MOM Egypt

BRITISH OCCUPATION PERIOD

The British occupation had no physical changes on Cairo since the British had been ruling Egypt indirectly for years. Tawfik remained the khedive, the consular courts dealt justice, the administration was foreign and the British occupied the Citadel. They did need foreigners to help rule Cairo simply because they did not want the commerce in Cairo to be controlled by the Egyptians. However, it was very important that the city be organized by dependable people that were not Egyptian.

Lord Cromer was the man responsible for the consolidation of the absolute rule in Cairo. He became the British Agent in Egypt in 1883 and ruled Egypt for 24 years. Before this, he had been in control of the Public Debt in Cairo as British Commissioner. He was responsible for the manipulation that helped the British occupation of Egypt. He was also responsible for keeping the French, Belgians and Italians away from the Nile. Under Cromer, Cairo was a very political and social city.

Cromer left Cairo in 1907 and left control of the city to Sir Eldon Gorst. Cairo began to change its appearance after the English arrived. By the year 1900 there were four tramways in Cairo and a fifth was being built to run from Giza to the pyramids. Trains had been built that ran from Helwanand Tura. English department stores and shopping districts had been set up.

After Gorst, Lord Kitchener became resident minister of Egypt and set up a legislative assembly in Cairo. This was the beginning of the parliamentary life of Egypt, which was an imitation of England. The British resident minister was similar to the prime minister in England. Each minister was always afraid that somehow the Egyptian people might discover that there might be another way to rule itself other than the English parliament way. During World War I the people did finally recognize this from the political events that resulted from the war.

The war brought many Australian, British, New Zealand and colonial troops to Cairo. In Arabia, the Arabs revolted against the Turks in a fight for national liberation. This soon became a policy that all Egyptians could agree on. European Cairo was a madhouse because of the British and their self-indulgences. However, Egyptian Cairo became a place of politics, preparation and whispers. The prices began to rise steeply in Cairo while the British soldiers were enjoying things that they had never had before. The people in the countryside began to suffer greatly from poverty and malnutrition. It was so bad that during the year 1918 more people died than were born.

In the city itself, some things were more prosperous. The Australians that came in 1914 spent a great deal of money each day in Cairo. Eventually the soldiers began to have too much fun and were thinking more of fun than of the job they had been sent to do. The citizens of Cairo watched the soldiers and began to want more and more an independent country.

In 1916 martial law was introduced in Cairo. Military courts judged civilians and had them punished. England began to treat Egypt more like a country that was the enemy instead of a friend. In 1917, the British began to encourage the kidnapping of peasants to serve in their labor groups in Palestine. Thousands of fellahin were sent to Syria, Mesopotamia and to France.

After the war, U.S. President Wilson's Fourteen Points gave Egypt a hope of independence. Saad Zaghlul went to the British Residency and demanded the Egypt be given the right to self-determination. He was allowed to speak and leave, but was arrested a month later and sent to Malta. Egypt revolted on the news of this. Overnight Cairo became a revolutionary city as every town and city was seized by Egyptians. Everything stopped. Trains and trams stopped, no one went to work and strikes began. Eight British soldiers were killed on March 18, 1919 while on their way to Cairo. Trenches were dug and the city was barricaded. Many people were killed either in the fighting or executed for killing British officers.

The resident minister was replaced by General Allenby and he immediately had Zaghlul released from Malta. Allenby was criticized for years for this as being too compromising, but this probably saved Egypt for Britain more than anything else. He declared martial law and stopped the strikes one by one. Zaghlul had been released from Malta, but was not allowed to come to Egypt yet. He went to Paris where he tried to get someone to help him get Egypt's independence. On April 20, 1919 the United States recognized the British protection of Egypt. This all but ended the hope the Egyptians had of being free.

After the war, cotton returned to the world market. Food crops were replaced by cotton and fortunes were made. However, no food was grown and people were starving. The politics between the British and the Egyptians were getting worse. In 1922 Egypt was allowed sovereignty and Fuad became king. In the next 18 months, seventeen British officials were killed and twenty more were attacked in broad daylight. In 1936 the Anglo-Egyptian treaty was signed which gave Egypt a little bit of independence although superficially. In 1937, the Tribunaux Mixtes, which were the foreign courts, were done away with. The Egyptians still were not satisfied. The British were still in occupation, controlled most of the economic life and still controlled the canal. The reason that the British would not give up its hold completely was the cotton, the land and the link to India.

The British did very little to improve the way of life for the Egyptian people. They never drilled an artesian well that could pump pure water to a village or set up medical services for Egyptians. They didn't even try to educate or improve the conditions of the majority of the population. They weren't brutal occupiers, but they failed miserably at making the conditions livable to the citizens of Egypt. The Europeans that were born in Cairo were not directly to blame for the situation, but they did contribute to it. They lived, ate and slept well and they thought this was all that was expected of them.

When the second World War broke out, there were many soldiers from many different nations in Cairo. The Italians were there, but there were really no serious attempts to help Mussolini by them. The only real enemies in Cairo were the Germans. The British secret police watched them very carefully. There was a political raid in which the British caught German spies that had come to Cairo with money, a radio transmitter and a house boat on the Nile.

Because the English were unable to ship all of their supplies in from Britain, they trained and employed thousands of Egyptians in various trades. Some were mechanics, electricians, drivers, engineers and even lens grinders. They repaired military equipment and even built trains and machinery. Egypt started to weave their own cloth out of silk and wool. Advances were made in mining, cement, petroleum refining and chemical industries. In Egypt, the British spent over ten million pounds every year.

In July of 1942, the British were pushed back almost to Alexandria. Rommel stopped at Alamein because his troops were exhausted and almost out of supplies. The British rushed to Cairo. Soldiers were sent to various places to train while other got ready to retreat from the city. The British officers went to the banks to try to get their money while at the British headquarters, vital papers were burned. This scare changed Cairo to a point where it would never be the same again.

Montgomery took over the Eighth Army in the desert and moved them to Alamein. He won this battle in October or November of 1942. After this battle, Egypt lost most of the fantasy and glamour that had been year during the years of occupation. Now the city settled down to the first order of business, national liberation.

FRENCH OCCUPATION PERIOD

When Napoleon arrived in Cairo, he brought with him a wide array of disorders and also Europe. After the three years that he spent in Cairo, the city would never again be the same Oriental town that it had been. The French left a legacy that is written all over the European parts of Cairo. Their tastes were mainly of a French middle class influence.

Napoleon came to Egypt on his way to India. Egypt just happened to be in the way and he had to get past this barrier first. The English and the French had a rivalry for an empire. Apparently the French had in mind to create a canal that would connect the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The trade war in Europe had been building for years and it had now come to the point where the east was the highest stakes to be won. Napoleon had been told that a conquest of Egypt would more than make up for the loss of the French West Indian colonies to the British. They were correct in thinking that the route across Egypt would be the fastest and maybe the best trade route to the east. This was all provided that Egypt and the trade itself were in the hands of the Europeans and not someone who would lay ridiculous levies on anything that passed through Egypt.

To get to Egypt, Napoleon needed three hundred ships to carry himself and his forty thousand soldiers. Napoleon set out from Toulon and other Mediterranean ports. The British thought that they were going to go through the Straits of Gibraltar to attack England by way of Ireland. There was a fairly small squadron of English ships that were sent out to stop the French from reaching the English Channel. The English did finally determine that Napoleon was sailing east and not west. The English did finally catch up to the French and chased them all the way to the port of Abukir, near Alexandria, Egypt. The English defeated the French fighting fleet. However, Napoleon's own ship L'Orient, narrowly missed the fighting. Had it not, the outcome of the entire battle might have been completely different.

Napoleon was never able to get reinforcements from France because of the loss of safe communications with his homeland. He met his first resistance from the Egyptian people in the Delta. The peasants and the townspeople fought him, rather than soldiers. When Napoleon entered Cairo, he sent for the sheikhs of the city. He informed them that he intended to set up a group of ten to rule the country and set up the laws. This was ultimately how he ran the country. He arrived in the city on Wednesday, July 25, 1798 and moved into the Mohammed Bey al Elfi palace, which was brand new. Very few soldiers came into the city with Napoleon, as most of them stayed along the river. The people of Cairo seemed in a kind of shock by the occupation of these new rulers. They did not realize that the Mamelukes, whose job it had been to defend the city and failed miserably, were no longer capable of defending the city. It was the job of the Egyptians. The French also seemed to be cautious as if they didn't know how to go about beginning to occupy the city.

In the beginning the French soldiers walked through the city unarmed and paid extremely high prices for everything that they bought. This encouraged the rest of the people to come out of hiding. French restaurants were opened up by the French citizens of Cairo for the new soldiers in their city. This was the first restaurant that Cairo had ever seen. The Egyptians were very excited about this and this allowed the French to come into Cairo very lightly at first.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was setting himself up militarily in the city. He began by occupying all of the strategic buildings and began to set up artillery all around the outside of the city. He also began to make stronger contacts with the sheikhs that he had convinced to cooperate with him. The Mameluke sheikhs seemed to be very impressed with the European culture. Napoleon needed some sort of visible sign from the people that they had submitted to his rule. He ordered everyone to wear a sort of badge on their hats as a symbol of friendship and submission. The people for the most part ignored this order and eventually Napoleon was forced to withdraw it. This was the first sign of the unrest the people were beginning to feel. They began to resent everything that he did in the city. He taxed all of the buildings and even tried to level off the graves in a cemetery at Ezbekiya so that he could have level ground around his headquarters. The people became very hostile about the cemetery and he did not go through with his plan.

The demonstrations by the people of Cairo became too much for Napoleon and he had one of his generals, Dupuy, go out into the streets to disperse the demonstrators. The people attacked the general, killed him and many of his soldiers. The people then occupied the remaining gates on the streets of Cairo and put up barricades in all parts of the city. The year was 1798 and this was Cairo's first revolt against the occupation of the French.

The French responded by setting up cannons in the Citadel and firing them at Azhar and the areas around it. During the night, the French had forces go into the area and destroy the barricades. The cavalry forced their way into the Azhur and killed an unknown number of people. The citizens of Cairo would never rest in their harassment of the French. They had finally learned that it was up to them alone what they did. There were no Mamelukes, soldiers or outsiders to help. The resistance was so violent that Napoleon demanded that the sheikhs tell him who the leaders of the revolts were. They refused at first, but eventually they did betray some. One of the betrayed was the chief of the Corporation of the Blind. He and four others were arrested and shot. The French then set about destroying parts of the city and Giza. They also built forts all around the city and demolished mosques, small palaces and some homes in the city. They even poisoned the dogs in the city because the dogs would sound a warning when a French soldier would approach.

Cairo did manage to benefit from the presence of the French. Napoleon had two headquarters, one of which was military and the other intellectual. Even before he had left France, he planned to establish a solid French cultural base for the future. It seemed that the two policies of military and intellect began to grow further apart from each other. The French had to defend themselves more and more against attacks, while the scholars made very deep impressions on Cairo's people in the very wealthy Institut de l'Egypte.

This Institut de l'Egypte had been set up in two houses in a part of Cairo called Nasriya. There were four sections; industry, science and mathematics, health, art and literature. There were thirty-six French scholars that were there. In the brand new house of Hasan al Kachef, who was a Circassian Mameluke and had fled with Murad, the industry, health, and science sections set up laboratories, workshops and libraries. In the other house, which belonged to Ibrahim al Sinnari, who a Turkish deputy, the painters and artists worked.

The citizens of Cairo continued to openly oppose Napoleon, which caused him to execute more and more people every day. In one day alone he had ninety people shot in the Citadel and five Jews and two women were arrested and thrown in the Nile to drown. The people who worked for the French now rode around on horses and carried weapons. They would insult the Moslems, which must have been encouraged by Napoleon because he always needed these minorities to help him rule. Things continued to deteriorate and it must have been during this time that he decided that he would not be able to stay in Egypt.

In 1798 he was beginning to believe that the Turkish and the British, who were working together at this time, were getting ready to attack him from Syria. Thinking that he should attack first, he started preparing an attack on Syria. On September 22, 1798, he left Cairo on a mission to explore the area as far as Suez. He returned to Cairo almost immediately and in February 1799, he along with his army set out to defeat the Turks in Syria. The baggage that he took along with him was incredible. He had beds and mattresses, slaves and women in French clothes. Not much of it was military equipment. The French were defeated at Acre by mostly British soldiers. Napoleon got back to Cairo as quickly as he could with only seven thousand of the twelve thousand that he had left with. The citizens were delighted that he had been beaten.

At about the same time that he was arriving back in Cairo, the Turks were arriving in Abukir. Napoleon was completely on the defensive now and quickly went north to face the Turks. These Turks had no British soldiers helping them, and the French easily beat the Ottoman troops. He returned to Cairo with thousands of Turkish prisoners. By this time, it was inevitable that a better prepared Turkish army would beat him. Knowing this, he went home to France where he became the First Consul in 1799. Kleber had been left in charge of Cairo.

On the Egyptian borders, Sir Sidney Smith who had defeated Napoleon at Acre, appeared with the Turks. Kleber knew that he could not win the fight so he signed an agreement to evacuate the country. It was the year 1800. As the French began to evacuate the city, the Egyptians didn't even attempt to hide their hatred of the French. They ridiculed and insulted the French. The Mamelukes that had been hanging around outside the city, were ready to reoccupy the city as soon as the French were gone. There was a period of weeks in which the Mamelukes, the French and the Turks watched each other nervously around the city.

The French had no ships so this made it very difficult for Kleber to leave the city. The Mamelukes and the Turks began grouping together as if getting ready for an attack on the city. Kleber began to feel trapped so he marched out of Cairo and attacked the Turks at Heliopolis. The Turks left after the first attack and the people of Cairo armed themselves with clubs after hearing the gunshots. The Turks needed someone else to take the heat to divert attention from themselves for failing and their cowardice. The Turks then ordered all the Christians to be killed since there were bad feelings against the Christians that had sided with the French. Moslems were also arrested and killed or manhandled by the same people who were killing the Christians. It turned out to be more of a religious issue that had inspired the brutality. The entire city was in a state of civil war.

After sometime, the city began to be without food and the sheikhs were afraid that the city would be reduced to ruins in the bombardment by the French. The people tried to negotiate with Kleber. However the French troops came back to the city and broke through the barricades the people had set up. Finally the Turks and Mamelukes agreed to leave Cairo. The French gave them camels and money to help them get out faster. Once again the French controlled the city, but all they really wanted to do was to leave Cairo. The only way to get out was if the British let them go, and that probably wasn't going to happen. Something dramatic was going to have to happen to stop the atmosphere of mutual hatred that was between the French soldiers and the people of Cairo.

This finally happened on June 17, 1800, when General Kleber was stabbed to death at the palace headquarters at Ezbekiya, on his terrace. News spread quickly on the streets of Cairo and the people held their breath waiting for the reaction by the French. The French were afraid to enact any excessive revenge and were only too glad to accept the confession of the killer, who was a student of religion named Suleiman Alepin. He said that he had acted alone, which was virtually impossible scenario in any political assassination. However, Alepin and two accomplices were formally tried and sentenced to death. Alepin was forced to watch his accomplices beheaded and then had to suffer a painfully slow death.

Kleber was succeeded by General Jacques Menou. There had never been a person who was left in charge of a city that was in a more dangerous or critical situation. Menou had become a Moslem and had a Moslem wife. Their son, Said Soliman Mourad Jacques Menou was the first citizen recorded by the French in the census of Cairo. The Egyptian Moslems never believed that any Europeans who became Moslems were really Moslems. That left Menou just another Frenchman.

The British soldiers led by Sir Ralph Abercromby landed at Abukir on March 8, 1801. The Turks landed at al Arish on the eastern frontier of Egypt. The French knew that it was all over by this point. Menou was not a good general and he was easily beaten when he attacked the English near Alexandria. Abercromby was killed and was succeeded by Sir John Hutchinson as commander. Menou was isolated in Alexandria and was virtually cut off from Cairo by flooding and the sea dikes in the country. The British did not want to get involved in a street fight with the French, so they waited for the French to finally surrender.

The city was completely surrounded by the British, Mamelukes and Turks and the people inside the city were beginning to starve. Sir John Hutchinson offered to honor the original evacuation agreement with Kleber and the French agreed happily. The British, Mamelukes and Turks took over Cairo. There was a Colonel Stewart that entered the city first and went to the Citadel. It had been abandoned and no one had the keys, so he was unable to get in. There was a French officer that had been somehow left behind and eventually opened the gates. The British offered to protect the French officer, but he refused their offer and wandered out into the street where he was stoned to death by the people. The Turks went to the Citadel, where they found the British already there. The Turks were furious.

The Ottoman flag flew over the city because officially the Turks were in control of Cairo, but the British were in control of the Citadel. Many from the British army followed the French out of the city and all the way to Alexandria to make sure that they were gone. The British stayed in the city only long enough to reestablish the Turks and they were all too happy to leave the city. One of the Turks that was left in charge was a young officer named Mohammed Ali. Ali had proved himself in a cavalry charge against the French and was soon promoted by The Turkish admiral, Husein.Mohammed Ali was an Albanian that was born in the same year as Napoleon and was thirty-three years old when he came to Cairo as an officer of the Turkish forces.

Mohammed Ali made himself pasha of Egypt with some help from his Albanian troops in 1806, five years after the British had left Cairo to the Turks. The Porte reluctantly acknowledged him the ruler of an independent state within the Ottoman Empire. He would rule Egypt for forty-three years, in which most of the years Egypt would be his private estate and Cairo would be his private city.

Mohammed Ali knew that eventually he would have to contend with the Mamelukes if he ever wanted to control Egypt. They were still the feudal owners of Egypt and the land was still the source of wealth and power in Egypt. In 1804 and 1805, Ali began to attack the Mamelukes. In one of the Mameluke's attempts at a defense, they forced their way into the city to fight him there. Ali's Albanians captured or killed most of the Mamelukes, which was the first serious blow to the Mameluke's. The captured Mamelukes were tortured and killed. During this clash the city was pillaged so badly that the people revolted against the Turkish governor and elected Mohammed Ali as pasha. He was considered to be the only enemy of both the Turks and the Mamelukes.

The British were still watching the happenings in Egypt. They attacked Egypt in 1807 with the intentions of overthrowing the Turks and reinstating the Mamelukes in authority. However, the five thousand Albanian troops defeated the British and had the captured British soldiers sold into slavery. Some of the soldiers were led around the city starving and miserable. Some of the people in Cairo took pity on the soldiers, gave them food, helped their sick and gave them donkeys to ride. There were 466 British soldiers and 24 officers that were thrown into the dungeons, but many of them were later ransomed by General Frazer. There were a few that were left behind, including one Scottish soldier, Keith, who became a Moslem and fought as a Moslem. He later became the governor of the Holy City of Medina after showing great bravery in battle.

After defeating the British, Mohammed Ali was in a very good position. The Turks were not going to be a problem since technically he was still representing them. The Mamelukes were much weaker after the defeat of the British and he was able to seize their lands in the Delta. By 1808 he was powerful enough to confiscate all of the land in Egypt, even the lands which were part of an Egyptian organization of religious endowment. He destroyed all of the title deeds to the land except his own. He set up a system of omdehs, who were local government representatives, and mudirs, who were provincial governors. This system remained in effect until 1952.

As long as enough Mamelukes remained alive to claim their ancient rights to the land and to resist him, the land still didn't completely belong to Ali. He invited five hundred of the leading Mameluke lords to attend a ceremony that was supposedly for his son, Tusun. The lords accepted and arrived wearing their most beautiful clothes and expensive armor, riding decorated horses. On March 1, 1811, Shahin Bey led the military procession of Mamelukes out of the Citadel. He went down a hill to the gate of Azab. The doors of the gate were shut quickly in front of them so that they were trapped with high walls on either side of them and Albanian soldiers behind them. Turks that were up on the high walls, were ordered to killed the Mamelukes as soon as the gate was closed. Five hundred Mamelukes were trapped in a very small space with their horses and all their armor. They removed as much of their armor as they could and tried to hide from the battering that came from above and behind them. Shahin Bey was wounded and then beheaded and presented to Mohammed Ali to claim a bounty. None of the Mamelukes escaped. The houses of the Mamelukes were soon raided and some of the women were murdered.

After the fight was over, Mohammed Ali immediately went to find the less important Mamelukes who had remained in the countryside. Thousands of people were killed as well as the Mameluke power in Egypt. Mohammed Ali was in absolute power after their annihilation. He immediately began to spread his new kingdom with his sons Tusun, who was his favorite, and Ibrahim as his best generals. Istanbul invited them to war with the Wahhabis of Arabia and was able to get personal control of the Red Sea coast. This meant that he control the Red Sea on both sides. He occupied Sudan and began to modernize Egypt. There were armories, factories, shipyards and canal systems were built by foreign experts that he imported to help. Some Egyptians were even sent abroad to study, especially in France.

The Europeans began to be the privileged class of Egypt. Ali created monopolies in the trading and manufacturing areas which he shared with the European consuls. They had no choice but to agree to his outrageous terms, but they did reap the benefits anyway. The Europeans began to come to Egypt for different reasons than before. They were either the archaeologists or the tourists. The first archaeologist was Giovanni Belzoni. He was the son of a Paduan barber and was a strongman in a traveling fair. He came to Cairo in 1815 and became a fanatic of the ancient ruins. He was one of three people who did a lot to popularize Egypt and Cairo with the Europeans. The other members of the trio were John Lewis Burckhardt who was the Anglo-Swiss traveler, scholar and explorer. He discovered many Pharaonic sites that Belzoni exploited later. Another was Herbert Salt who was the British consul in Cairo. He was a business partner with Belzoni and he made a fortune from the antiquities he shipped to Europe in large amounts. Burckhardt did the discovery and Belzoni and Salt robbed the sites. Belzoni and Salt were the ones who sent to England the head of Memnon, the trunk of Ramses and the straight left Pharaonic arm which is in the British Museum's Egyptian section. Auguste Mariette came to Cairo in 1850 and is probably the most respected archaeologist in Egypt. He is the person who founded the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and collected most of what is inside.

In the 1840s and 1850s, Mohammed Ali greatly enjoyed the European attention and interest in Egypt. He knew that it was a gold mine if he could figure out how to attach Egypt to the ever-expanding industrial and trading riches in Europe. There were two things that really made this possible. Ali introduced cotton to Egypt in 1822 and in 1845 Lieutenant Thomas Waghorn carried the mail from Bombay to London in thirty days, which was a record time. He used an overland route through Egypt to do this.

The cotton in Egypt was a native form called baladi. The Europeans needed a superior quality of cotton and in 1818, the Ethiopian cotton, called Maho, was shown to Mohammed Ali. Jumel, a Frenchman that had been in America, knew about this kind of cotton and convinced Mohammed Ali to grow a plot near the Heliopolis obelisk. By 1820, three bales had been shipped to Trieste. Mohammed Ali then put Jumel in charge of his cotton plantations. Mohammed Ali began to sell the entire crops for a year at a fixed price. Money began to flow into Egypt.

The cotton industry also brought the credit system to Cairo, but not in a good way. Europe kept enticing Mohammed Ali and his successors to continue borrowing at the incredibly high interest rates that eventually gave France and England the excuse to foreclose on the Egyptian economy and control all Egyptian life. Eventually Mohammed Ali was in such debt that an American consul, Gliddon, went to England to interfere in Egypt. No one would do a thing in England. Gliddon said that the peasants in Egypt had a right to plant what they wanted, but to no avail.

Another thing that would give Egypt its biggest lift was the direct route from India across Egypt to England. This was the first stage in the step to the Suez Canal. The Canal would not be started until 1859 and after Mohammed Ali's death. It was finally opened in 1869 and thereafter tied Egypt to Europe.

By the time the canal was opened, Ismail, Mohammed Ali's grandson was ruling Egypt. The European influence did good and bad for Cairo. Ismail intentionally divided Cairo into east and west areas because he wanted to built a Paris on the Nile. He then built two new boulevards in the old city and cut the city into quarters. Ismail's new quarter was set on a French plan and was the organization of modern Cairo. This area is called Ismailiya.

Gas was brought to Cairo by Ismail in 1870, which was eventually replaced in 1898 with electricity. This made Cairo one of the earliest cities in the world to use electricity. Building was very heavy during a period of about ten years. Many homes were built as well as buildings. So much money was spent during this period that there seemed to be an endless supply of money. However, the money came from heavy taxation of everyone and everything and large loans from Europe. He was in such debt that in 1875 Ismail had to sell his shares of the Suez Canal to the British for four million pounds.

In 1876, a group of Europeans told Ismail that he owed 91 million pounds. In 1879 the British and French did what Ismail had been expecting them to do for a long time. They told Ismail to abdicate, which he did because there was nothing else that he could do. The people wouldn't even help him because of the heavy taxes that he had levied on them. The people hated him. He finally gave in and left the country for Europe and died in exile in 1895.

Ismail's son, Tawfik, inherited what was left of Egypt. The taxes that were placed on the people were even more harsh than before. Everything was taxed. A revolt was started by a man who liked to call himself Ahmad the Egyptian. He was the son of a peasant and became colonel of Tawfik's army. Arabi started speaking out for the peasants. The revolt began in 1881 with mutiny in the army itself. The rest of the country joined in immediately. Four thousand men marched to the square outside Abdin Palace and told the khedive to come out. Tawfik wasn't there, but when he did arrive, the palace was surrounded by soldiers that had cannons pointed at the palace.

Tawfik had to sneak into the palace by the back way. He was advised by some of his leaders to appeal to the troops. He walked down the staircase with his British comptroller, Auckland Colvin, on one side and General Charles P Stone on the other. Tawfik asked the troops what they wanted. Arabi told him they wanted liberty, an assembly of notables, a constitution and all Egyptians to be equal under the law. Tawfik asked for time to think about it. Later Arabi was called to the palace and he either apologized to him or thanked him. The Egyptians have never forgotten it or forgiven him. Arabi was made minister for war. The British and French were aware what was happening and sent a fleet of ships to Alexandria.

On July 11, 1882, the British bombarded Alexandria. Russian and American warships were in the harbor as well and the Europeans scrambled to get to the ships. Arabi had lined up along the Suez Canal hoping to stop the British. However, the British did go up the canal and landed at Ismailiya. On September 14, the British cavalry reached Abbasiya in Cairo. Arabi went out to Abbasiya and handed his sword over to the British. He has never been forgiven for this action either. Major Watson was an intelligence officer who entered the fortress alone. He ordered the commandant to get up and get out of the Citadel. The keys were handed over to Watson.

OTTOMAN TURK PERIOD

  

Under the Ottomans, Egypt was divided into twenty-four districts and each had its own Mamluk bey, who was formerly called an emir. Each of these beys were governed by the sultan in Istanbul. The Mamluk beys surrounded themselves with slaves who collected taxes for them and had baronial authority. Tributes had to be paid to the Turks as well.

The Ottoman ruler, Sultan Selim liked to keep trouble brewing between the Mamluk beys so that he could keep them divided and controlled. So they kept on fighting among themselves. The leader who was on top, so to speak, was called the Sheikh al Balad, which means "chief of the country". There were times where the Sheikh became more powerful than the sultan in Istanbul, although this only happened when the Turks had their attentions elsewhere, which was actually quite often. The Turks had set about stopping revolts in their empire or spreading their empire even further into the west. The were even able to reach the Danube and plundered every Venetian ship they ran across in the Mediterranean.

Cairo still remained an important city because of the wheat that fed the people of Istanbul, however Venice was almost destroyed. Cairo became, once again, a port for fruits and grains that headed for Islam, instead of Europe. Life in Cairo was again filled with plunderings, assassinations and killing in the streets. The rivalries among the Mamluks were compounded when more types of Mamluks were installed in the Citadel; the Azabs and Janissaries. There were times where the different groups would hold themselves up in the different mosques and fire cannons at each other across the city. The city was to be ruled by the governor with his own men, but this became very difficult to do because the local problems were not important enough to worry the colonial loyalists. Tributes were collected by the Turks in the ports, but the Mamluks took most of the money before the tribute was levied. The ordinary person was left with almost nothing. The peasant was completely exploited.

In 1695, a famine struck Cairo and the people demonstrated outside the Citadel. The pasha refused to acknowledge them and even tried to run them off. The crowd was finally able to break into the stores and took bread and other foods. Finally the revolt got so bad that the pasha was replaced by another pasha that had been sent from the Porte. A self-proclaimed saint, he arrived in the city in 1698 and set up a cafe behind the fountain of al Mou'men. He let the men and women dance freely all day and night. The people greatly enjoyed this until the soldiers arrived and beheaded the saint at the Citadel.

For many years, Cairo was divided into two factions, the Kassemites and the Fikarites. The division was originally created deliberately by Sultan Selim between the Kassemites, who were the Mamluks of Egypt and the Fikarites, who were the Turkish Janissaries. Eventually the Sadites and Haramites were divided with half of them supporting the Kassemites and the other half supporting the Fikarites. Sometimes these conflicts affected the whole city and many people lost their lives in silly battles that accomplished absolutely nothing.

The only good thing that occurred during this time is that the scholars did not give up. Cairo had the reputation of deteriorating intellectually during this time, but that was not the case. The common disrespect for the rulers bound them together. There was almost always mockery of the rulers by the people. The mosques managed to keep everyone committed passionately. In 1705 the river was low and the people went to Mukattam Hills to pray for deliverance. The Sheikh Hasan al Hadji was completely disgusted by this display.

Mohammed Amin Pasha was governor during the period in which some of Cairo's merchants were Moslems, however many were Jews and Copts. Many of them were very wealthy. The Ottomans used Copts as their clerks and civil servants. Some of the more prosperous Copts were allowed by Mohammed Amin Pasha to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Their caravan had many women and children and they had taken a lot of their possessions with them. They set up camp not far outside of Cairo, but while they were there Amin Pasha had encouraged some Moslem zealots to rob the Copts. They attacked their caravan and then looted the homes in the area as well.

Some of the Turkish rulers were not as bad as others. Osman Bey Zulficar was rather intelligent as was Ridwan al Gelfi. Al Gelfi was the chief of the corps of Azabs who were the Turkish mercenaries. He built several beautiful homes. However, his tastes were not on the same scale of excess as al Hakim or Kafour. He did manage to leave a good impression on Cairo. The only monument of his that remains is a gate on the Citadel called Bab el Azab. It was behind this gate that Mohammed Ali massacred the last of the Mamluks in 1811. He died after being shot by assassins while he was being shaved. He didn't die in the chair, but he managed to get away on his horse and run to the countryside. He died from his wounds.

According to some historians during 1798, a laborer earned about one-seventh of a piaster per day. This came to be about 50 piasters in a year. The leading Mamluk, Murad Bey, took in fifteen hundred piasters every day out of the mint for his daily expenses. The situation in Egypt got to be so bad that the Coptic villages in Upper Egypt refused to pay their taxes. Apparently no one tried to collect from them either.

The Turkish manners and ways of life seemed to make no impression on the Egyptians. They did not use the Turkish language and the people of Cairo managed to keep their own identity. The ruling families did adopt some of the Turkish habits, but by and large the city remained Egyptian. The Turks built mosques but they preferred the public mosque called a masjid, to the college mosque called a madrasa. The Byzantine style was preferred to the traditional Arabian style. The mosques were usually smaller and their artistic creativity was less, not because of a lack of skill, but because of a lack of money.

In the year between 1796 and 1797, the Egyptians revolted against the Turks. They wanted something to be done about the unbearable taxes and the economic misery that had been oppressing them for so long. One of the Egyptian Mamluks, Ali Bey, occupied Cairo and sent the Turkish pasha back to Porte. He then attacked Arabia and Syria and defeated them soundly. He was called the caliph of Mecca, which made Egypt an essentially independent state within the Ottoman Empire.

Ali Bey was eventually murdered and Ibrahim, who was another Mamluk along with Murad Bey took over the rule of Egypt. It was during this time that Napoleon arrived on the coast of Alexandria. The Mamluks were not strong enough to fight both the French and the Turks at the same time. Murad would not believe it when he was told that Napoleon had arrived. When he finally believed it, he invited Napoleon to come to Cairo. A man named Rosetti, who was the Tuscan consul, was told by Murad to give each of the French soldiers a handful of silver when they arrived and to ask them to leave because Murad had no desire to kill them. Rosetti then tried to explain to Murad who exactly Napoleon was. Murad knew nothing of Europe or the history, so when the French started their advance on Cairo, Murad sent out ten thousand Mamluks and thirty thousand irregulars, who were mostly Albanians, Negroes, Bedouins and Egyptians, to fight Napoleons forty thousand veteran troops.

In a suburb of Cairo called Imbaba, the French and the Mamluks fought it out. The battle was very bloody on both sides. The veteran French soldiers maneuvered all over the place and eventually got the Mamluks in a crossfire. The citizens of Cairo watched the smoke and dust rise over the city and the sounds of rifle shots and cannon filling the air. At the end of it all, the Mamluks were beaten and they left the city. Murad Bey rushed to his palace at Giza and gathered up as much of his fortune as he could in about fifteen minutes. He ordered his soldiers to burn all of the military's gunpowder and gunboats along with any other ammunition that were along the river at Giza. He then left the city.

The people of Cairo mistakenly thought the French had set their city on fire. They began to pack their belongings and fled as quickly as they could. They really had no place to go and many of them were attacked by the Bedouins as they left the city. The killings and pillagings began even before the French ever arrived in the city. Several of the sheikhs of Cairo met at Azhar and wrote a letter to Napoleon to negotiate the surrender of the city. The people felt betrayed and deserted and became very angry. They broke into the palaces of Murad and Ibrahim and set them afire. It was on a Wednesday that Napoleon rode into the city and and took possession of the city.

BURGI (TOWER) MAMELUKE PERIOD

 Circassian (Burgi) Mamlukes Rulers

• Sultan Zaher Barqooq (1382-1399)
• Sultan Farag Ben Barqooq (first time) (1399-1405)
• Sultan Abd El-Aziz Ben Barqooq (1405)
• Sultan Farag Ben Barqooq (second time) (1405-1412)
• Sultan Muyaid Sheikh (1412-1421)
• Sultan Ahmed Ben Muyaid (1421)
• Sultan Zaher Tatar (1421)
• Sultan Nasser Mohamed Ben Tatar (1421)
• Sultan Ashraf Barsbay (1422-1438)
• Sultan Aziz Gamal Ben Barsabay (1438)
• Sultan Zaher Gaqmaq (1438-1453)
• Sultan Mansour Osman Ben Gaqmaq (1453)
• Sultan Ashraf Inal (1453-1460)
• Sultan Muayaid Ahmed Ben Inal (1460)
• Sultan Zaher Khoshkadam (1461-1467)
• Sultan Seif Eddin Yalbai (1467)
• Sultan Zaher Tamarbagha (1467)
• Sultan Khair Bey (1467)
• Sultan Ashraf Qaitbay (1468-1496)
• Sultan Ashraf Mohamed Ben Qaitbay (first time)(1496-1497)
• Sultan Qansuh Khumsamaah (1497)
• Sultan Ashraf Mohamed Ben Qaitbay (second time)(1497-1498)
• Sultan Qansuh Ashrafi (1498-1500)
• Sultan Ganblat (1500-1501)
• Sultan Adel Tumanbay I (1501)
• Sultan Ashraf Qansuh Ghori (1501-1516)
• Sultan Tumanbay II (1517)

From the Citadel tower, the Burgi Mamelukes ruled Egypt for the next 135 years, but their reign proved even more bloody and unstable than that of the Bahris. They were also called the Circassian Mamelukes since most of them came from Caucasus. The period of their rule is said to have been the darkest points in Egyptian history. Even from the beginning of Barkuq, who was the first Burgi Mameluke, Cairo began to be like a dog eat dog world. The Mameluke soldiers from Greek, Turkish, Circassian and Tartar killed each other every day in the streets of Cairo. No one was safe, especially the women. The Circassians had a special taste for rape and murder. All of Barkuq's soldiers were bought sometimes in groups of five thousand. He would send them out in the country to stop revolts and they had free reign. The results were always unbelievable.

To help defend Syria from a new Mongol incursion under Timur-I Lang (Tamerlane), they assessed oppressive taxes. By 1403, famine and plague had combined to undermine the economy. The Christians and Jews were heavily taxed. Christians were required to wear a five pound wooden cross around their necks, while the Jews were required to wear a black ball.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Nile had shifted its course to the west of the city and receded almost a mile to where it is at today. A huge ship called the Elephant (Fil) sank at a bend near the port of al Maks. Silt began to form around the ship and within a few years Elephant Island (Gezirat al Fil) had formed. During the inundations the island would be covered but eventually it began to stay above the water even then. This caused the river to straighten out its banks. The parts that formed are what is now referred to as the European part of Cairo, which is from Ezbekiya Gardens to the river. The ground around Elephant Island was soft and marshy. The Mamelukes likes to practice their archery in this area. This area was eventually drained when al Nasir joined the Red Sea canal to the new bank of the river. This new area became the new port of Bulaq and was Cairo's link with the Red Sea traffic. Houses were built along the new riverbanks and the town of Bulaq began to appear.

The Circassian Mamelukes went on building the city. They built a lot of great monuments, but the most luxurious is the mosque of Sultan Mu'aiyad. It was built by the Sultan Mu'aiyad on the site where the prison stood in which he was once a prisoner. It was actually finished a year after his death in 1422. He was an oppressive and pious man who spent a fortune on his mosque. His currency reforms and the plagues that struck during his reign had everyone so engaged in choosing his successor, that no one attended his funeral. He was buried without a towel to wrap his body in.

After forty-nine years and twelve sultans, Qait Bey became sultan. He reigned for twenty-eight years and taxed all the land one fifth of its production. He brutally killed a chemist, Ali Ibn al Marshushi because he was not able to turn lead into gold. His mosque that was built in 1472 is probably the most beautiful and sophisticated building from medieval Cairo.

The amirs expanded state monopolies, but production dropped and the cost of living soared. From 1468 through 1489, under the able Sultan Qait Bey, Egypt experienced a brief revival but the country was headed for crises. In 1488, the Cape of Good Hope was discovered. It was a sea route from Europe to India. The Europeans were desperate for another way to get to India to avoid the heavy taxes and physical tolls that Venice and Cairo placed on their goods. Portuguese traders had already started trading in Calicut. They picked up goods from India and took them to Lisbon at much less cost than it had through Cairo. By 1502 Cairo's trade had decreased so bad that the Mamelukes tried to get help from the ruler of India. He refused. The Venetians brought timber to Alexandria and built a fleet of ships. The Egyptians sailed these ships to India and defeated the Portuguese fleet off of Bombay. However, in 1509 the Mameluke fleet was defeated off Diu. The sultan during this time was al Ashraf Kansuh al Ghury who was elected in 1501 at the age of 60. He was faced with the Portuguese coming from one side and the Ottoman Turks coming from Constantinople.

In May of 1516, al Ghury headed his army to face the Turks. The Mamelukes were badly defeated on August 24, 1516 north of Aleppo. Up to fourteen thousand Mamelukes and a huge army were defeated by treachery and artillery. The Sultan al Ghury was killed on the battlefield.

The Egyptians almost welcomed the Turks. They had suffered from taxation and famine and had grown weary of it. They thought the Turks were possibly the deliverers from the Circassian brutality. They were wrong. When the Turkish Sultan Selim came to Cairo, he started to reduce the city to nothing. This was the longest and heaviest era in Cairo's history.

BAHRI (RIVER) MAMELUKE PERIOD

Bahari Mamlukes Rulers:

• Sultan Ezz Eddin Aybak (1250-1257)
• Sultan Nur Eddin ben Aybak (1257-1259)
• Sultan Muzafar Seif Eddin Qutuz (1259-1260)
• Sultan Zahir Rukn Eddin Bybars (1260-1277)
• Sultan Said Nasser Eddin Baraka (1277-1279)
• Sultan Adel Badr Eddin Salamish (1279)
• Sultan Mansour Seif Eddin Qalawoon (1279-1290)
• Sultan Ashraf Salah Eddin Khalil (1290-1293)
• Sultan Nasser Mohamed Ben Qalawoon (first time) (1293-1294)
• Sultan Adel Zeen Eddin Katubgha (1294-1296)
• Sultan Mansour Hossam Eddin Lagin (1296-1298)
• Sultan Nasser Mohamed Ben Qalawoon (second time) (1298-1309)
• Sultan Muzafar Rukn Eddin Bybars (1309)
• Sultan Nasser Mohamed Ben Qalawoon (third time) (1309-1340)
• Sultan Mansour Seif Eddin Ben Mohamed (1340-1341)
• Sultan Ashraf Alladin Ben Mohamed (1341-1342)
• Sultan Nasser Shahab El-Dein Ben Mohamed (1342)
• Sultan Saleh Emad Eddin Ben Mohamed (1342-1345)
• Sultan Kamil Seif Eddin Ben Mohamed (1345-1346)
• Sultan Muzafar Zein Eddin Ben Mohamed (1346-1347)
• Sultan Nasser Hassan Ben Mohamed (first time)(1347-1351)
• Sultan Salah Eddin Saleh Ben Mohamed (1351-1354)
• Sultan Nasser Hassan Ben Mohamed (second time) (1354-1361)
• Sultan Salah Eddin Mohamed Ben Hagi (1361-1363)
• Sultan Ashraf Zeen Eddin Ben Hassan (1363-1376)
• Sultan Mansour Aladin Ben Shaban (1376-1381)
• Sultan Salih Zeen Edin Hagi (1381-1382)

Named for their barracks on Roda Island, the Bahri Mamelukes defended the Islamic empire from the Mongols, who in 1258 swept through Persia and captured Baghdad, massacring the khalif and nearly all his family. In 1260, they took Aleppo and Damascus and were launching attacks into the rest of Syria. The Mamelukes were successful in keeping the Mongols out of Egypt. They were saved from the same fate that struck Damascus in the form of Houlagou, the grandson of Genghis Khan. He had made the blood run in the streets of Damascus. In Damascus the Christians had become allies of the Mongols. Houlagou sent a letter by way of four ambassadors to Sultan Moustafa Koutouz that there was no escape from the Mongol forces. Koutouz had all of the ambassadors killed and their heads hung up on the Bab Zuweila. At the end of the year 1260, the Egyptian Mameluke General Emir Zahir Baybars halted the horde at Ayn Jalut (Goliath's Spring), handing the Asians their first defeat. When their Syrian possessions rebelled, the Mongols retreated to Anatolia.

After his return to Cairo, the victorious General Baybars had the current sultan murdered. He had gone to Koutouz to ask for one of the women that had been captured in the war. The favor was granted and Baybars kissed Koutouz's hand in thanks. This was the signal for the assassins to cut off the sultan's head. Baybars then took control of the Citadel and continued fighting the Mongols in Syria and beat them twice. Baybars was born in Mongol Russia in the town of Kipchak. As a child, he had been bought in Damascus at a very cheap price because he had one eye that was covered by a cataract. He had a strong voice, a violent temper and had an insatiable vigor and energy. This is probably what drove him to finally become sultan. He ruled Cairo for seventeen years and his courts were very elaborate and rich. All of his ministers and employees were paid very good salaries and many had to be in attendance whenever he was holding court.

Any of Baybars emirs would have gladly killed Baybars if they had been given the chance. However, Baybars loved to be in several places at the same time and so no one was ever quite certain when he would show up and where. This pretty much stopped any plans to get rid of him. He did rebuild the canals, fortifications and shipyards in Egypt, which were all essential to the public works and the efficient functioning. Because Baybars was so successful abroad, Egypt prospered and so did its people, especially his partners. He was a religious man and ordered all the taverns and brothels closed and ran the European prostitutes out of the city.

Using both belligerence and diplomacy, he controlled the crusading Christians along the north coast of the Mediterranean. He installed the Abbasid Prince al-Mustansir as khalif at Cairo, thereby moving the Sunni religious center to Egypt and gaining control of of the Hajaz and Mecca. The khalif remained a figurehead while the Mameluke sultans continued to rule the remnants of the Islamic Empire. Baybars died when he was fifty years old. He had intended to poison Malik Kaher, who was a rival prince. Baybars had poisoned Kaher's drink, but Kaher cleverly switched their glasses. It took thirteen days for Baybars to die an agonizing death. After Baybar's death, his sons were quickly deposed and one of Baybar's generals, Qalawun was elected as sultan.

Qalawun had been a slave of al Salih. Qalawun had been bought for one thousand gold dinars and was known as "the Thousand Man". He was also from Kipchak and was said to have been a handsome man. One of his sons, Malik Salih, died of dysentery and Qalawun was heartbroken. He ordered court mourning in which no one was to change their clothes or cut their hair until Qalawun said so.

Qalawun, who founded a dynasty that lasted a hundred years, continued Baybar's policies. He kept both the Mongols and Christians at bay and made treaties with Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg as well as other European princes. He continued the building program initiated by Baybars, contributing a hospital as well as a mosque and mausoleum that still stand in Cairo, monuments to the pinnacle of Mameluke architecture. The building complex that he had built is called the Shari' Muiz and was built between 1284 - 1285. Qalawun bought Circassian rather than Turkish Mamelukes and housed them in the great circular keep in the Citadel. Qalawun was followed by his son Khalil in 1290, who captured the Christian port of Acre, razed the Crusaders' castles and drove them to Cyprus.

Muhammad al-Nasir succeeded his brother Khalil, but owing to his age (nine) and internal dissension, the Amir Lagim ruled Egypt in his name. Lagim took part in the murder of Sultan al Khalil, who was Qalawun's son. Lagim was murdered in 1299. Nasir regained control in 1298, only to flee in 1309 before the power of Baybars II. When Nasir returned in 1310, he had Baybars II put to death. Al Nasir was even more of a builder than his father was. He also had a cataract on one of his eyes like his father. He ruled absolutely and brutally and kept the rival Mamelukes under his thumb completely.

Externally, his reign was marked by security and prosperity. He made treaties with the Mongols and strengthened ties with Europe. Trade flourished, and Egypt's borders remained unchallenged. Toward his amirs, however, he was distrustful and capricious, either loading them with rich gifts or ordering their execution. During Nasir's reign, there were demonstrations against the Christians, however these demonstrations may have been against Nasir himself. He had used Christian advisers who made taxes and laws almost unbearable to the people. Naturally the Christians became the scapegoats. Fires began to fire up over Cairo. It was obvious that a group of arsonists were involved and the city began to burn. A Christian was caught in Baybar's mosque with a pot of oil ready to light it. The Christian and some monks were tortured until they admitted to lighting the fires. A Melchite convent in Mukattam was destroyed and four monks were burned to death. Suddenly the entire city hated the Christians and demonstrations started. Stores were closed and two hundred Moslems were arrested. All two hundred of these people were hanged at Bab Zuweila and in the vicinity. The Christians were not executed but they were made to ride around the city backwards on their donkeys and wear blue turbans and bells on their necks. Nasir's respect from the people of Cairo had diminished greatly.

Cairo did flourish during this time due to the trading that came through the port here. Trade with Venice had just begun as Venice was establishing itself on the mainland of Italy. Nasir had a canal dug between Alexandria and the Nile in 1311 as an indication of the importance of the trade in the Mediterranean. This canal took one hundred thousand men to dig. Nasir taxed everything that was sold. The city seemed to thrive during his reign, but after his death it sank from civil wars, famine and plague, known as the Black Death of Europe. Nasir died in 1341.

Turmoil continued under his sons and relatives, who were in general ineffectual or incompetent. The only one of his ten sons that ruled after Nasir and managed to leave anything behind is Hasan. He built what is still possibly the most impressive madrasa in Cairo, which is the Mosque of Sultan Hassan. The madrasa-mosque is considered to be the finest existing monument in Egyptian architecture. The body of Hasan lies in a marble tomb inside the mosque.

None of Nasir's sons reigned for long. The Mameluke emirs kept murdering the sultans as one faction would become more superior than another. Lacking strong sultans to control them, the Bahri (river) and Burgi (Tower) Mamelukes were continually at loggerheads, using their local wars as excuses to plunder the civilian populations. In 1382 a Circassian slave, Barkuq, took the throne and control of Egypt shifted to the Burgi Mamelukes.

MAMELUKE PERIOD

When Shaggar ruled alone, the Mamelukes essentially ruled the city anyway. The white slaves imported by the Egyptian governors now ruled Egypt. As children, they were converted to Islam, educated and given military training. Many worked their way up through the army ranks, and when they reached a high enough rank, were freed by their masters, to whom they pledged their loyalty.

Many were appointed to high governmental posts. Advancement was by individual ability and open only to those who had been indentured. To supply their private armies, the Mamelukes continued to import slaves, creating multiple power groups that dragged the native Egyptians into their fierce and frequent power struggles.

In general, since Mameluke culture was based on slavery, neither wives nor sons had any claim on a Mameluke's political or military power. Mameluke sons, denied both hereditary claims and the slavery that would grant them entry into politics, filtered into the Egyptian population. Although Mamelukes controlled the court and the army, Egyptians continued to staff civil offices, financial agencies, the judiciary and the professions.

AYYUBID PERIOD

Ayubbide rulers

• King Nasser Saladin (1171-1192AD)
• King Aziz Emad Eddin (1192-1198AD)
• King Mansour Nasser Eddin (1198-1200AD)
• King Adel Seif Eddin (1200-1218AD)
• King Kamil Nasser Eddin (1218-1238AD)
• King Seif Eddin Abu Bakr (1238-1240AD)
• King Salih Nigm Eddin (1240-1249AD)
• King Turanshah (1250AD)
• Queen Shagarat El-Dur (1250AD)

Egypt had become a rich prize for two rival outsiders who were much more powerful and aggressive than the Fatimids. The first Christian crusaders appeared in Palestine in 1096 and began fighting with the Seljuk Moslems over the Holy Land and Egypt as well. These two groups invaded Egypt at the same time and at that point the invasion of Egypt was inevitable. The Fatimids that were still in Kahira preferred the Crusaders to the Seljuks and tried to pay Christian King Amaury two hundred thousand gold pieces to help them get rid of the Seljuks. He agreed to the deal. The first attempt to conquer Egypt ended in a stalemate when both the Christians and the Seljuks withdrew from the area. They had agreed among themselves to withdraw. Amaury the Christian returned in 1168 and killed everyone in Belbeis. He marched on to Kahira and Shawar, the effective ruler of Egypt, ordered Fustat-Misr to be burned to the ground. Shawar had been the Fatimid governor of Upper Egypt five years before, but had deserted them and joined the Seljuks in Damascus. He had made a deal with the Sultan of Damascus, Nur ed Din, for Shawar to become the first minister in Egypt. When Amaury came to attack Kahira, Shawar asked for help from the Sultan and the Sultan agreed. He sent his general Shirkuh and Salah al-Din Yusif al-Ayyubi (Saladin), who was Shirkuh's nephew, to get rid of the crusaders. This turned out to be not very difficult since they had become so unpopular after the massacre of Bilbeis. Amaury fled and the Seljuks were victorious.

