ‘Alî (born on December 31, 1830). He was sent to Paris with one of Egyptian educational missions in 1844. Ismâ‘îl was Governor of Egypt from 1863 to 1879. He was Pasha until l866, then becoming Khedive (viceroy) of Egypt. Because of his debt to some Western countries and other reasons, Britain and France arranged for ‘Abd al-Hamid II, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, to remove him from office on June 26, 1879. He lived in Italy and Istanbul until his death on March 2, 1895. See Afaf Marsot, A Short History of Egypt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Marsot, 1988, 67–78.

3. The number of students at these schools was, twenty-six, four and one hundred sixteen. See Ahmad I. “Abd ai-Karim, Târîkh a/-ta”lîm fi Misr, Cairo: Wizarat ai-Ma‘ârif, Al-Karîm & Ahmad, 1945, ff. 436, 447, 617.

99. The number of students at these schools was, twenty-six, four and one hundred respectively. See Ahmad I. ‘Abd al-Karîm, Târîkh al-ta’lîm fi Misr, Cairo, Wizarat ai-Ma‘ârif, Al-Karîm & Ahmad, 1945, ff. 436, 447, 617.

100. J. Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to the History of Education in Egypt, London: Luzac & Co., 1938, p. 340.

101. John Badeau describes modernization as a sociological term implying change: “a widespread shift in the centre of attention away from the familiar past to the modern, if nebulous, future.” See “The Arab World in Quest of a Future” in Modernization of the Arab World, ed by J. Thompson and R. Reischauer, New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Badeau, 1966) as quoted by Georgie Hyde, Education in Modern Egypt, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Hyde, 1978, p. 13.

102. France was the country that produced Napoleon, who was highly admired by Muhammad ‘Alî. Further, some French cultural influences had been left behind after the French occupation of Egypt. Fahmî claims that French and Napoleon were the reasons for the modern civilization in the Near East. See Imîl Fahmî, al-Ta‘lîm hadilh, Cairo: Maktabat al-Anjlu, Fahmî, 1977, p. 76. More important was the discovery of a new variety of cotton by a French engineer employed in Muhammad ‘Alî’s textile factories in 1823. That discovery made Egyptian cotton one of the most competitive in the world. See Charles Issawi, An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa, New York: Columbia University Press, Issawai, 1982, p. 120.

103. Judith Cochran, Education in Egypt, London: Croom Helm, Cochran, 1986, p. 4.

104. For example, al-Madrasah al-Tajhîziyah al-Harbiyah received about 600 students in 1825. This school was of great significance to all military schools in Egypt at that time, and all schools drew their recruits from it. The students ranged from twelve to sixteen and were mixture of Turks, Circassians, Georgians, Greeks, and others, but not Egyptian. In 1842, a military staff college was established—Madrasat Arkan Harb. It was intended for the elite, especially Turks and Mamluks from Constantinople. At a later date, Muhammad ‘Alî allowed Egyptians to attend as a special favor, but they were not allowed to sit for the examinations and were given no rank. See Heyworth-Dunne, 117, p. 119.

105. Strangely enough, Ahmad ‘Urabî, in his “uprising” in 1882, requested raising the army to 18,000 soldiers.

106. Aliyyah A. Faraj, al-Ta’lim fi Misr, Alexandria: Mansha’at ai-Ma‘ârif, Faraj, 1976, p. 66.

107. Rifâ‘ah Râfi“ al-Tahtâwî (1801–1873) was sent as a religious advisor to an Azhari students” educational mission to France by Muhammad ‘Alî in 1826. He returned in 1831 and then became the director of the School of Languages (Madrasat al-Alsun) in 1835. He is considered one of the pioneers of modern education in Egypt. See ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Rafi’i, ^cAsr Ismâ‘îl (Cairo: Dâr al-Ma’ârif, Al-Râfi‘î, 1982), v. 1, 21–22.

108. This war started in 1853 between Russia and Turkey and ended in 1856. See al-Râfi‘î, v. 1, 41, p. 48. See also Dunn, p. 13.

109. In fact, Sa‘îd had reopened the Schools of Military Engineering in 1858 and Medicine and Midwifery in 1856. See al-Râf‘î, v. 1, pp. 48–49.

