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TRADING IN POWER: MERCHANTS AND THE STATE IN 19TH-CENTURY EGYPT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2013

Pascale Ghazaleh
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Abstract

In this article, I argue that commercial legislation promulgated and implemented in Egypt during the first half of the 19th century was one of several factors that diminished the effect of merchants’ social networks, reduced merchants’ identity to a purely professional dimension, and made profit dependent upon association with the state. The transformation of merchants’ social roles was not part of a natural evolution toward modernization and the specialized division of labor. Rather, it resulted from interactions between state-building endeavors, pressures from established merchants who sought to parry threats to their position while profiting from new business opportunities, and an influx of merchants from outside the Ottoman sultanate, who could draw neither on personal connections nor on knowledge of local markets but instead had to depend on the protection of the European consulates and the influence of the growing Egyptian state apparatus.

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 71 - 91
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I thank Lisa Pollard for her incisive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also thank the members of AUC's MENA Colloquium, in particular Amy Motlagh, Sherene Seikaly, and Hanan Kholoussy, for their suggestions, and the anonymous readers for their thoughtful, rigorous, and insightful remarks. Of course, any errors are my responsibility alone.

1 The qadi was responsible for ensuring that the shariʿa was respected. See Peters, Rudolph, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)Google Scholar, esp. 76.

2 Hathaway, Jane, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdaglis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Hanna, Nelly, Making Big Money in 1600: The Life and Times of Ismaʿil Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1998)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 4, which traces the increasing involvement of merchants like Abu Taqiyya in the Red Sea trade, and chap. 5, which shows how merchants as a group acquired social importance in 17th-century Egypt.

4 Raymond, André, Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle (Cairo: IFAO, 2000)Google Scholar; Hanna, Making Big Money. Walz, Terence, in the last part of Trade between Egypt and Bilād as-Sūdān 1700–1820 (Cairo: Institut Français d'Archeologie Orientale, 1978)Google Scholar, mentions the decline of trade as a result of monopolies imposed by Muhammad ʿAli and the incorporation of Sudan into the international economy. Gad Gilbar discusses a much wider region in “The Muslim Big Merchant-Entrepreneurs of the Middle East, 1860–1914,” Die Welt des Islams 43 (2003): 1–36, and sheds light on markets and commodities in which Muslim merchants maintained an edge over Europeans until the early 20th century.

5 The courts received charters and were reorganized on several occasions: first in 1798 and then in 1820, 1823 or 1826, 1828, 1845, and 1857. Goldberg, Jan, “On the Origins of Majālis al-Tujjār in Mid-Nineteenth Century Egypt,” Islamic Law and Society VI (1999): 193–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 201.

6 Inalcık provides a very specific definition of the term tujjār, restricting its application to “big businessmen” who engaged in international and interregional trade or sold merchandise imported from distant lands. Inalcık, Halil, “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Economic History 29 (1969): 97–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 98–99 and 102–103.

7 Peter Gran rightly highlights a tendency, reinforced by state archives and chronicles, to study the merchants of Cairo only through the lens of their relations with the political authorities. Gran, , “Late 18th-Century—Early 19th-Century Egypt: Merchant Capitalism or Modern Capitalism?,” in L'Égypte au XIXe Siècle, Groupe de Recherches et d'Etudes sur le Proche-Orient (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1982), 268–69.Google Scholar

8 al-Jabarti, ʿAbd al-Rahman, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar fi al-Tarajim wa-l-Akhbar, 4 vols., trans. and annotated under the supervision of Perlmann, Moshe and Philipp, Thomas (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994), 3:139, 498–99.Google Scholar Ahmad and his son Muhammad illustrate many of the points I make here: they appear in archival sources to have been tujjār par excellence, and the differences between them suggest how merchants as a social group, and the context in which they lived and worked, changed in the early 19th century. For a detailed analysis of their lives and careers, see Ghazaleh, Pascale, Fortunes urbaines et strategies sociales. Généalogies patrimoniales au Caire, 1780–1830, 2 vols. (Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 2010).Google Scholar

