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The Making of a Notable Politician: Muhammad Sultān Pasha (1825–1884)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

F. Robert Hunter
F. Robert Hunter
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

For a generation of scholars aware of the informal ways in which power is acquired and built up in the Middle East, yet dissatisfied with Western “institutional” approaches, Albert Hourani's insightful essay on the politics of notables has had a profound impact. Describing a form of politics that existed in the urban centers of the Ottoman empire, Hourani distinguishes between two political roles: that of governing, which belonged to the Ottoman authorities; and that of directing and mobilizing local opinion, which lay in the hands of certain urban grandees. grandees. These two kinds of power were interrelated. The grandees became truly influential only by having connections with the Ottoman authorities, who in turn needed them because of the social influence they possessed. When Ottoman power became weakened, or during interregnums, these notables came forward to form coalitions that were used to lead revolts and occasionally displace the ruling authority altogether. A politics of notables, therefore, exists when men possessing an independent source of power and access to the ruler are able to attain a measure of free action and so shape political activity.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , November 1983 , pp. 537 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

NOTES

1 Hourani, Albert, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 36–66. Entitled “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,” this essay was originally a paper delivered at a conference on the beginning of modernization in the Middle East, held at the University of Chicago in 1966. The conference papers were published in 1968 under the title Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East. Albert Hourani's essay, with a few updated references, was recently reprinted with some of his other articles in the above Berkeley edition.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The best study of the Egyptian crisis is Schölch, Alexander, Egypt for the Egyptians! The Socio-Political Crisis in Egypt 1878–1882 (London: Ithaca, 1981).Google Scholar

3 Egypt's rural notables have been the subject of much interest by Western and Egyptian scholars, but for the nineteenth century the best work remains that of Barakāt, 'Alī, Tatawwur al-milkīyah al-zirā'īyah fī Misr wa atharuhu 'alā al-harakah al-siyāsīyah (Cairo: Dār al-Thaqāfah al-Jadīdah, 1977).Google Scholar See also Baer, Gabriel, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. 30–61.Google Scholar

4 On Muhammad Sultān's activities, see Blunt, Wilfred Scawen, Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922), pp. 110, 148–49, 205, and passim.Google Scholar See also Fahmi, Gallini, Souvenirs du Khedive Ismail au Khedive Abbas II (Cairo: La Patrie, n.d.), pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

5 Muhammad Sultān's “treasonable” activities against the 'Urābists and the “patriotism” he showed the Khedive Tawfīq are recorded in articles appearing in al- Waqā'i' al-Misrīyah (the Official Journal) (located at Dār al-Kutub [Egyptian National Library and the Egyptian National Archives) when it was controlled by the 'Urābists and then by the Khedive's government; nos. 1483, 1486, 1495, 25 al-Shawwāl, 8 and 22 Dhū al-Qa'dah 1299/9 and 21 September and 5 October 1882.Google Scholar

6 For Muhammad Sultān's origins, see Fahmi, p. 82. The reference to his father is found in the waqfīyah (deed of endowment) of his son, 'Umar Bey Sultān. Ministry of al-Awqāf, qalam al-sijillāt, sijill 22, Misr, hujjah 2176.Google Scholar

7 This story is related by Fahmi, pp. 82–83, and by Hudā Sha'rāwī, Muhammad Sultān's daughter. I am grateful to Ms. Margot Farranto Badran (formerly of St. Antony's College, Oxford) for making available to me the relevant portions of Sha'rāwī's unedited memoirs. Hereafter indicated as Sha'rāwī Memoirs.Google Scholar

8 Sāmī, Amin, Taqwīm al-Nil (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, 1916–1936) three parts, 3, 2:503.Google Scholar

9 Milaffāt mustakhdamīn wa udhūn rabt al-ma'āshāt al-mulkīyah, 1830–1948, no. 11369, Warāthāt Muhammad Sultān Pasha, March 1885. (A collection of pension dossiers for retired officials and their heirs, arranged by date of pension, and located at Dār al-Mahfūzāt archives, Cairo.)Google Scholar

10 On the Inspectorate and lsmā'īl Siddīq, see Sāmī, 3, 2:648–50, 970–72; 3, 3:1452.Google Scholar

11 Sāmī, 3, 3:1450. Masādir wa tārīkh Misr, Ma'īyah 'Arabī reg. 1940/59/61, Viceroy/Minister of Interior, 13 Jumādā al-ākhirah 1289/18 August 1872. (Masādir wa tārīkh Misr is a collection of materials copied or translated from the Arabic and Turkish registers of the Viceregal Cabinet (al-Ma 'īyah al-Sanīyah) and other governmental bodies. These materials have been placed in boxes and are arranged by subject; they are located at the Egyptian National Archives. Hereafter indicated as Mas.)Google Scholar

12 Fahmi, p. 85; Sha'rāwī Memoirs, p. 7.Google Scholar

13 This information can be found in Muhammad Sultān's Waqfīyah. Ministry of al-Awqaf, qalam al-sijillāt, sijill 12, Ahlī, hujjah 36.Google Scholar

14 Fahmi, pp. 83, 87–88; Sha'rāwī Memoirs, p. 7 and n. 1.Google Scholar

15 Fahmi, p. 87.Google Scholar

16 al-Rāfi'ī, 'Abd al-Rahmān, al-Thawrah al-'Urābīyah, (Cairo: Dār al-Qawmīyah, 1966);Google ScholarStuart, Villiers, Egypt after the War (London: John Murray, 1883), p. 445.Google Scholar

17 Fahmi, pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

18 Schölch, Egypt for the Egyptians!, p. 82; Fahmi, pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

19 Sha'rāwī Memoirs, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar