Just as Muhammad Ali Pasha 1769 – 1849 AD is the founder of the modern tyrannical state that exists in Egypt until today and tomorrow, so Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Jabarti 1753 – 1825 AD is the founder of the culture of freedom in its modern sense, that is, the search for truth, guided by the awakening of an unbiased conscience, without paying attention to what He might gain the approval of the rulers or anger them, and without regard to what might please or displease the elites and the common people, Al-Jabarti established the authority of free conscience.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Pasha accomplished two exceptional things: the first – stabilizing power in a country where power did not know the meaning and reality of stability for two centuries, where the Ottomans were weak and the Mamluks were fighting. The second: centralizing authority and extending unified law across the entire national territory to the extent that Menes Narmer accomplished in 3200 BC.
Special edition of Tyranny
The Pasha ruled Egypt – alone – for half a century, and in the three centuries preceding his rule, no one ruled it for more than a number of years on the fingers of one hand. But the stability of power and the security and security that accompanied it, the centralization of power and the modernization and urbanization that accompanied it, all of this and that was achieved with a high degree of tyranny, which has become an inherent organic component in the structure of Egyptian politics until today and tomorrow, so that it has become self-evident that you cannot become a true ruler of Egypt without producing… Your own type of tyranny, a functional tyranny that allows the ruler to do two things, the foundation of which was laid by Muhammad Ali Al-Pasha: The first order: That the ruler remains in power as long as he lives, The second order: That he grips with an iron fist all the joints and keys of power, and the meaning of the two orders is absolute individual rule. With several important differences:
The first is that the tyranny during the era of the Pasha and his descendants – over a century and a half – that is, from the beginning of the eighteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century – is a naive, incipient and weak tyranny, when compared to the tyranny that followed it, the most violent tyranny from the state of July 23, 1952 AD until today. Second: The Pasha established a modern national army that exempted Egypt from relying on mercenary soldiers and Mamluk slaves, whether white or black. This army is the skeleton, iron chassis, or concrete design on which the Egyptian state, Egyptian society, and modern Egyptian identity were based.
The third of these differences is that the Pasha established the army, but he did not rule by the army. He ruled purely civilian rule. The army was only for fighting. The army during the era of the Pasha and his descendants after him was not an institution of government or a decision-maker, whether in politics, economics, or society, but rather the decision of war and peace. It was not the army’s decision, it was just the decision of the civilian ruling elite.
The fourth of these differences is that the army during the Pasha’s era, like other armies of the nineteenth century in Europe, was a professional institution run by civilians and not managed by civilians.
Liberal intellectual
Al-Jabarti differs from all of the symbols of Egyptian culture who came after him in that he experienced the taste of life in a climate of negative freedom before Muhammad Ali Pasha established absolute tyranny. The negative freedom that Al-Jabarti experienced in the second half of the eighteenth century was not the result of an effective balance between the powers of government and the rights of… The governed and their freedoms were not the product of a mature and stable political situation, but were the product of two things: a fragile, unstable authority that did not control the crisis of affairs, corresponding to an Egyptian urban class in the capitals and towns, consisting of a wide group of merchants, scholars, Sufis, and owners of crafts and professions. The more fragile the authority became, the more fragile the authority became. The margins of freedoms, rights, maneuvering spaces, and political presence that the emerging urban classes enjoy and benefit from have increased.
In the introduction to his book: “The Wonders of Athar in Biographies and News,” he defined his position, position, and location as an independent intellectual free from any commitment or obedience toward any political authority. He is also – self-evidently – free from any pursuit of material and literary benefits from writing, as well as freedom from the whims of the soul. And her inclinations are for or against this or that.
He wrote, saying: “I did not mean by collecting it – meaning the book – to serve a person of great authority, or to obey a minister, or to obey a prince, nor did I flatter a state with hypocrisy, praise, or condemnation that is contrary to morals, for a psychological inclination, or a physical purpose, and I ask God’s forgiveness for describing me in a way that I did not I follow it, and I trade with capital that I do not have.”
Violence and eradication
Al-Jabarti recorded the history of the first years of the rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha from 1805 – 1822 AD, when he stopped writing after his son was killed, and it is said that the Pasha himself was behind his killing. He stopped writing in 1822 AD until he died in 1825 AD, and his greatness remains in that he monitored the extent of violence. What the modern state was founded on is the violence inherent in its nature, under its skin, and in the depth of its formation. It is the violence that the modern state calls upon whenever it needs it and is required to reestablish it again, if it is exposed to a shock or stumbles into a setback. It is the violence that characterized and continues to characterize its relations with its subjects or its citizens.
In his book: “Egypt in the Eighteenth Century: Studies in the History of Al-Jabarti,” Mahmoud Al-Sharqawi 1909-1971 AD states that “there is no doubt that the Pasha knew what Al-Jabarti recorded about his bad deeds and the shortcomings of his rule, and that the Pasha was alarmed by this and greatly displeased with it.” Resentment, and the Pasha wanted to respond to Al-Jabarti, indirectly, so he asked the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Arousi, who took over the sheikh after Sheikh Al-Shinwani – this is an important distinction, because his father was a sheikh of Al-Azhar, and then his son also came to be a sheikh of Al-Azhar, meaning the grandfather, father, and grandson. They took over the sheikhdom – Muhammad Ali Pasha asked Al-Arousi Al-Awsat to commission one of the senior scholars to write a book that would contradict what Al-Jabarti recorded. The commission fell on Sheikh Khalil bin Ahmed Al-Rajabi Al-Shafi’i, who wrote a book full of praise for Muhammad Ali Pasha and praise for his mention, and a written copy of this book exists. In the Egyptian House of Books, under No. 585, History classification.
After that, and with the experience he gained from his long stay in power, the Pasha became acquainted with modern means of propaganda, and attracted dozens of Western journalists, historians, travelers and spies who, at his command, wove the narrative of his genius as a reformer of the East in the footsteps of the West or the Napoleon of the East, as he liked to be described. They wove the narrative as an example and not as a reality, as an absolute genius success experience, not as an experience founded on violence, eradication, and the exhaustion of Egyptians in achieving individual ambitions.
Freedom from the constraints of authority
Al-Jabarti lived his life between the years 1753 – 1825 AD, the second half of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a period characterized by a high degree of instability, power struggles within the closed Mamluk ruling club, and the new Mamluks’ mockery of the Ottoman Sultanate in Istanbul, where The adventure of Ali Bey the Great (1728 – 1773 AD) succeeded in achieving independence in Egypt, the Levant, the Hijaz, Yemen, and the Red Sea, and where the French dared for the first time since the Seventh Crusade in 1250 AD, led by Louis IX 1214 – 1270 AD, to invade the Islamic East from Egypt in Napoleon’s campaign in 1798 AD, and where Egypt entered the belt of European struggles between the French and the English over colonization and control of trade in the non-European world in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Where the Ottoman Sultanate became the sick man of Europe, and where power in Egypt was fragmented and witnessed several decades of fluidity and turmoil in which the grievances of the rulers abounded despite their weakness, and where the people’s protests increased in an unprecedented and unprecedented way, a long era of popular protests was only stopped by the Pasha’s ability – with the help of Europe – From the establishment of a tyrannical authority that possesses the tools of modern control, foremost of which is organized, systematic, and legitimate violence, the violence of the sacred national state.
Al-Jabarti was distinguished in that he was born in the highest houses of the Egyptian aristocracy. His father, Sheikh 1698 – 1774 AD, was one of the most brilliant scholars of the East, whether in Egypt or throughout Islamic lands. He combined the sciences of religion, medicine, algebra, arithmetic, geometry, and balances. His house is a destination for students of knowledge who flock to it from all directions, including… Europe, his library is one of the largest libraries in the East, and his extensive relations with the Mamluk princes in Egypt and the Ottoman sultans in Istanbul. He left his son a huge fortune that supported his freedom from the control of the rulers. Al-Jabarti did not make any effort to get closer to the rulers before or after the coming of Muhammad Ali Pasha.
He remained free from any restriction that linked him to power, and maintained – with Muhammad Ali Pasha in particular – a political and intellectual rivalry that he maintained until his death. He did not participate in his close friend Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar (1766 – 1835 AD) in getting closer to the Pasha, as Al-Attar wrote a book in which he approached the Pasha and dedicated it to him, and he assumed the chiefdom. Al-Azhar, knowing that Al-Attar is worthy of the sheikhdom due to his knowledge and genius, even if he did not become close to the ruler.
Hit national symbols
Likewise, Al-Jabarti’s position was when the sheikh elite turned against the head of the nobles’ union, Omar Effendi Al-Assiut, famous in history as “Omar Makram” 1750 – 1822 AD. Al-Jabarti sought to be part of the vile game. The overthrow of Omar Makram was the beginning of a systematic process of pulling out the teeth of the urban classes: Scholars, merchants, nobles, Sufis, and craftsmen, who gained experience in political struggle in the last decades between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The overthrow of Omar Makram was the establishment of one of the most dangerous rules of tyranny in the modern state: attacking symbols, popular forces, and elites against each other through enticement and intimidation, then eliminating them. On all of them, this rule is in effect until today and tomorrow, and it is a guarantee for the rulers to remain in power for the longest possible period, and then it is a guarantee for them to acquire the greatest amount of absolute power.
The only one who stood against Al-Jabarti’s position on the Pasha was his close friend, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tahtawi, who is of Turkish origin. He was a sheikh of the Hanafi jurists, and they summoned him to conspire against Omar Makram, but he feared God and was prudent, so the sheikhs almost had him with the Pasha until they removed him from the Hanafi sheikhdom, then the Pasha returned him to the sheikhdom. Later.
Al-Jabarti preceded human rights organizations and civil society institutions in monitoring social injustices as a violation of human rights. As preceded modern historical schools in focusing on social history before focusing on political history. These and those are the essence of the fighting spirit that characterized Al-Jabarti as an intellectual, writer, and historian.
This is an article next Thursday, God willing.