9 On this point, see Ghazaleh, Pascale, “Heirs and Debtors: Blood Relatives, Qurʾanic Heirs, and Business Associates in Cairo, 1800–1850,” in Society and Economy in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1600–1900. Essays in Honor of André Raymond, ed. Hanna, Nelly and Abbas, Raouf (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2005), 143–58.Google Scholar

10 There is an abundant literature on trust and commerce in the early modern and modern period. See, for example, Muldrew, Craig, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greif, Avner, “Institutions and Commitment in International Trade: Lessons from the Commercial Revolution,” American Economic Review 82 (1992): 128–33Google Scholar; and Trivellato, Francesca, “Juifs de Livourne, Italiens de Lisbonne, hindous de Goa. Réseaux marchands et échanges interculturels à l'époque moderne,” Annales HSS 3 (2003): 581–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The same volume of Annales HSS contains several articles evoking the importance of social networks in commercial activity; see, for example, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, “La ‘nation’ portugaise. Réseaux marchands dans l'espace atlantique à l'époque moderne” (627–48); and Maria Fusaro, “Les Anglais et les Grecs. Un réseau de coopération commerciale en Méditerranée vénitienne” (605–25).

11 These mechanisms of social ascent and validation were to change during the first half of the 19th century, when the state's official endorsement became far more important in ensuring a merchant's ability to engage in lucrative trade.

12 Ahmad al-Mahruqi's estate inventory is recorded in the Egyptian National Archives (Dar al-Wathaʾiq al-Qawmiyya, hereafter DWQ), registers of the Qisma ʿAskariyya (reg 282 doc 761); I thank Husam ʿAbd al-Muʿti for bringing it to my attention. I also refer to his biography in al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 3:496–500.

13 Muhammad al-Mahruqi's wedding was celebrated lavishly; Ibrahim and Murad, then the effective rulers of Egypt, sent caravans loaded with presents. “Merchants and other great men, Christians, Greeks, Coptic secretaries, European merchants, Turks, Syrians, North Africans, and others” also presented him with splendid gifts. Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 3:497. Mahmud Muharram celebrated his son's wedding with similar pomp. Ibid., 2:425.

14 It is worth mentioning here that considerable evidence undermines the idea—most recently argued by Kuran, Timur, in The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010)Google Scholar—that Islamic inheritance laws impeded capital accumulation. Several mechanisms existed that enabled the consolidation of wealth and its transfer to kin or non-kin. These included “fictitious” debts, inter vivos donations, and bequests. Empirical evidence from Ottoman court records shows that these mechanisms were widely used in Egypt and Syria and probably elsewhere. See, for example, Meriwether, Margaret L., The Kin Who Count: Family and Society in Ottoman Aleppo, 1770–1840 (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1999).Google Scholar

15 See Raymond, André, “Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām un Shāh bandar des tuğğār au Caire,” Annales Islamologiques VII (1967): 91–95Google Scholar, 93. He notes that, taking advantage of Muhammad al-Barudi's protection, Ahmad al Mahruqi, as Ibn ʿAbd al-Salam's associate, took his place as shāhbandar after Ibn ʿAbd al-Salam's death and seized his business along with all of his possessions, marrying his wives and taking ownership of his concubines as well.

16 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 2:425 (biographies for 1208/1793–94); Pasha Mubarak, ʿAli, al-Khitat al-Tawfiqiyya al-Jadida li-Misr al-Qahira wa-Muduniha wa-Biladiha al-Qadima wa-l-Shahira (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1994)Google Scholar, 5:251. On Mahmud Muharram, see Raymond, Artisans, 142ff.

17 Ibn ʿAbd al-Salam and Ahmad al-Mahruqi were close to Muhammad Agha al-Barudi, Murad Bey's lieutenant, and paid him a regular salary. In turn, al-Barudi praised them to his master and benefited from the privileges Murad bestowed upon them. Muhammad Agha al- Barudi was a witness to Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salam's estate inventory. DWQ, Dasht 333 doc 565.

