Pt.II: Colonialism, Nationalism, the Harem19th-20th centuries”

Week 8: Egypt

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Two Issues:

• Extracting the ‘Egyptian’ experience from the larger Ottoman one with respect to slavery and abolition

• Extracting the ‘harem’ experience from that of slavery and abolition in general

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Egypt as ‘special case’:

• Mamluk history

• 1793: re-establishment of Ottoman control and ending of slave trade to Egypt

• Goal: to weaken Mamluk’s

• Put in Place Mohamed Ali Pasha, Albanian-born, ambitious military leader

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

Mohammed Ali PashaFirst Khedive to governEgypt and Sudan (19th C)

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• First ‘consequence’ of prohibited trade:

• Mohamed Ali turned to Sudan as source of slaves

• Imported male slaves as soldiers; castrated males as eunuchs (also for export)

• Females as wives, domestics

• Sudanese slaves became part of Egyptian culture, especially in large cities

• Bought into homes of elite: servants in Harems

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• 1841: British appealed to Mohamed Ali Pasha to

cease slave raiding in Sudan (with aim of undermining slavery): unsuccessful

• Argued in terms of ‘barbarity’ of Sudanese trade: especially treatment of women, creation of Eunuchs

• Acknowledged Islam’s acceptance of slavery but challenged that any religion could condone what Ali Pasha’s armies were doing in Sudan

• Also challenged Ali Pasha’s claim that ‘only Istanbul can make such a decision’

[see Hunwick/Trout Powell, Additional Readings]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

SUDAN

CAIRO

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Clandestine trade continued 1860s-1870s:

• ‘controversy’ recounted last week between Khedive Ismail and Grand Vizier, Istanbul

• Khedive and Mother accused of having harem of more than 400 slaves ‘supporting slave trade into Egypt from Istanbul’

• Khedive affirming that clandestine trade in Circassians into Egypt flourished – but only because upper class Ottoman woman trained young girls for the harem and then sold them

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• 1877: Anglo-Egyptian ‘Anti-Slave Trade’

Convention (precedent for Ottoman decree 1890)[see ‘Limits of Abolitionism”, Resources]

• Prohibited Slave Trading (mainly addressed to Sudan trade – largely ineffectual)

• Followed by establishment of ‘Manumission Bureaus’: any slave who applied for ‘freedom’ was granted it

• 1884 ‘Slave Trade Bureau’ established: entrusted with searching for unlawful slave-trading caravans, enforcing ‘abolition’

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• British efforts to address slave trading continued:

• 1881: new Khedive, Mohamed Ali’s grandson took power

• Hoped he would be more amenable to abolition

• showed him Decree of 1846, Bey of Tunisia as ‘example’of how Muslim ruler could end the slave trade and slavery [decree had had little impact but that was not the point]

• Khedive refused: ‘shaykhs’ would never accept that freed slaves had same rights as free people

[see Hunwick/Trout Powell, ‘Additional Readings’]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• 1881: Urabi Rebellion

• Military uprising protesting pro-British stance of new Khedive [mentioned in Huda Shaarawi’s memoir – cause of father’s downfall, family shame]

• British stepped in to assist in re-establishing Khedival authority; also seen by abolitionists as only way to stop slave trade

• Occupied Egypt: Khedive seen as ‘puppet’ – surely abolition could now be achieved?

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Little doubt that to address the slave trades into

Egypt and slavery in Egypt was really about the harem – which in turn was ‘tied’ to Islam:

“The British decision to occupy Egypt [1882] and initiate an anti-slavery campaign involved entering new political and ideological territory. It would, therefore require a redefinition of the British role and imperial mission in respect of Muslim practices.” …

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

“Further complicating this situation and marking it as a new departure in imperial politics, both in terms of the history of anti-slavery activity and Anglo-Muslim relations, was the fact that slavery in Egypt during this period was closely associated with the harem, the women’s and children’s quarters in the Muslim home. Efforts to suppress it necessarily involved the British in the private, domestic lives of Egyptians. … Female slaves, destined for the harem, were in demand because of their reproductive capabilities as well as their productive labour. Once sold, they would become servants, concubines or wives”

[‘The Harem, Slavery and British Imperial Culture’, 11; see ‘Resources’]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Would take issue with idea that this such a

‘departure’ for the British in terms of Anglo-Muslim relations:

• author overlooking nature of recent/contemporaneous experience with Porte: British well aware of ‘issues’