Nur ed Din appointed Shirkuh as vizier of Egypt, but he did not live long enough to make any serious decisions. His nephew, Saladin inherited his position and problems. He became vizier on March 2, 1169 when he was thirty-two years old. His first job was to replace the Shi'i doctrines with the orthodox Sunni faith. It took over a year before he ordered Friday prayers to be said for the Abbasid caliph instead of Shi'i. He had been afraid that the people would be very upset after the destruction of Fustat-Misr, but no one got upset. This essentially ended the rule of the Fatimids more than anything else.

The Fatimids still lived in their palaces in Kahira and Saladin didn't bother them at first. It was only when the young Caliph al Adid died that Saladin moved in. He expelled eighteen thousand members of the Fatimid family that lived inside the enclosure. He took none of the wealth for himself and didn't even live in the palaces. He opened the gates and allowed the population to build inside and around the royal city. After two hundred years, Kahira was no longer a royal enclosure. This was the beginning of a city called Cairo, which was Saladin's city.

Saladin had a completely different concept of a city than the Fatimid's did. He wanted a city that was protected by strong walls and defenses, but was a thriving, unified city that had a lot of cultural and commercial freedom. He didn't want private palaces or royal enclaves, but a city that belonged to the people within it with him as absolute ruler. Many historians believe that his reasonings were purely militarily based, but that is not entirely true. The Fatimids were trying to hang onto a corrupt empire while he was defending a culture as well as a territory. He was trying to hold onto a religion as well as ideals. It was also a collecting house for the vast amounts of wealth that he needed to defend this city.

Saladin laid out plans to build a fortress, the Citadel, in 1176 - 1177 on Cairo's most easily defended hill and began expansion of the Fatimid walls to enclose the city. He had the Pharaonic canal that fed the oasis of Fayoum repaired and also built madrasas (colleges), making Cairo a great center for Islamic scholarship. It still retains this position today. Saladin not only fortified the city, but also built five colleges and a mosque in eleven years. Not one of these exists today and only a small part of the Citadel is his. These madrasas that he had built were very important to the re-emergence of Cairo from the position it had been in thanks to the Fatimids. It was in 1176 - 1177 that he ordered a madrasa to be built near the grave of the founder of one of the main schools of the orthodox Sunni sect, Imam el Shafi'i. El Shafi'i had been born in Giza and was buried in the cemetery called Khalifa, which was south of Cairo. The madrasa no longer exists, but the mausoleum is still there with a fairly new mosque.

Saladin did not remain in Egypt long, for as soon as the country was secure, he turned it over to his brother, al-Adil and his vizier, al-Fadil, and left to drive the Crusaders from the Holy Land. He left in 1182 and never returned. He died in Damascus in 1193 after having liberating all Palestine from the English, French, Austrians and Sicilians. Essentially, he liberated them from the power of the Pope. Many times he was aided by the eastern Christians. They were as much the victims of the crusaders as anyone. The epitome of Muslim chivalry, he won the respect of the European knights against whom he fought, and they incorporated many of his ideals into their own codes. He charmed the Westerners with his knowledge and culture and became a primary character in Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Talisman". From Saladin's forces, Christian knights learned firsthand about Islamic improvements in fortifications and arms as well as medical knowledge.

Saladin gave his family name to the Egyptian dynasty that followed him, and his successors were able rulers. They expanded irrigation systems and secured travel and trading routes. The spice trade flourished, and in spite of a bout with famine caused by several low Niles, plague and earthquakes, Egypt prospered. Saladin's brother, al Adil, succeeded Saladin and faced a terrible famine in the Middle Ages. The crusaders returned in 1218 but were thoroughly defeated by Adil's son, al Kamil. Al Kamil is the one responsible for finishing the first Citadel. Al Kamil was knighted by Richard Coeur de Lion on Palm Sunday in 1192.

Al Salih Ayyub and his Mameluke wife, Shaggar ad Durr were partly responsible for the Mameluke slave system becoming a very important part of Egyptian history. Shaggar ad Durr was one of his slaves. Eventually the Ayyubid sultans became too weak to keep the succession of their family going. Cairo became full of Mameluke soldiers and emirs. Al Salih Ayyub died when he was too young to have an heir, so his widow, Shaggar ad Durr decided to rule herself. She was respected enough by the Mameluke lords that they did support her at first. She ruled for eighty days as an absolute monarch.

Eventually the Bahri Mamelukes grew tired of her ruling alone and they elected Ayback, who was their commander in chief, to marry her. She may have married him, but Shaggar went on ruling Egypt alone. She made no secret of her contempt of him and even made him divorce his favorite wife. Later on he wanted to marry another wife and Shaggar had him murdered in the Citadel as he was taking a bath. The Mamelukes were furious and had her locked in the Citadel. Shaggar smashed all of her pearls and jewels into dust so that no other women could have them. They then drug her out into the street and beat her to death with the shoes of the young girls that belonged to the wife of Ayback that Shaggar had made him divorce. She was thrown out of the Citadel and left in the ditch below. Eventually someone took pity on her and took her body to the tomb that had been built for her. Her tomb is on the southern edge of Cairo and was built in 1250.

THE FATIMID PERIOD

Fatimid Rulers

• Gawhar El-Sakali (969-973AD)
• Al-Mezz Leideinallah (973-975AD)
• Al-Aziz Leideinallah (975-996AD)
• Al-Hakim Biamrallah (997-1020AD)
• Al-Zahir Lazazdinallah ( 1020-1094AD)
• Al-Mustansir Biallah ( 1035-1094AD)
• Al-Mustali Biallah (1094-1101AD)
• Al-Amir Biahkamallah (1101-1130AD)
• Al-Hafiz Ledeinallah (1130-1149AD)
• Al-Zafir Biamrallah (1149-1154AD)
• Al-Faiz Binasrallah (1154-1160AD)
• Al-Adid Leideinallah (1160-1171AD)

In the second half of the tenth century, Egypt in general suffered not only from a number of low Nile floods, which in turn caused famine, but also from poor leadership of these last few Abbasid rulers. While the time was ripe, the Fatimid general Gawhar, a former slave, marched to Fustat-Misr and took the city on August 5th, 969 for his khalif, al-Muiz. But this conquest had really began in the last century. It had been planned by Abdallah Ibn Maymun, a Persian occultist with visions of imperial grandeur, who had established himself in Tunisia. He died in 875, but his descendents continued on. They would create an Egyptian Khaliftate that would last for over 200 years in Egypt, and also an empire that would encompass a considerable area of the Middle East. By this time, most Egyptians were Orthodox Sunni Muslims, and the khalif of their sect was in Baghdad, a regime that the Fatimids bitterly opposed. The Fatimids practiced a more introverted religion, which seems not to have impressed the more practical Egyptians. Then too, we are told that the Fatimids sent out missionaries to the lands still held by the Sunni Abbasids, and were more interested in converting them than their own subjects in Egypt.

El Kahira was founded by a Shi'ite. The difference between the Shi'i and the Sunni is very important during the next 200 years of the history of Cairo. The Sunni believe that the sunna (a path) is considered to be as powerful as the Koran itself. The sunna is a collection of traditions and interpretations of the Koranic law. After Mohammed died, he left no indication about who his successor should be. The Sunni decided that a chosen caliph would be an elected head of all legitimate secular power. The Shi'i believe that the Koran was absolute and divine. They believed that the authority should only continue through Mohammed's family. Mohammed had four daughters of which Fatima was the youngest. Two of his grandsons by Fatima were al Hasan and al Husein. Of course, the Fatimid period is named for this daughter.

General Gawhar, when he seized Fustat-Misr in 969, had no intentions of basing his authority on what was already a powerful city with its traditions already established. The very night that he arrived he placed his army on a site a little north of Fustat-Misr. He wanted to place his own capital there. Historians tell the story of how El Kahira was started. Gawhar had marked out the site where he wanted to place the city. Poles were placed at the corners and ropes were strung to show the perimeters of the walls. Hundreds of workmen were placed around the perimeter and waited to start digging. A special signal was to be given at the moment the digging was to commence. Bells were hung on the ropes and a signal was to be given. The astrologers were waiting for some astrologically correct moment to give the signal. Suddenly the bells started ringing although no one had given the signal. A raven sitting on the ropes had rung the bells, but the diggers took it to be the signal and started digging. The astrologers were terrified. El Kahira, which means Mars, was in the ascendant and this was sure to be a bad omen. The original name of the city was to have been El Mansuriya, which means "the victorious", but instead was called El Kahira, which can also mean "the victorious".

The Fatimid caliph, Muiz, who had sent Gawhar to Egypt, placed himself in the new royal enclosure in El Kahira in 973. For two hundred years after there has been bitter opposition to the Sunni caliphs of Baghdad. The Fatimids' real trouble was that they were so concerned with a "revealed" and "inner" religion that they were unable to convert the practical Egyptians. The Egyptians were still recovering from the same sort of thing from Byzantine Christianity. The Fatimids were only able to rule Egypt by using the Christians and Jews that they had formed a powerful allegiance with. The Fatimids were similar to the Christians in many ways in that they believed that a Messiah was coming to protect them against sin and error and would save them all.

Al Kahira was originally intended to be a private, fortified, royal enclosure, not a public city. Gawhar built palaces for his master so that he and his friends and their armies could be separated from the general public. No ordinary citizen was allowed to set foot in al Kahira unless he was needed for something. Even ambassadors had to be met outside the enclosure and led through the proper gate. It was over 200 years before Fustat-Misr's people overflowed into the city and built mosques, pavilions and houses. In Muiz's time, the population of Kahira was between twenty and thirty thousand people, all of which were court officials, servants, slaves and soldiers.

Gawhar laid the foundation for the Mosque of al Azhar while he was still building the walls of the city and the palace for Muiz. The courtyard for this mosque was where the courtyard still is today. The mosque itself has been considerably rebuilt. When enough of the city had been built, Muiz arrived to take over the city in 975. Fustat-Misr had been decorated to welcome him, but when he arrived he went straight to Kahira, which had not been decorated at all. The people had not expected him to occupy his new city yet.

The original plans for Kahira were very simple. The city measured twelve hundred yards by sixteen hundred fifty yards with a wall surrounding it that was wide enough for two horsemen to ride side by side on top of the wall. The whole west side ran along the old Red Sea canal, which was filled in 1899 and had tramlines placed over it. There were two main gates in the wall; Bab el Zuweila on the south side, through which Muiz entered the city, and Bab el Futuh (the Gate of Succor) on the north. On the east side of the city was the Mukattam Hills. Inside the city walls, each group of the population had their own quarters. The army quarters were known as Harat al Askar and the Greek quarters were called Harat al Rum.

Muiz had invested most of his own fortune to conquer Egypt, so he wanted a return on his investment as quickly as possible. The Red Sea canal was the means in which he implemented his wealth. At a bend in the river near the canal that ran almost up to the walls of Kahira, was a customs port of al Maks. Muiz took this over almost immediately and began to expand it into a proper docking yard. He kept the tax collecting character, but also laid the foundation for a new port of his own. This new port immediately took most of the business that normally went to Fustat-Misr.

In this area he built six hundred ships that were about 275 feet long by 110 feet abeam. These ships were a very wise investment since they could carry large amounts of cargo. Muiz changed the whole tax system into a central collecting body that did away with the local collectors. In one day it is said that he collected over $475,000 (in modern equivalent) in taxes in Fustat-Misr alone.

Muiz only lived for two years after he entered the city. Mostly what he did was lay the foundation that was solid, rich and clever. Seventy-seven years after Muiz died, Khusrau gives a description of a city that literally grew up overnight as the wealth that was amassed was spent lavishly on construction. No buildings were allowed near the palace, but the buildings that were in the enclosure were so tall and numerous that they looked like mountains when approaching the city. There were twelve thousand servants that took care of the caliph in the palace and no one knows how many women were within those palace walls.

The palace had twelve pavilions and ten gates some of which were named; the Gate of Gold, the Gate of Oil, the Gate of the Emerald, the Gate Where You Smell Meat and the Gate of the Slippery Ground. It is said that there was a special gate underground which opened into a tunnel that the sultan rode through to his harem.

The city of Kahira had five gates and the fortified walls did not quite enclose the city. Fifty-two thousand camels were used to bring fresh water to the city. The Fatimids were different from the other foreign invaders of Egypt. The others had built their capitals, but they had not since the Romans built the high walls around their cities the way the Fatimids did. The Fatimids enjoyed the arts and some sciences, especially astronomy. Many writers and artists came to Kahira and the gardens were sometimes filled with poets.

Muiz died at the age of forty-five and his son Aziz ruled after him for about twenty-one years. Aziz was just as much responsible for the financial administration that was organized and has kept Egypt running so effectively for so long. Many of the unusual financial methods that were introduced during this time were the ideas of Aziz's chief minister, Ibn Killis. Kahira prospered very rapidly and bridges, mosques, palaces and a new canal were built. Aziz started the mosque which his son Hakim finished. This mosque is considered to be one of the most romantic ruins in Cairo today.