18 See Raymond, Artisans, 580–81, 784, for an analysis of al-Barudi and his unofficial but extensive control over crafts and trades in Cairo and particularly over the big merchants.

19 These advantages were similar to those enjoyed in Istanbul by the Hayriye Tüccari during the same period. As Bruce Masters has shown, these merchants were enrolled within a state-sponsored program offering lower internal taxes in a bid to counter European consular influence. The Porte sought to secure the loyalty of its minority merchants and induce them to accept Ottoman, as opposed to a European, territorial identity, which in turn bore legal privileges related to litigation and the payment of preferential tariffs. Masters, Bruce, “The Sultan's Entrepreneurs: The Avrupa Tüccaris and the Hayriye Tüccaris in Syria,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 579–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 593.

20 Zaghlul, Ahmad Fathi, al-Muhamah (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Maʿarif, 1900)Google Scholar, article 8, p. 11.

21 According to Louis Bréhier, after the 1818 treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers, which established free trade with export duties of 10 to 12 percent ad valorem, Muhammad ʿAli put commodities up for auction in the name of free trade, but the prices had already been agreed upon between the government and the Europeans. L'Égypte de 1798 à 1900 (Paris: Ancienne Librairie Furne, Combet et Cie, 1901), 111.

22 Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, appendix 2, basic code of the Siyāsatnāme, article 7, pp. 10–12.

23 See Ghazaleh, Pascale, “Governance in Transition: Competing Immigrant Networks in Early Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” in The City in the Ottoman Empire: Migration and the Making of Urban Modernity, ed. Freitag, Ulrikeet al. (London: Routledge, 2011), 135–59.Google Scholar

24 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 4:434.

25 Alleaume, Ghislaine, “La naissance du fonctionnaire,” Égypte—Recompositions, special issue of Peuples Méditerranéens 41–42 (1987–88): 67–86, 70.Google Scholar

26 ʿIsa, ʿAbd al-Raziq, ed., Mahadir Majlis Shura al-Nuwwab: al-Hayʾa al-Niyabiyya al-Ula 1866–1869 (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, 2001).Google Scholar

27 Doumani, Beshara, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), 238.Google Scholar

28 In 1783, this trade represented around half of imports, one-quarter of exports, and one-third of all Egyptian trade. Raymond, Artisans, 149.

29 Abir, M., “The ‘Arab Rebellion’ of Amir Ghalib of Mecca (1788–1813),” Middle Eastern Studies 7 (1971): 185–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 185.

30 Raymond, Artisans, 107.

31 Abir, “The ‘Arab Rebellion,’” 190–91; Crecelius, Daniel, “The Importance of Qusayr in the Late Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt XXIV (1987): 53–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 54–55. ‘Ali Bey al-Kabir and Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab signed agreements with the Levant Company and the East India Company, respectively, allowing European ships to trade from Suez starting in the 1770s. Raymond, Artisans, 153.

32 Driault, Edouard, La formation de l'empire de Mohamed Aly de l'Arabie au Soudan (1814–1823) (Cairo: Royal Geographical Society of Egypt, 1927)Google Scholar, 74. See also Jomard, Edmé-Françoiset al., Description de l'Égypte ou recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'armée française, 24 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie de C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1829), 11:191–92.Google Scholar Trécourt placed the value of imports of drugs, spices, and textiles from the East at around 127.5 million paras in 1783; twelve years later, Magallon stated that Egypt was importing 300 million paras’ worth of the same merchandise. Raymond, Artisans, 135–36.

33 Raymond, Artisans, 129–36; ʿAbd al-Muʿti, Husam, al-ʿIlaqat al-Misriyya al-Hijaziyya fi al-Qarn al-Thamin ʿAshr (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1999), 116–30Google Scholar; DWQ, Qisma ʿAskariyya 214, doc 285, 29 Dhul-Qiʿda 1202/31 August 1788.