• They themselves clearly associated the harem, ‘Mohammadism’ and slavery [see last week’s lecture]

• But she is correct in framing the question in these terms for Egypt: one needs only add the royal to the domestic ‘household’ harem

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Difference between British policy in Istanbul and in

Cairo: after 1882 were acting as ‘occupying force’ in Egypt

• British not only ‘foreign’, they were Christian

• Tensions of both ‘nationalist’ and ‘religious’ nature inevitable

• Trying to push abolitionist agenda doubly difficult

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Urabi Rebellion, British occupation changed

political climate:

• New British personnel: Sir Baring (later Lord Cromer)

• (like earlier counterpart in Istanbul) convinced abolition impossible for political and religious reasons

• Had background in India: saw slavery as ‘cultural’rather than legal issue

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

• “…it is not possible to abolish slavery by Khedival Decree or by Convention. Slavery does not exist in Egypt by virtue of any act of the executive government. It is recognized by the Mahommedan religious law, which could not be abrogated by a mere declaration in a Decree or Convention…”

• Slavery should be allowed to die out ‘gradually’, as Egypt modernized and slavery and the harem simply became incompatible

• No further British intervention should be taken. And it was not.

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• From the Stories of Slaves:

• Have various ways of hearing slave voices during second half 19th century

• Police station report [in Kozma, Policing Women, “Ch. 3 ‘Females, Slavery and Manumission”, Resources]

• Newspapers [in Trout Powell, Tell This in my Memory, “Al-Nadim”, Resources]

• Trial reports [in Trout Powell, Different Shades of Colonialism, Resources]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• [Kuzma] 1877-8: story of Saluma, Sudanese freed-

slave in Palestine (town of Nablus)• Along with five other women, she was sold as slave

• Kidnapped while looking for work in Cairo: she (and others) were ‘black’, enough to identify them as slaves when in fact they were ‘freed’

• Taken to Nablus: escaped while sent out to buy bread

• Sought help from stranger: reported situation to authorities

• Women returned to Cairo and ultimately, their homes

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Author draws several points from story:

• Argues for changing response by authorities: impact of abolition efforts DID have impact at local level

• the police records she has examined (this ‘story’ is one case of many) suggest they were beginning to act on behalf of slaves and former slaves, rather than their masters

• Points to corresponding difficulties for freed slaves (especially women) to find ‘new life’, employment: always vulnerable to re-enslavement

• pointing in large part to growing role of ‘race’ – the more Sudanese slaves were incorporated into Cairo society, the more ‘being Sudanese (black) was equated to slavery

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Final point resonates with Ehud Toledano’s analysis

of Ottoman slavery: enslavement entailed violent rupture with past… but new pacific integration:

• Here the ‘violent rupture with the past’ was immediate: slave raids into the Sudan

• The ‘pacific integration’, the ‘new bonds’ created by enslavement were by definition mostly those created in the Harems of the elite and the Khedive

• Point: to understand nature of this slavery, need to understand both ‘rupture’ and ‘re-integration’: manumission meant ‘rupture’ of recently established relations

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• See issues of ‘manumission’ vs. ‘new bonds’

reflected in 1892 newspaper article [Trout Powell]

• Abdullah al-Nadim: returned from exile, published article in newly authorized al-ustadh (literally, the teacher)

• Speaking in general to upheaval in Egyptian family, covertly critical of gov’t: open dissent not permitted

• Article “Sa’id wa Bakhita” (Sa’id and Bakhita – conversation between two freed slaves, man and woman respectively)

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• [Drawn from conversation…]:

• Bakhita: ‘ We came from our country like beasts… and it was our masters who taught us Islam… and taught us about cleanliness, food, drink, how to dress and how to speak properly [reference to derogatory fashion in which Egyptians regarded Sudanese Arabic] …

[She says she was like a daughter to her mistress . . .] “If my master tried to beat me, She would argue and yell at him. We always held hands, even when we were eating our meals.”

• Sa’id: reminds her of the ‘terrible journey’ with the slave dealers, the ‘physical hardships’

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Both agree it is ‘difficult parceling themselves out to

different households, to work for one household one month, another the next…’: namely ‘wage labour’

• Bakhita: “slavery is not better than freedom but the uncertainty of independent living is too hard to tolerate…

• Sa’id: [delivering larger political message] ‘The government should take responsiblilty... And give every manumitted slave a plot of land from the Royal estates...