Hakim was eleven years old when his father died. He was playing in one of the gardens when his tutor, Bargawan came to tell him of the news. Bargawan was a eunuch and had nicknamed his student "little lizard". Aziz looked and acted like a lizard. He had big blue eyes like his father and he scared people. His face was frightening and he preferred darkness to daylight. He went out only at night, wandering through the city on a donkey. He ordered all of the shops to close during the day but to stay open during the night. The people eventually began to grow accustomed to this change but when they began to have parties and entertain at night, he punished them. Hakim began to enjoy his authority and exercised it in very unreal ways. In 1004, he had all of the dogs of Kahira killed. No wine, grapes, beer, mulokhiya, lupin pellets or fish without scales could be sold. All sorts of fruits were to be burned and the vines cut down. Honey, which was a delicacy to the Egyptians, was ordered to be poured into the Nile. Over five thousand jars of it was destroyed. No women could go out onto the streets during the day or night. This restriction lasted for over seven and a half years. One of his favorite challenges to his friends or enemies that were visiting his palace, was to challenge them that for six hundred dinars, they could not jump on a piece of wood that floated on the surface of the pool. A royal challenge could not be refused, but when the challenged jumped in the pool, he would find himself impaled on a spear which was hidden under the floating wood.

Hakim loved to go off alone at night on his gray donkey that he called al Kamr, which means "the moon". He would go out in the Mukkatam Hills. On February 13, 1021, he went out riding alone on Kamr in the Mukkatam Hills. He was seen in the hills near Helwan on the next day, but was never seen again after that. His clothes were found with holes stabbed in them, stuffed in a well.

Hakim's list of horrors is very long but he did also enjoy literature and poetry as well as astronomy. The Hakimite astronomical tables were designed for Hakim by the Arab astronomer al Yunus. Hakim also had built the Hall of Science in the palace grounds for the study of the Shi'i doctrine, science and astronomy. Scholars came here from everywhere to discuss whatever they wanted. The Egyptians of Fustat-Misr always resisted Hakim. He had to stay hidden in his city for days after he had Bargawan killed. The women hated him for the laws forbidding them to leave their homes. One time, they placed a very well made dummy in the middle of the street where they knew that Hakim would see it. He ordered his guards to cut her to pieces and when they tried they found it made of paper. He was so angry that he sent his Sudanese troops to burn Fustat-Misr to the ground. The people resisted and there was a civil war that lasted for about three days.

Hakim's son, Zahir, became caliph after the murder of Hakim. Zahir was much like his father in that he also enjoyed making people suffer. Once he had a huge party at his palace that he invited 2,660 young ladies. They came to the party dressed in their most beautiful clothes. They were all asked to wait in a nearby mosque because of some delay. While they waited inside the mosque, masons bricked up the doors and they were left to die in agony. Six months later their bodies were found still inside the mosque. The Fatimids amassed a great amount of wealth that was mostly cash. They were a very wasteful and extravagant group.

Kahira reached its peak when al Mustansir, Zahir's son, became caliph. Mustansir was just a baby when his father died, but he took over the rule from his mother when he became old enough. He reigned for fifty-eight years. He collected cash rents on twenty thousand boutiques that he owned in Kahira and Fustat-Misr and on twenty thousand houses as well. He also had three hundred sixty-nine villages along the Red Sea canal. The main problem with such a fortune based on a delicate trading economy, is that it could be lost so fast. Mustansir did lose his wealth almost overnight when Egypt's crops failed. The Nile failed to rise as it needed to and caused bad harvests. The peasants revolted and there were shortages. The people of Kahira and Fustat-Misr began to go hungry.

Al Yazury, the first minister of Mustansir managed to keep the grain prices low and the supply still coming in. Yazury built the Joseph's Granaries at Fustat. He was murdered in 1058 and the internal authority began to crumble because the merchants reigned supreme. They didn't care who starved or what happened to Kahira. The merchants encouraged the Turks and the Berber soldiers to revolt and expel fifty thousand Sudani soldiers. The Sudanis went to Upper Egypt and set up a bandit kingdom where they raided the villages nearby. The Sudanese destroyed the irrigation systems there and the Berbers raided the Delta area. Almost no crops were planted in Upper or Lower Egypt and the economy stopped dead in its tracks.

The Turks destroyed the city of Kahira. They stole most of the treasures of Mustansir as well as the library, which as one of the world's most extensive. One hundred thousand books were taken out of the city and piled up on a hill, which was known for years as the Hill of Books. A period of famine went on for seven years. Plagues hit the city. Mustansir sent his family to Baghdad to keep from starving to death and he had to sell everything that he had to survive. Cannibalism became so common that human flesh was sold by butchers.

The Turkish soldiers set parts of Fustat-Misr on fire and then occupied the city. They then rushed to the royal city and found al Mustansir sitting alone in his palace with nothing left. Everything was gone, but they did not dethrone him. They obviously controlled the city. In the year 1073, a good crop made Mustansir send for Badr al Gamali, who was a former slave. Gamali said that he would come only if he could bring his Syrian soldiers with him. Mustansir agreed and Badr arrived in December of 1074. The Turkish soldiers welcomed him, not knowing what he was there for. He told his Syrian officers to entertain a Turkish officer for just one night only. The next morning, the officers brought to him the heads of the Turks that they had entertained.

Mustansir and Badr were responsible for most of the remnants that we have of Kahira today. The city had mostly outgrown its walls so they built a new wall and removed all the old gates. The old brick gates were replaced with stone gates, three of which remain today; Bab el Nasr (the Gate of Victory), Bab el Futuh (Gate of Succor) and Bab el Zuweila (Gate of the tribe Zuweila). Badr was titled Emir Giyushi and built a mosque that is on top of Mukattam Hills. He built it there because he wanted to be able to see the graves of his seven favorite wives in the valley below. Badr and Mustansir died in the same year, 1094. Badr left to his family six million gold dinars, seventy-five thousand satin robes, two hundred fifty bags of silver coins, thirty camel loads of Iraqi golden boxes, one hundred gold nails, each of which held a jeweled turban, and two large trunks of gold needles for his slaves and wives to use. After the deaths of as Mustansir and Badr, six Fatimid caliphs would rule for seventy-five years.

ABBASID PERIOD

The first and second Muslim civil wars appear to have made little difference in Cairo's life, though the governors of Egypt now received their orders from Damascus instead of Medina. It also changed the nature of the Khalifate from elected to hereditary rule. But these wars did set the stage for the third civil war, which would have considerable effect. The third civil war was a reaction to the extravagance, decadence and what was seen as a deterioration of Islamic faith in the Umayyads rulers. In addition, the civil war brought rulers to the Islamic world which for the first time were not Arabic, but rather Persian and Turks, and Egypt was now ruled from Baghdad. This civil war would create a shift in ruling families, from Umayyads to Abbasid. More importantly, it would give Egyptians their first taste of the Shi'i form of Islam. Most Egyptians prior to this, throughout most of their Islamic history and today, are orthodox Sunni. Actually, the Islamic world was now or soon to be ruled by three (or more) different Khalifs, including a Shi'i Kalif in North Africa (the Aghlabid dynasty), the Abbasids in Baghdad and the Umayyads who still maintained a hold on Islamic Spain. But there was also fragmentation in Morocco, under the Alid dynasty of Idrisids, and the Tahirids of Khurasan.

Fustat was captured by the Abbasid general Saleh in 750 AD. Saleh, like all Muslim rulers, disliked the idea of establishing his authority on the bones of previous rulers, so he made his new headquarters on a flat stretch of dry land on the northern tip of Fustat. This new district was called El Askar, meaning "the Soldiers" in Arabic. As time passed, El Askar became integrated with Fustat, and later still, really lost its identity as a true separate district.

In 779, Abu Salih became the first Turkish-born governor. He was classified as Arabic, but was born a Turk. The Abbasid rule was at once more restrictive for the individuals and more open intellectually. New laws were laid down for living, behavior and dress, and these laws were enforced. All doors and gates were ordered to be left open, however if anyone was caught stealing, they were beheaded. The rulers in Baghdad, including the famous Harun al Rashid, opened their court to Greek classical studies such as the works of Aristotle, as well as poetry from India and Persia. In fact, the Muslim scholars did much more than simply preserve ancient learning. They also expanded upon it, adding to the sciences of medicine, mathematics and astronomy, among others. It is understandable that Islamic intellectuals would flourish at a time when the west was floundering in ignorance. Mohammed's teachings insisted on literacy for all at a time when most leaders cared nothing about the education of the common people. Some of this enlightenment was transferred to the west, which kindled a rebirth of learning and eventually led Christian Europe out of the dark ages and into the Renaissance.

One of the most significant trends established by the Abbasid rule were the use of Turkish war slaves. Later, they would be called the Mamelukes and would be used as a mercenary army, then even as governors and rulers of Egypt. This went on until Mohammed Ali disposed of them in the early 19th century. At first these slave soldiers were simply an accident of the Abbasid system of educating "acquired" children in the court to grow up into a loyal bodyguard. This civil service was therefore without roots in the society itself, so they could be trusted to do as they were told, no matter what was happening outside of the court. These slaves were not beaten, or usually made to do brutal work, but were instead trained in good soldiering. Yet as time passed, they began to rule the rulers, and finally, one of them set himself up in Fustat as the master and not the slave. This was Ahmad Ibn Tulun.

The Tulunids under the Abbasids, Egypt was often loosely governed by the Baghdad Khalif's appointees, many of whom did not rule from Egypt. The administration in Egypt began to disintegrate, with taxes becoming intolerable and inflation on the rise. In the 868, the khalif sent a Turkish governor, Ahmad Ibn Tulun to take charge of the situation. Ibn Tulun was the son of a Turkish slave from Bokhara who was given as a present to the Khalif Mamun in 815. His son, became educated in the highest traditions of the period, and earned considerable respect for his brave and loyal service to the Khalif. He soon consolidated the government, steadied the economy and imposed order. But seeing better uses for Egypt's treasury at home, he sent less and less of the tax revenues to Baghdad. In 868 he declared his independence from the Baghdad Khalifate, but he was also careful to maintain ties with the Abbasids. Actually, he was intelligent enough to maintain the trade with the East which made him rich. It is said that he had to borrow money to make the original trip to Fustat, but by 870, he needed new quarters to house all of his soldiers, ministers, wives and slaves. Therefore, like all notable rulers before him, he also established a new city called al-Qatai (the Quarters).

Qatai's name is derived from the fact that the city was divided between districts, or quarters, each housing a separate segment of its population (soldiers, servants, guards, Greeks or Romans, Nubians, etc). It is said that each segment also had its own gate to enter the city, including a Gate of Nobles, a Gate of Lions, a gate called el Darmun for the captain of the guards, and even a special triple arched gate for Ibn Tulun himself.

This new city was located north of Fustat on a small knoll of high ground called Yeshkur. This knoll, located between Fustat and the Mukattam Hills was considered a holy place, where Moses had conversations with God and where Abraham slew his sacrifice. Ibn Tulun built his palace there, along with a Harem palace, a garden, a racetrack, polo grounds, a zoo, baths, and fine homes for his staff. There was also a Midan (square) el Qatai, which was very popular with the people, and where there was something going on almost all of the time. It is said that Ibn Tulan built a summer home high up on the Gate of Lions, from which he could look down on this square that would be filled with people, lights and gaiety, especially on feast days. He also established a proud tradition of building hospitals, including the first one in Egypt. The story tells of a servant traveling in Upper Egypt one day when his horse fell into a hole. In the hole, he found a treasure worth a million dinars. In gratitude to God, Ibn Tulun built his first hospital, which was free to the civil population of Fustat, using some of this treasure. In 876, he also built his mosque on the crown of the hill, which today is considered to be one of the most important and also most beautiful Muslim monuments in the world.

Though he passed his rule to his sons, they were not great statesman or administers. His son, Khumaraweh, ruled after Ibn Tuluns death, and was one of the "characters" that sometimes grace Egypt's history. He made his father's Midan into an exotic garden, with tropical trees, roses, jasmine, lilies and shrubs. But not liking the stalks of the trees, he had every trunk and branch coated in sheets of copper and lined with water pipes, so that each tree now became a fountain. Since he had built over his father's midan, he built an even larger one a short distance away. There were horse races held there almost every day and night.

It is also said that Khumaraweb's palace had rooms which were coated with thin sheets of gold studded with lapis lazuli. There were also wooden statues of himself and his wives dressed in golden cloth in a suite called the House of Gold. He had a zoo built that had a special house of lions. Each cage contained a lion and a lioness and had a door in which the keeper could clean out the room and put clean sand on the floor. Running water was also in each cage. There were times that Khumaraweh would let all of the lions out to play in the courtyard. The roars of the lions playing and fighting would shake all of Fustat throughout the night. Each lion was trained to go back to his cage when the keeper called him by name. Khumaraweh did have one special lion that he kept as his pet, Zouraik, which means "little blue". Zouraik had blue eyes and was led around by Khumaraweh by a gold collar. The lion slept near Khumaraweh, no matter where he was. Khumaraweh fed him goats and chickens and brushed his coat. There were also camels, leopards, giraffes, elephants, ponies and racehorses in the city.