34 The coffee inventoried as part of his estate was evaluated at 3.45 paras per qinṭār (1.62 according to the index drawn up by Raymond, Artisans, LIV). In 1795, the price was around 1.3 paras per qinṭār, and in 1797 it was almost 1.5. Prices fluctuated and varied according to the quality of the coffee; “malṭūsh,” perhaps Yemeni coffee mixed with inferior varieties, was valued at 1.8 current paras. DWQ, Dasht 333 doc 565, 15 Ṣafar 1206/14 October 1791.

35 Jomard et al., Description de l'Égypte, 17:322.

36 Raymond, Artisans, 142.

37 Tuchscherer, Michel, “Le pèlerinage de l'émir Sulaymān Ǧāwīš al-Qāzduġlī sirdâr de la caravane de la Mekke en 1739,” Annales Islamologiques XXIV (1988): 155–206, 175.Google Scholar

38 The individuals in charge of the Egyptian caravan were sufficiently involved in trade to become merchants when they left office. Thus Hasan Wahba, keeper of the purse sent to the holy cities in 1817, was working as a merchant in al-Ghuriyya twelve years later. See DWQ, Diwan ʿAl, 5, doc 338, 28 Shawwal 1233/31 August 1818; and Qisma ʿAskariyya, 292, doc 843, 11 Rajab 1245/6 January 1830.

39 Shaw, Stanford J., The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt 1517–1798 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962), 254–71.Google Scholar The authors of the Description also noted that most commerce between Egypt and India took place through the pilgrimage caravan, via Suez and Jeddah. Jomard et al., Description de l'Égypte, 17:327. On the movement of grain and other foodstuffs from Egypt to other parts of the Ottoman Empire, see Mikhail, Alan, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chap. 2; and ʿAbd al-Muʿti, Husam, “Piety and Profit: The Haramayn Endowments in Egypt (1517–1814),” in Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World, ed. Ghazaleh, Pascale (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2011), 41–72.Google Scholar

40 Jomard et al., Description de l'Égypte, 17:330, 395. On the part played by the pilgrimage caravans in spreading Indian textiles, see Establet, C. and Pascual, J. P., Ultime voyage pour la Mecque: Les inventaires après décès de pèlerins morts à Damas vers 1700 (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1998)Google Scholar, esp. 88–89; and Raymond, Artisans, 128.

41 Muhammad al-Mahruqi was thus allied with three of the officials responsible for the purse that Egypt sent to Arabia every year in the sultan's name. DWQ, Diwan ʿAl, 5, doc 29, 22 Shawwal 1230/27 September 1815; Egyptian Ministry of Endowments (Awqaf) 148, 22 Rabiʿ I 1217/23 July 1802. The secretary of the purse, Ibrahim ʿAbd al-Karim, was also the supervisor of the foundations (awqāf) associated with the Mansuri hospital. His father, Ahmad, had borrowed money from Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Salam. DWQ, Dasht 333 doc 565, 5 Shaʿban 1205–15 Safar 1206/9 April–14 October 1791.

42 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 4:189. Tusun was responsible for the ground army and left Cairo at the head of 3,000 cavalry on 3 October 1811. Bayyumi, Tariq, Siyasat Misr fi al-Bahr al-Ahmar fi al-Nisf al-Awwal min al-Qarn al-Tasiʿ ʿAshr, 1226–1265 H/1811–1848 (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1999)Google Scholar, 75. In September 1816, Ibrahim departed for Mecca with 10,000 men. Driault, La formation, 32 (Roussel to the Duc de Richelieu, 1 September 1816). The army's total size was believed to be around 40,000 men. Ibid., 37 (1 December 1816).

43 A voluminous literature exists on Egypt's role in the Red Sea trade. See, for example, Raymond, Artisans; Michel Tuchscherer's many works on Red Sea commerce, including “Coffee in the Red Sea Area from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century,” in The Global Economy in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1500–1989, ed. William Gervase Clarence-Smith and Steven Topik (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 50–66; Hathaway, The Politics of Households; and Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Trade Controls, Provisioning Policies and Donations: The Egypt–Hijaz Connection during the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” in Süleyman the Second and His Time, ed. Inalcık, Halil and Kafadar, Cemal (Istanbul: Isıs Press, 1993), 131–44.Google Scholar

44 See Halawani, Saʿid, Tijarat al-Hijaz, 1812–1840 (Cairo: n.p., 1993), 13–14.Google Scholar

45 Egyptian Government, Financial Bureau, Receipts and Expenditures, register 1626, Muharram-Dhu al-Qiʿda 1236/October 1820–August 1821, 11.