“after all, they used us to cultivate a lot of land, year after year, in addition to the government having conscripted so many soldiers out of the Sudan”

Egypt 19th – 20th C.Trout Powell’s analysis of this piece focuses on how it evaded government censorship – for us the interest is in the gendered experiential difference:

• Bakhita is reflecting the harem female slave experience, in which relation with mistress (and by extension, family) is central

• Sa’id: the ‘male’ experience in which ability to establish cultivation-based household (he is authority) is central

• Irony ( perhaps not lost on readers at the time): Bakhitawould work no less hard and receive no more recompense as ‘wife’ to Sa’id then as ‘servant’ in harem

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Vulnerability of manumitted slave women:

• Read against story of Saluma, Bakhita also vulnerable in way Sa’id was not: kidnapping, re-enslavement

• Reflecting important 19th century development: black came to mean ‘slave’

• Reflected in hierarchy of elite harem slavery: Circassians ‘preferred’ as concubines, followed byEthiopians

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Role of Sudanese women:

• Often only slave in smaller, modest household: usually both concubine to master, servant to wife

• Little information about them, tend to be invisible in memoirs like Huda’s

• Household structure that incorporated black slave women seen by British as similar to ‘harem’: disgusting yet ‘titillating’

Egypt 19th – 20th C.“By the last decade of the nineteenth century, the idea of the Egyptian family’s structure had become politicized within Egypt and sharply scrutinized from without…European scholars …. Debated the concept of marriage within Islam, with its recognition of the legality of polygamy, often drawing the conclusion that these marriages were examples of a reflexive tendencies towards Islamic despotism, that the inferior position of women in Muslim societies proved Islam’s incompatibility with social reform and progress. The debate over marriage was conducted just as strongly in Egypt, especially after the publication of Qasim Amin’s‘The Liberation of Women, 1897, which pleaded for the social emancipation of Egyptian women [Huda’s memoir][Trout Powell, Different Shades of Colonialism, “Tools of the Master”p.142,3; Resources]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.Debate/discussion in Egypt shaped by Ahmed Shafik (Paris educated) 1888-90:

• Prepared ‘history of slavery through the ages’ in which Christian and Islamic involvement traced

• Involved actual research as well as imput of Khedive

• Presented publically to both Egyptian and Foreign gov’t officials/diplomats

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Argument: not new but well articulated

• ‘abolitionists centered in Europe projecting cruelties of trade/slavery in Caribbean and Southern US onto Muslim ‘benign’ domestic slavery

• Detailed horrendous treatment of such slaves, contrasted with Islamic intent to ‘attenuate’ the issues present at the time of the Prophet

• Argued that Muslims could not enslave other Muslims: once African’s became Muslims, trade would die out naturally

•

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Reactions from Europeans:

• ‘intimacy’ with slaves in homes described by Shafik ‘too much like the secretive and remote relationships of Islamic marriage’

• Also seen as affront to Christian Churches: forced to recant intentions publicly: only wished to convince world that Muslims did not condone the atrocities being carried on in Central Africa

[Trout Powell, “Tools of the Masters”, 146]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Trout Powell concludes:

• ‘slavery was a conundrum’ for Egyptian Muslims

• Shafik’s publications: focused on African slaves “as if the sanctity of marriage to Circassian slaves was too private an issue to be discussed”

• In so doing, relegated African (Sudanese) slaves “to the same status as Circassian slaves, gentrifying their experience in Egypt while identifying the harshness of their severance from their own families in the Sudan with the institution of Western Slavery”.

[“Tools of the Master”, 146,7 – intellectual/public context for al-Nadim, above]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• 1984: Trial of slave traders, slave buyers – with

testimony from a female slave [Trout Powell]:

• Slave caravan arrived in outskirts of Cairo from Sudan: merchandise was six female slaves

• Leader left slaves with associate; sought out intermediary

• ‘coffee house’ network put him in touch with carriage driver who ‘intervened’ in provisioning ‘servants’ to elite households in Cairo

• In spite of clear illegality of trade (Anti-Slave Convention, 1877), within few days all slaves were ‘placed’

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

[Trout Powell, “Tools of the Master”]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• One ‘placement’ of prominence: Ali Pasha Sharif

• Had recently called publicly for closure of ‘Slave Trade Bureaus’

• Argued they paid exorbitant salaries to British civil servants while Egyptians doing same jobs paid pittance

• Also argued these Bureaus were no longer needed

“Why are there so many officials [with bloated salaries] when there are so few slaves?”