110. See Heyworth-Dunne, p. 340, I. al-Jayyâr, Târîkh al-ta‘lîm fi Misr, Cairo: Dâr al-Thaqâfah, Al-Jayyâr, 1971, p. 82.

111. P. J. Vatikiotis, The History of Modem Egypt (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Vatikiotis, 1985), p. 101.

112. Ismâ‘îl’s experience was radically different in the manner of ruling. As Fahmî claims, Ismâ‘îl was greatly influenced by Louis XIV, the King of France, who considered himself both the king and the state. See Fahmî, Ill as quoted from 1. McCoan, Egypt as It Is, 2nd ed., pp. 81, 232.

113. See David Landes, Bankers and Pashas, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Landes, 1958, p. 130.

114. Lois A. Aroian, “The Nationalization of Arabic and Islamic Education in Egypt” Cairo Papers in Social Sciences, Cairo: American University of Cairo, December Aroian, 1983, p. 10. Also see al-Rafâ‘î, v. 1, p. 210. See also, Leon, the Khedive’s Egypt, p. 271.

115. ‘Alî Mubârak, al-Khitat al-tawfiqiyah, Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, Mubârak, 1969, v. 1, p. 223.

116. al-Jayyâr, p. 102.

117. See Marsot, p. 67, al-J ayyâr, p. 96. As soon as the War ended, the price of Egyptian cotton decreased to three pounds per qintâr (approximately 150 kg). In Liverpool, England, the price of a pound weight cotton went down from 30 cents to 12 cents. See Surbûnî, p. 192.

118. See Surbûnî, p. 189.

119. The contemporary sources fail to give accurate numbers of teachers or students.

120. Sec ^cAlî Mubârak, v. 1, 223, al-Râfi‘î, v. I, p. 207, ai-Jayyâr, 106, Aroian, p. 10.

121. It was called the Rajab Law because it appeared in 19 Rajab, J 248 (May 1867), and Rajab is the seventh month in the lunar calendar.

122. Cochran, p. 5.

123. See Husayn F. al-Najjâr, ‘Alî Mubârak, Cairo: Dâr ai-Kutub, Al-Najjâr, 1967, p. 97.

124. Cochran, p. 4.

125. Al-Jayyâr, p. 114.

126. Aroian, p. 10.

127. Some of these schools became kuttâbs after the correction of Rajab Law. See Cochran, p. 5.

128. Cochran, p. 5.

129. That enabled ‘Alî Mubârak to take money from endowments waqfs to put into education without bureaucratic indifference.

130. Faraj, p. 99.

131. ^cAlî Mubârak, v. 1, 22. ^cAbd al-Karîm, 873.

132. A written certificate before the title page of a certain work by which the teacher allowed the student to teach this work.

133. See al-Rafi‘î, v. 1, p. 208. ‘Abd al-Karîm, p. 814.

134. See ‘Abd al-Rahmân al-Rafi‘î, ‘Asr Muhammad ‘Alî, Cairo: Dâr al-Ma‘ârif, Al-Rafi‘î, 1982, p. 403. And ‘Asr Ismâ‘îl, v. 1, p. 204.

135. This school consisted of the following: a special section was opened in 1868 as a military workshop with 28 students. Another for painting, opened in 1869 was closed 1871. A third in connection with the railways started during The first line of the system dates from 1852, when ‘Abbâs Pasha commissioned Mr. Robert Stephenson to construct a single railway from Alexandria to the capital, in the interest of the then rapidly developing overland traffic opened in 1870 and closed in 1872; a telegraph school was opened in 1868 and closed in 1869, and a general industrial section opened in 1868 and closed in 1872. It is worth mentioning that it was named many names, and it was opened and closed many times. See Heyworth-Dunne, p. 358. See also, McCoan, Egypt as It Is, McCoan, 1882, pp. 228–229.

136. See Heyworth-Dunne, p. 357.

137. See Surbûnî, p. 375.

138. See Hyde, p. 39.

139. As quoted in Mahmûd Hijâzî, Usûl al-flkr al-‘Arabî al-hadîth, Cairo: al-Hay’ah al-Misriyah, Hijâzî, 1974, p. 101. As can be seen here, al- al-Tahtâwî uses the term Lâ darar, which is usually used in Islamic Law (fiqh).

140. See Leon, pp. 280–281.

141. At the time of opening, al-Saniyah was under a Syrian headmistress, Rosse Najjar, who oversaw the service, and three shaykhs taught the Qur’an. See Heyworth-Dunne, p. 374. Regarding girls’ education in general, it is important to mention that the School of Midwifery was the first school for women, built during Muhammad ‘Alî’s era; however, it was not considered so simply because the students were Black Ethiopians who usually graduated to help the wives of the elite. See al-Râfi‘î, p. 203. Moreover, Fahmi claims that the first school for women was built in Giza during Muhammad ‘Alî’s era under pressure from Susanne Volquin, who came to Egypt as head of a women’s mission in 1834. See Fahmî, p. 91.

142. This school still exists. See al-Rafi‘î, p. 203. See also McCoan, Egypt as It Is, New York: p. 209.

143. Hudâ Sha“râwî (1879–1947) was the first Arab lady who went unveiled in public in 1920. She established the first Women’s Liberation Organization in Egypt in 1923. She was selected as deputy of the International Union for Women and a member of the American Women’s Association in Washington, D.C. See Imîl Nasr Allah, Nisa” râ’idât, Bayrut: Nufal, Allah Imlî, 1986, v. 1, pp. 174–181.

144. Malak Hifnî Nâsif (1868–1918), known as Bahithat ai-Badiyah (the Researcher of the Oasis), was a distinguished Egyptian writer. Her father, Hifnî Nâsif was a religious studies scholar in Dâr al-‘Ulûm. This allowed her to do some research about women in Islamic law regarding whether or not women can work side by side with men. According to Islam, her approach in this regard was positive. See Nasr Allah, v. 1, pp. 203–213.

145. Ismâ‘îl realized the need for a public library (Maktabah ^cAmmah) similar to that in Paris. Dar al-kutub (the house of books) was established in 1870. Books and manuscripts, which were scattered in many mosques and schools, were collected, classified, and then put in Dâr al-kutub, which still exists as one of the richest libraries for older manuscripts in the world. See Rifâ‘h al-Tahtâwî, Talkhîs al-ibrîz, Cairo: al-Hay’ah al-Misriyah, Hijâzî, 1974, p. 300. Also, see ‘Alî Mubârak, v. 3, p. 1000. and al-Râfi‘î, v. 1, p. 236.

146. Matba‘at Bulâq (Bulaq printing House) had been closed before Ismâ‘îl, who realized the necessity for textbooks and publishing in general. On one of his trips to Paris, Ismâ‘îl purchased the necessary machines and tools for paper manufacturing (1871) in order to provide the printing house with paper. See ‘Alî Mubârak, v.2, pp. 324–325. This printing house still exists as the largest printing house in Egypt. See Ali Hassan, “The Government of Egypt’s Press (Matba‘at Bûlâq)”, Cogent Arts & Humanities, (Hassan, 2021, v. 8:1).

147. This public auditorium (qâ‘at muhâdarât) was established in 1871 and designed to be a place where lectures could be given to public audiences. Its purpose was to make education available for the public. See al-Râfi‘î, v. 1, p. 237.

148. ‘Alî Mubârak established Rawdat ai-Madâris in 1870. This newspaper was almost solely for student writers to express themselves. Some students, such as Ismâ‘îl Sabrî, became very well-known writer through this newspaper. It was put under the supervision of Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî. See al-Râfi‘î, v. 1, p. 248.

149. This laboratory (ma‘mal) was built for chemistry and physics students to enhance their knowledge and skill practically as well as theoretically. See al-Râfi‘î, v. 1, p. 238.

150. The significance of Dâr al-‘Ulûm is that it was designed as a higher educational institution where students could enhance their secular and religious knowledge so that they might teach both. Now, Dâr al-‘Ulûm is one of Cairo University’s Colleges. See Sâmî, p. 26.

151. Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî, al-Murshid al-amin fî ta‘lîm al-banât wa al-banîn, pp. 62, 64, as quoted in Hijâzî, pp. 98, 101.