The epitome of his self indulgence was his sleeping habits. Legend has it that he had trouble sleeping. To correct this, he had a lake dug in the garden of his palace which was thirteen hundred feet square. He filled the lake with mercury and placed an air mattress made of skins. The mercury made small waves which would rock him to sleep, as servants in a nearby alcove sang songs or chanted his favorite verses from the Koran. The mattress was tied to the edges of the lake by cords made of silk. If he still couldn't sleep, he would walk around the palace, entertain his lady friends or sit in his gardens.

Everything seemed to change for Khumaraweh after his favorite wife, Bouran, died. He had built the House of Gold for her. In 896, he was strangled in his bed by his servants and concubines. His bodyguard and lion were not able to save him. His killers were crucified. He was taken home to Fustat and buried near his father, somewhere at the foot of Mukattam.

Egypt was soon engulfed in corruption, while famine and the plague swept the nation. The Abbasids had once again gained strength, and they sent a soldier named Mohammed Ibn Sulyman to regain control of the country, which he did in 905. Mohammed Ibn Sulyman took four months to devastate El-Qatai. Over one hundred and sixty years later, a wall was built around El-Qatai and El Askar to hide them from the rest of the city. Today all that is left is the mosque. The Abbasid's intermediate rule only lasted for thirty years, until the Fatimid conquest of 969.

ALEXANDRIA: THE BYZANTINE PERIOD

It is with the ascension of the Roman emperor Constantine that a new era began for Alexandria, as well as for the Empire as a whole. By defeating his co-ruler Licinius (Rome had begun the practice of having two rulers, one for the eastern half of the Empire, and one for the western half), Constantine became sole emperor. He created an eastern capital for the Empire in the city of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople (this would not be the last name change the city would go through, after the sack by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 it would be called Istanbul). His new capital, in which he spent much of his remaining life until his death in AD 337, was small but growing, but it was a far cry from the mighty city it would become under the Byzantines. Constantine imported Greek and Roman statuary to decorate the city, ordered the construction of buildings in the traditional Roman style, and had half the grain shipments from Alexandria shipped to Constantinople. Yet what Constantine is most noted for today was his policy towards the various religions in the Empire. He supported both the Roman religion as well as Christianity. Clerics of both faiths were exempted from taxation and having to serve on city councils (a move which prompted a great number of ordinations), the same financial help which had been given to the building of Roman temples was now shared with the Christians, and Constantine himself was responsible for the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Constantine also gave land and money to build a great church in Rome, which would later grow into the headquarters of the Christian religion: the Vatican.

With so much emphasis on Constantinople, and the fact that much of the Egyptian grain production was being shipped there, Alexandria began to slip from its position at the center of the Mediterranean world. Meanwhile the old Roman Empire crumbled under barbarian invasions and internal conflict, and the Byzantine Empire rose in its place. The center of the world moved to Constantinople, which under the Byzantines became a center for art, science, and religious and secular learning. Alexandria continued to influence the world, only more subtly now. In 529 the emperor Justinian closed the Academy of Athens, forbidding the teaching of what he called "pagan philosophy", yet Alexandria's schools remained open, teaching Atristotelian and Platonic philosophy well into the eighth century.

Alexandria also received another moment of glory during the Byzantine Era, as the Byzantines became rather infatuated with classical Greek culture that had been largely lost under the Romans, but well-preserved by the learned of Alexandria. Royal patronage of the arts and sciences had long disappeared, yet the poets, teachers, and scholars went on for their art's sake, supporting themselves through pedagogy and commissioned writing. But this was not to last. In the early seventh century the most successful Persian attack on the Byzantine Empire took both Jerusalem and Alexandria. The emperor Heraclius managed to beat back the Persians to the point of collapse but a new onslaught began, this time from the south. After battling the Persians, the Byzantine rulers had little hope of defeating the forces that came sweeping north from the deserts of Arabia. The final defeat of the Byzantine armies in 636 left Palestine and Syria open to conquest by the Arabs, and they spread like wildfire over northern Africa, eventually bringing Alexandria under their control in 642.

ALEXANDRIA: THE ROMAN PERIOD

The final century or so of Ptolemaic rule from Alexandria is a sad one, primarily because many of the later Ptolemies, Pharaohs they might have appeared to be, were mere puppets of the Roman Empire. With the death of Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemies to rule, and the defeat of the once-mighty Ptolemaic navy at Actium, in 31 BC Egypt became part of the Roman Empire under Augustus Caesar. Military garrisons were stationed at Alexandria to keep the peace in Egypt, and no doubt to keep a close eye on the Alexandrian Mob, which had not diminished over the years, but had stayed very much alive, and would continue to thrive under the Roman dominion.

The Ptolemies had succeeded in assimilating the Egyptian culture and thus the respect of the native population, but the new Roman rulers who came after them made little attempt to do so. Certainly they adopted the pharaonic titles and built temples in the traditional style, but as Egypt was now ruled in absentia from Rome, the native population, still deeply rooted in their ancient religion and beliefs, refused to honor rulers who no longer performed the ceremonial roles of divine kingship. Indeed, few of the emperors ever set foot in Egypt, let alone Alexandria, until the famed riots of AD 250. Yet the foundations for knowledge laid by the Ptolemies centuries before allowed the city to continue prospering. The first-century AD scientist Hero, who produced works on everything from steam power to the construction of artillery, was a citizen of Alexandria, and the great physician Galen of Pergamum was educated in Alexandria's famed medical academies. Additionally, a new tradition in learning had begun in Alexandria during the final years of the Ptolemies -- philosophy. One of the reasons for the new surge in philosophy was that due to Mithradates of Pontus' first war against Rome caused many philosophers to leave Athens, and more than a few of them came to settle in Alexandria. It has been said that Augustus Caesar (who was called Octavian at the time) spared Alexandria during his Egyptian campaign largely as a favor to his friend, the philosopher Arius Didymus. Also a citizen of Alexandria was the prolific Jewish author Philo. A member of a wealthy Alexandrian family, Philo was a student of both Platonic philosophy and the Jewish tradition, and he applied one to the other, often with astonishing results. The effects of Greek thought on the early Christian church are largely a result of Philo and other Jewish scholars educated in the Greek tradition of Alexandria.

The end of the Roman Era and the beginning of what is called the Byzantine Era is actually quite difficult to pin down, but certainly the high empire of Rome was in decline. A rapid succession of emperors destroyed any hope of stability, with the exception of the twenty-year reign of emperor Diocletian, who stabilized the money supply (all of the Roman Empire now used one coinage, even Alexandria, which up until now had minted its own money) and made great efforts to reorganize the bureaucracy. Rome was falling, and with it the Empire. An emperor was needed who could protect the Empire from outside invasion as well as repair the internal strife between the various factions, religions, and cliques, all of which were represented in Alexandria. Rome found what it needed, though perhaps not exactly what it wanted in Constantine.

SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD

Since the passage of Time shows no break in continuity, nothing but some momentous event or sequence of events can justify a particular reign being regarded as inaugurating an era. What caused Sobeknofru, or Sobeknofrure' as later sources call her, to be taken as closing Dyn. XII will doubtless never be known. But the Turin Canon, the Saqqara king-list, and Manetho are unanimous on the point. The Abydos list jumps straight from Ammenemes IV to the first king of Dyn.XVIII. The date of Amosis I, the founder of Dyn. XVIII, being fixed with some accuracy, the interval from 1786 to 1575 BC must be accepted as the duration of the Second Intermediate Period. This is an age the problems of which are even more intractable than those of the First. Before entering upon details, it will be well to note that the general pattern of these two dark periods is roughly the same. Both begin with a chaotic series of insignificant native rulers. In both, intruders from Palestine cast their shadow over the Delta and even into the Valley. Also in both, relief comes at last from a hardy race of Theban princes, who after quelling internal dissension expel the foreigner and usher in a new epoch of immense power and prosperity.

Some account has already been given of the formidable difficulties here confronting us, but these must now be discussed at length. As usual we start with Manetho. The THIRTEENTH DYNASTY according to him, was Diospolite (Theban) and consisted of sixty kings who reigned for 453 years. The FOURTEENTH DYNASTY counted seventy-six kings from Xois, the modern Sakha in the central Delta, with a total of 184 or, as an alternative reading, 484 years. For Dyns. XV to XVII there is divergence between Africanus and Eusebius, while a much simpler account is preserved by the Jewish historian Josephus in what purports to be a verbatim extract from Manetho's own writing. For our present purpose the data supplied by Africanus must suffice. His FIFTEENTH DYNASTY consists of six foreign so-called 'Sheperd' or Hyksos kings, whose domination lasted 284 years. The SIXTEENTH DYNASTY consisted of Shepherd kings again, thirty-two in number totaling 518 years. Lastly, in the SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY Shepherd kings and Theban kings reigned concurrently, forty-three of each line altogether 151 years. Adding these figures, but adopting the lower number of years given for Dyn. XIV, we obtain 217 kings covering a stretch of 1590 years, over seven times the duration to which acceptance of the Sothic date in the El-Lahun papyrus has committed us. To abandon 1786 BC as the year when Dyn. XII ended would be to cast adrift from our only firm anchor, a course that would have serious consequences for the history, not of Egypt alone, but of the entire Middle East.

Of the three monumental king-lists that of Karnak alone enumerates rulers of the period. In its undamaged state it may have mentioned as many as thirty, about half that number being authenticated by actual remains, building blocks, stelae, or the like, mostly from the Theban area. Unfortunately these names are interspersed among those of Old or Middle Kingdom kings in so disorderly a fashion that not trustworthy sequence is obtainable. The Turin Canon, despite its fragmentary condition, is a source of great value. As remounted by Ibscher, the papyrusfragments distribute the kings from Dyn. XIII until far down in the direction of Dyn. XVIII over no less than six columns, each containing up to thirty entries. It would be unwise, however, to assume that the manuscript, when intact, named as many as 180 distinct kings. Columns 10 and 11 are somewhat doubtful quantities, and some of the names mentioned in them, as well as in column 9, have a very suspect appearance. Not more than about sixty names are still sufficiently well preserved to make their identity certain, only about a third of these being authenticated by external monuments. On the other hand, the monuments acquaint us with a considerable number of names which must belong to this period but for one reason or another--some no doubt on account of the Canon's defective condition--are not to be found in that document. Immense labor has been devoted to collecting this material, and to seeking to place the different reigns in correct chronological order. For this purpose the style of the scarabs found bearing royal cartouches, the appearance and structure of the names themselves, and other evidence equally tenuous, have all been employed. When all is said and done the results have been of a hypothetical character ill calculated to commend itself to any but the most venturesome scholars. Here we will content ourselves with little more than a scrutiny of the Turin Canon itself. Indubitably the Ramesside compiler believed himself able to present the hundred or so kings known to him in a single continuous series, with the exact length of each reign correctly stated. The number of years is preserved in some twenty-nine cases, these totaling in all 153 years without counting the odd months and days. Included in that total are six kings (mostly to be named hereafter) whose reign in each instance exceeds ten years, amounting together to 101 years, though the reading of the numerals is not always as certain as one could wish. This leaves for the remaining twenty-three kings a sum of no more than fifty-two years, an average of little more than two years apiece. It is conspicuous that in the rare occurrences of dated monuments the date is more often than not in the first, second, or third year. Remembering the contention that in Egypt prolonged length of reign is a sure indication of the country's prosperity, we can now maintain the converse and argue that during the period which in the Turin Canon corresponds to Manetho's Dyns. XIII and XIV the land was in a state of dire havoc and confusion, its rulers murdering and replacing one another with extreme rapidity. In two, if not three, cases the Canon mentions a kingless interval, in one case of six years' duration. On four occasions a formula is found which Ed. Meyer without solid ground interpreted as marking the advent of a new dynasty, but twice there occur words summing up a preceding one' of far greater interest than the isolated '[Total], five kings....' in II. 15 is an unnumbered fragment known already to Seyffarth and rediscovered by Botti, which Ibscher and Farina placed in the middle of column 10. Immediately following a line which must be restored as '[Chieftain of a foreign country] Khamudy' comes another giving '[Total, chieftains of ] a foreign country, 6, making 108 years'. These are obviously the foreign usurpers referred to by Africanus in connection with Manetho's Dyns. XV, XVI, and XVII. But more of them later. Here we are concerned only with chronology. The entry just quoted practically compels us to conclude that the Canon embraced contemporary dynasties ruling in different parts of Egypt, even if the compiler was unaware of the fact. For when 108 years are subtracted from the 211 which are all that can be allowed for the Second Intermediate Period, we find a hundred or more kings huddled into little more than a century, which is, of course, absurd and becomes still more so when account is taken of the above-mentioned 101 years assigned to six reigns. It follows that the 108 years of the Hyksos rulers cannot be subtracted in this way, and must refer to domination somewhere in the Delta. The alternative, therefore, which all recent Egyptologists accept, is that the Canon's enumeration comprised many kings existing simultaneously, but presumably in widely distant parts of the country. Manetho, as may be seen from his reference to Xois, was not entirely unaware of the fact, though he too regarded his dynasties as consecutive. Unhappily is only seldom that a king of the Turin list can be pinned down to a restricted area. Perhaps the dynast who took the Nomen of Mermesha 'the General' held sway only in the extreme north. Outside the Canon he is known only from two statues found at Tanis, and the like may be true of Nehasy 'the Nubian' who despite his name seems to have belonged to the Delta. It is possibly significant that nearly half of the kings of column 6 have left monuments or fragments in Upper Egypt. Only very few have been found of the kings of the remaining columns. It will be seen how sadly, in discussing matters such as these, we are reduced to guessing.