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Sir Baring – now Lord Cromer – ordered all

arrested/imprisoned [except Ali Pasha who fell back on claimed Italian citizenship and claimed ‘diplomatic immunity’!]

• Trial set to begin September 4, 1894: highly publicized domestically AND internationally [e.g. ‘The Guardien]

• Domestically: condemned proceedings

• reflected position/writing of Mustapha Kamil, leading nationalist [mentioned on several occasions by Huda in her Memoir]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Main Arguments: crucial to understanding Egyptian

society, harems, slavery and ‘black slaves’:

• 1. Those who condemned the proceedings.

• Some argued way to get back at Ali Pasha for being critical of government (recent petition re: Slave Trade Bureau)

• Others on ‘same side’: no crime in buying Sudanese Slaves because it was a ‘civilizing’ mission

• Taught uneducated Sudanese girls the ‘finer arts’ of domestic life and a ‘refined understanding’ of Islam unavailable in the Sudan

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• 2. Those who supported the proceedings.

• British officials, abolitionists – argued for the ‘barbarity’and ‘despotism’ of Egypt

• This was part of a ‘civilizing’ mission: until Egypt could ‘deal with this’, was not ready for self-government

• Slavery issue: in and of itself ‘justification’ for protectorate

“All the parties connected to the trial adopted their own discourse to discuss slavery, each of which revealed the social and poltiical complixities of the late 19th century”

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Returning to the Trial:

• The Traders: claimed the women were ‘wives’

• Their Lawyers: argued that women were beneficiaries of ‘generous educational domestic employment’

• The women ‘victims’: only one spoke – argued that she was a Muslim and therefore illegally enslaved

• Raised serious issue for court, but was ineffectual witness

• Overall, women ‘represented’ (as opposed to ‘self-representing): ‘victims’

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Trial lasted ten days – Results:

• British official, Lord Cromer (former ‘Sir Baring, above), declared that ‘Egypt had been taught a lesson’ just by process of public trial

• Ordered that: Pasha buyers be freed (except the one who admitted to buying a slave – five months imprisonment)

• Traders: sentenced to five years hard labour

• Women: sent to ‘Cairo Home for Freed Slaves’ (est. 1886) where they would be trained in domestic work ‘such that they could then find employment’ thereafter

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• 1894 Trial revealed complexities of Egyptian

situation

• As Trout Powell argues convincingly: Egypt was a ‘colonized’country/people who was also a ‘colonizer’

• Question of slavery, abolition and ‘the harem’ integral to the dynamics of Anglo-Egyptian politics – and the future of the Sudan

• Seriously challenged both nationalist and religious fervour in Egypt

Egypt 19th – 20th C.• Handling of Trial, questions regarding ‘claims of

marriage’: underscored “venal connection”between slavery and Islamic wedlock seen by British officials

• Bias against Islamic practices became increasingly ‘institutionalized’

• Urged on by British Anti-slavery Society, seeking information about slaves, slavery

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

“Through this network that disseminated information about the qualities of Egyptian government and culture, the idea spread that Muslim slaveholders used the cloak of Islamic tradition to veil the presence of the slave trade, and that this same subterfuge was employed to justify Egypt’s presence in the Sudan. Egypt's attempts at empire were thus dismissed, and Britain's empire in Egypt and the Sudan justified.”

[Trout Powell, “Tools of the Master”, 152]

Egypt 19th – 20th C.“Harem Years”, memoir of Huda Shaawari:

• Covers same years: late 19th century: moves into early 20 th century: parallels Halide Edid (Ottoman Empire, video Week 7)[see also “Huda Shaawari” (short biography), Resources]

• ‘unseen context’: way in which slavery, the harem and the role of Sudanese women in the household/harem had become issues of nationalism

• Not unlike Ottoman experience half century earlier: ‘nationalist resistance’ to British focussed in large part around slavery – understood to be rooted in ‘Islamic Harem/Household’

Egypt 19th – 20th C.Think through in context of Additional Readings:

Trout Powell (everyone)and

Huda Shaawari (Groups)

Trout Powell draws our attention to seeing/understanding Harem Slaves through lens of memoirs of ‘mistresses’ (we could discuss methodology here…)

Allows us to see both Halide Edid and Huda Shaawari in larger context: relationship between ‘harem’ upbringing and early 20th century politics, nationalism

Egypt 19th – 20th C.

Women NationalistsDemonstrating,Cairo 1919