152. Rifâ^cah al-Tahtâwî’s work was published in 1870. See Hijâzî, p. 134.

153. Rifâ‘ah al-Tahtâwî, Minhâj. 67 as quoted by Hijâzî, p. 90. The idea that the dhimmis should be equal to Muslims in general civil rights had not been affected in Islamic practice but could be traced back to original, “pristine” Islamic teachings.

154. Heyworth-Dunne, pp. 309–310. See also Tawfîq Iskarius, Nawâbigh al-Alqbât, Cairo: Iskarius, 1910, 11/127–8 and I35·.

155. Heyworth-Dunne, p. 311.

156. Heyworth-Dunne, pp. 311–312.

157. See ^cAlî Mubârak, v. 1, p. 223. Râfi‘î, v. 1, p. 209. See also Faraj, p. 102.

158. See Abd al-Karîm, p. 840, Faraj, p. 102.

159. al-Jayyâr, p. 118.

160. Heyworth-Dunne, p. 340. Gifts were given regularly to these schools by Sa‘îd and Islmâ‘îl. The Italian College in Alexandria was founded during the reign of Sa‘îd, who aided it with 24,000 franks. See McCoan, Egypt as It Is, p. 221.

161. Aroian, p. 9.

162. Jurj Jindî and J. Tâjir, lsmâ‘îl kamâ tusawwiruhu al-wathâ’iq al-rasmiyah, Cairo: Dâr al-Kutub, Jindî & Tâjir, 1947, p. 46. See also Faraj, p. 92. Fahmî, p. 118.

163. Ismâ‘îl stated that in his inaugurating speech. See Jindî, p. 58.

164. Europeans in Egypt increased from three thousands in 1836 to 68,653 in 1878. The statistics of 1866 state that one-fortieth of the Egyptian population was either European or under European protection. See Hayworth-Dunne, p. 343. According to Fahmî’s accounts, foreign schools increased to 152, containing 12,000 students.

165. Where the American Embassy now appears to be.

166. Fahmî, p. 131.

167. See A. Watson, The American Mission in Egypt, Pittsburgh: United Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1898, p. 442 and ‘Abd al-Karîm, pp. 849–850. See also Jirjis Salâmah, Târîkh al-ta‘lîm al-ajnabî fi Misr, Cairo: Dâr al-Sha‘b, Salâmah, 1963, p. 48. It is interesting to notice that one of these schools was built in Asyut (400 km south of Cairo) in 1865, where the American Mission’s quarter was. Asyût has now become the city of the most fundamentalist Muslims; yet the school has remained open, carrying the name of America.

168. Faraj, p. 197.

169. Sami, p. 43.

170. See Fahamî, p. 132.

171. Faraj, p. 198.

172. ‘Abd al-Karîm, p. 862.

173. Jindî, p. 107.

174. Hyde, p. 11.

175. Le Progres Egyptien appeared weekly from 1868. Heyworth-Dunne states that it was the most serious journal of period and not in the payroll of the Khedive; instead, it clearly reflected the discontent of the fellahin (peasants). It is also important to note that twenty-seven newspapers were published during Ismâ‘îl’s era, and only nine of them were in Arabic. See Heyworth-Dunne, p. 345. Sami, p. 35. Jindî, p. 148. AI-Jayyâr, p. 44.

176. Al-Râfi‘î, v. 1, pp. 250–252. The name was revived during the presidency of Sadat, during which this became the ruling party in Egypt.

177. See Hyde, p. 12.

178. See Heyworth-Dunne, pp. 344–346.

179. It still remains.

180. It was burned in 1972. It was replaced only in 1989 with financial aid from Japan.

181. ‘Abd ai-Karîm, p. 579.

182. Al-Ahrâm, the name of the most circulated newspaper in Egypt, was established by Salîm and Bishârah Taklâ. Watani, which is the Egyptian Coptic newspaper, was established on November 17, 1877 and edited by Mîkhâ’îl ‘Abd al-Sîd.

183. “Abû”, “Al”, “Ibn”, “Ben”, “De”, “von”, and alike are not considered in arranging the references alphabetically. Also, the transliteration in this paper is done according the Library of Congress system.