Much ingenious argument has been used in the attempt to group the kings of the period differently from the way in which the Turin Canon presents them. It would be unjust to dismiss all such hypotheses as failures. But nowhere apparently has its ordering of names been definitely proved at fault. In the observations that follow the sequence of the Canon is accepted only for the lack of one more solidly founded. There is no doubt, at all events, about the first two rulers of Dyn. XIII. They are respectively Sekhemre'-khutowe and Sekhemkare', the last kings to be mentioned in the El-Lhun papyri, and the last in whose reigns levels of the Nile were recorded at Semna. Between them they ruled no more than ten years, after which came the already mentioned kingless gap of six years. That both exerted their authority over the entire land from the Fayyum to the Second Cataract and beyond is clear, and the facts that the first of the two took the name Amenemhe-Sebehotpe as his Nomen, and that the second may have adopted Amenemhe-sonbef as his, show how desperately they clung to the hope of being recognized as legitimate successors of Dyn. XII. This hope is even more pathetically exhibited in the Nomen of S'ankhibre', the sixth king of the dynasty, who could be satisfied with nothing less pompous than the name Ameny-Inyotef-Amenemhe. Immediately preceding him was an upstart with the very plebeian Prenomen Afnai ('He is mine') and half a dozen places later there occurs another ruler with the equally plebeian name Rensonb--he held the throne for no more than four months. It is remarkable that as many as six kings of the period chose for themselves the Nomen Sobekhotep 'Sobk is satisfied', with a reference to the crocodile-god of the Fayyum first honored in a cartouche by Queen Sobeknofru. Later on, in what we shall find convenient to describe as Dyn. XVII, kings and queens bearing the name of Sobekemsaf ('Sobk is his protection') show that the crocodile-god was still thought of as somehow connected with the monarchy. By that time, however, the link with the Fayyum was broken, and we discern a tendency to associate the deity with another Crocodilopolis not more than 15 miles south of Thebes. This continuity of nomenclature has sometimes been used, and probably rightly, as evidence of the shortness of the Second Intermediate Period. Other features like the trifling changes in art and material remains are equally cogent testimony.

At this point we will call a temporary halt to the dreary discussion of the period's ephemeral king, and turn our attention to a document that transports us into the very midst of the vital realities. This is a papyrus discovered at Dra'Abu 'n-Naga a hundred years ago in the tomb of a scribe of the Royal Harem. It is nothing less than the accounts of the Theban court extending over twelve days in the third year of one of the Sebekhotpe kings. Here the receipts and distribution of bread, beer, vegetables, and so forth are meticulously recorded from day to day. Two sources of revenue are distinguished. Firstly, there is the fixed income required for the sustenance of the king's womenfolk, officers of state, and so forth. This was supplied jointly by three departments (wa're), namely, the Department of the Head of the South, the Office of the People's Giving, and the Treasury, the first of the three contributing nearly twice as much as either of the other two. Secondly, there were very considerable additions called inu, a term elsewhere used for 'tribute' or 'complimentary gifts', which were utilized for exceptional purposes such as banquets for the chief dignitaries and the staff of what is curiously styled 'the House of the Nurses', or else as rewards for special services. The latter kind of income, for which the vizier or some other prominent functionary might be responsible, varied from almost as much as the former down to absolutely nil, so that no generalization can be given as to its amount. On the other hand, we learn that the daily needs of the royal household demanded nearly 2, 000 loaves and different kinds of bread and between 60 and 300 jugs of beer. Meat seems to have been reserved for special occasions. A surprising detail is that by the king's command the temple of Amun had to supply 100 loaves per diem. The actual amounts distributed varied slightly according to the balance brought forward form the previous day. All manner of interesting information is obtainable from this fascinating text, or would be but for the usual obstacles of ragged condition and difficulties of decipherment. For instance, there extended over a fortnight the entertainment of a small body of Medja Nubians, including two chieftains later joined by a third, who had come to make their submission. These barbarians do not seem, however, to have been admitted to a great banquet in the columnar hall of the palace which counted as many as sixty participants, including the musicians. The queen and the king's sisters were not present on this occasion, which was the culmination of the festival of the god Mont of Medamud, on the eve of the departure of his visiting statue from the capital. All the guests mentioned were males, with the vizier, the commander of the army, and the overseer of fields at their head. Elsewhere mention is made of the reception at the Court of the leading men of Hermonthis and Cusa, the latter 25 miles north of Asyur. It is important to note that by this time there is no longer mention of feudal princedoms or nomes, and that towns are referred to in their stead. From her comes the word haty-'o, which earlier has been rightly rendered as 'prince' or 'count', is from now onward best translated as 'mayor'.

The vizier 'Ankhu, who more than once heads the officials receiving gifts of food by the royal command, is known from several other sources. One is a papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum, where a written command is addressed to him by a king who reigned at least five years. The same papyrus mentions another who is usually recognized as Sobekhotep III, and who has left more memorials of himself than most of the petty rulers of those troubled times. The connection between the two references is obscure. Our 'Ankhu figures also on one of two stelae in the Louvre recording the extensive restorations made in the temple of Abydos by a priestly personage of that neighborhood named Amenysonb. This was in the reign of Khendjer, the bearer of a Nomen of outlandish appearance and possibly of foreign origin. Now Jequier in 1931 identified a small pyramid at Saqqara as belonging to a King Khendjer, who unfortunately bore a Prenomen different from that on the Louvre stela. Were there then two Khendjers, one in the north and one in the south? It seems a more probable hypothesis that one and the same monarch vacillated as regards his Prenomen. The problem is typical of the difficulties presented by this period. The Saqqara Khendjer is listed with certainty in the Turin Canon and if, as is believed, Sobekhotep III was intended by the entry four places farther on we might have the strange phenomenon of a single vizier holding office during the reigns of five ephemeral and possibly hostile monarchs. W.C. Hayes has produced evidence that throughout Dyn. XIII (roughly column 6 of the Canon) the Pharaonic capital was still at Lisht, though the Court sometimes moved to Thebes. The pyramid above mentioned and the fact that the vizier's son who assisted Amenysonb in his Abydos operations fared northwards when the work was finished certainly lend color to this hypothesis.

According to the Canon, Sobekhotep III was succeeded by a King Neferhotep, who reigned eleven years. Memorials of him, like those of his predecessor, are relatively numerous. Many rock inscriptions at the First Cataract appear to attest a visit of his, and a steatite plaque found a Wady Halfa at least suggests that his influence extended there. Even more interesting is a relief discovered a far-distant Byblos on the Syrian coast, and depicting the local prince doing homage to his person. A portrait of him survives in a fine statuette in the Bologna Museum. To the student of hieroglyphics, however, the most important relic of his reign is a great stela discovered by Mariette at Abydos, and left exposed on the spot on account of its much damaged condition. The general drift is still clear in spite of the defective copy alone available. It is the second oldest, and quite the most elaborate, telling them that he wishes to fashion in their true forms statues of the god Osiris and his Ennead and asking them to arrange for his inspection of the ancient books where such things are recorded. The courtiers assent with characteristic obsequiousness. An official is sent to Abydos to prepare the way. He arranges for Osiris to appear in procession in his sacred boat, and then the king himself arrives, personally supervises the fabrication of the images, and takes part in the mimic destruction of the god's enemies. The rest of the text is devoted to pious adulation of the deity, and threats to future persons who may thwart the remembrance of so great a royal benefactor.

This Neferhotep--there seems to have been a second of the name whom it is impossible to place--was followed by a Sihathor whose tenure of the throne was only three months. Then came a brother of Neferhotep by the same non-royal parents, a Kha'neferre' Sobekhotep reckoned as the fourth of the name. The length of this king's reign is lost in a lacuna, but a stela of the eighth year is known, and he too was evidently a powerful monarch to judge from the number of his surviving monuments. It is difficult to know what to make of a headless statue of him found at the Island of Argo just south of Kerma, more especially since a damaged inscription in the British Museum alludes to hostilities in that direction. Can the enterprise of this Dyn. XIII king have dispatched his agents or soldiers beyond the Third Cataract? A fifth Sobekhotep is accorded only four years by the Turin Canon, and he was succeeded by a Wahibre'-Iaib with ten years of reign and then by a Merneferre' with as many as twenty-three. Hardly anything, only a stela, a lintel, and some scarabs remain to commemorate these last two kings. They managed to hold the allegiance of their subjects for so long, they cannot have been insignificant. After a Merhotep with the Nomen Inai known elsewhere only from a stela and a single scarab, darkness descends upon the historical scene, leaving discernible in the twilight little beyond royal names for which the list of kings at the end of this work must be consulted. Our next concern here is with the momentous question of the rulers known as the Hyksos.

Concerning these foreigners the Jewish historian Josephus, in his polemic Against Apion, claims to quote the actual words of Manetho:

Tutimaios. In his reign, for what cause I know not, a blast of God smote us; and unexpectedly from the regions of the East invaders of obscure race marched in confidence of victory against our land. By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow. Having overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of the gods, and treated all the natives with cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others. Finally, they appointed as king one of their number whose name was Salitis. He had his seat at Memphis, levying tribute from Upper and Lower Egypt, and always leaving garrisons behind in the most advantageous places....In the Sethroite nome he found a city very favorably situated on the east of the Bubastic branch of the Nile, and called Avaris after an ancient religious tradition. This place he rebuilt and fortified with massive walls....After reigning for 19 years Salitis died; and a second king Bnon succeeded and reigned for 44 years. next to him came Apachnan, who ruled for 36 years and 7 months; then Apophis for 61, and Iannas for 50 years and 1 month; then finally Assis for 49 years and 2 months. These six kings, their first rulers, were ever more and more eager to extirpate the Egyptian stock. Their race as a whole was called Hyksos, that is 'king-shepherds'; for hyk in the sacred language means 'king' and sos in common speech is 'sheperd'.

Josephus goes on to give from another manuscript a different derivation of the name Hyksos, according to which it signifies 'captive-shepherds'. The Egyptian hyk being a word for 'captive'. This etymology he prefers because he believed, as do many Egyptologists, that the Biblical story of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt and the subsequent Exodus had as its source the Hyksos occupation and later expulsion. In point of fact, although there are sound linguistic grounds for both etymologies, neither is the true one. The word Hyksos undoubtedly derives from the expression hikkhase 'chieftain of a foreign hill-country' which from the Middle Kingdom onwards was used to designate Bedouin sheiks. Scarabs bearing this title, but with the word for 'countries' in the plural, are found with several undoubted Hyksos kings and, as we have seen, the final proof is in the Turin Canon. It is important to observe, however, that the term refers to the rulers alone, and not, as Josephus thought, to the entire race. Modern scholars have often erred in this matter, some even implying that the Hyksos were a particular race of invaders who after conquering Syria and Palestine ultimately forced their way into Egypt. Nothing justifies such a view, even though the actual words of Manetho might seem to support it. It is true enough that for some centuries past there had been a growing pressure of alien peoples downwards into Syria, Hurrians from the Caspian region being among the first, these paving the way for the Hittites who followed from the north-west at the end of the sixteenth century. But of such movements there can have been no more than distant repercussions on the Egyptian border. The invasion of the Delta by a specific new race is out of the question; one must think rather of an infiltration by Palestinians glad to find refuge in a more peaceful and fertile environment. Some, if not most, of these Palestinians were Semites. Scarabs of the period mention chieftains with names like 'Anat-her and Ya'kob-her, and whatever the meaning of the element -her. 'Anat was a well-known Semitic goddess, and it is difficult to reject the accepted view that the patriarch Jacob is commemorated in the other name. It is doubtless impossible to suppress the erroneous usage of the word Hyksos as though it referred to a special race, but is should be born in mind that the Egyptians themselves usually employed for those unwelcome intruders the term 'Aamu, which we translate with rough accuracy as 'Asiatics' and which had much earlier served to designate Palestinian captives or hirelings residing in Egypt as servants.
                                                                                                                                                To be continue ..

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