46 Halawani, Tijarat al-Hijaz.

47 Sami, Amin, Taqwim al-Nil (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, 1928 and 1931), 2:388.Google Scholar

48 On these points see, for example, Dubois, Colette, “The Red Sea Ports during the Revolution in Transportation, 1800–1914,” in Modernity and Culture from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, ed. Fawaz, Leila and Bayly, C. A. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 58–74.Google Scholar

49 For a discussion of two remarkable examples, see Walz, Terence, “Family Archives in Egypt: New Light on Nineteenth-Century Provincial Trade,” in L'Égypte au XIXe siècle, Groupe de Recherches et d'Etudes sur le Proche-Orient, Colloques internationaux du CNRS 594 (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1982), 15–33.Google Scholar

50 For an explanation of ways in which the relation between the shariʿa and siyāsa evolved during this time, see esp. Peters, Rudolph, “Islamic and Secular Criminal Law in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: The Role and Function of the Qadi,” Islamic Law and Society IV (1997): 70–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 See, for example, Hamed, Raouf Abbas, “The Siyasatname and the Institutionalization of Central Administration under Muhammad ʿAli,” in The State and Its Servants: Administration in Egypt from Ottoman Times to the Present, ed. Hanna, Nelly (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995): 75–86.Google Scholar

52 Alleaume, Ghislaine, “Muhammad ʿAlî, pacha d'Égypte (1771–1849),” in Pascal Coste. Toutes les Égypte (Marseille: Éditions Parenthèse/Bibliothèque municipale de Marseille, 1998), 49–70Google Scholar, esp. 53.

53 Alleaume, “La naissance du fonctionnaire.”

54 Jomard et al., Description de l'Égypte, 18:2, 422–23.

55 Douin, Georges, Mohamed Aly, Pacha du Caire (1805–1807): Correspondance des consuls de France en Égypte (Cairo: IFAO, 1926), 4.Google Scholar

56 Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” 198–200.

57 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 3:58. See also Afifi, Mohammed and Raymond, André, Le Dîwân du Caire 1800–1801 (Cairo: IFAO, 2003), XVII.Google Scholar

58 It was a measure of his influence that the French chargé d'affaires in Constantinople told Talleyrand of the rumor that Ahmad had been poisoned. Douin, Mohamed Aly, 5.

59 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 4:245.

60 DWQ, Bab ʿAli 361, doc 808, 20 Rajab 1234/15 May 1819.

61 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 4:200. Sayyid Ahmad, called Jundi al-Matbakh, and his nephew, who were responsible for the ḥisba and the courts of al-Azhar, dealt with merchants, vegetable vendors, and butchers in this neighborhood.

62 Raymond, Artisans, 581–82. “Personal influence” here is to be distinguished from reputation, as the former appears to have described a binary relationship (Muhammad ʿAli's willingness to follow al-Mahruqi's advice), while the latter would have referred to al-Mahruqi's good standing among his peers.

63 Al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, 4:394.

64 Sami, Taqwim, 2:333.

65 Gran, Peter, Islamic Roots of Capitalism. Egypt, 1760–1840 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1999Google Scholar), 116; Sami, Taqwim, 2:390. The Gharbi are elsewhere identified under the name of ʿIzabi, a confusion to which the Arabic transcription readily lends itself. See El Mouelhy, I., “Ibrahim El Mouelhy Pacha—Les Mouelhy en Égypte,” Cahiers d'histoire égyptienne II (1948): 313–28, 317.Google Scholar

66 See ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Rafʿi, ʿAsr Muhammad ʿAli (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1989), 504, on the creation of this establishment, which initially employed North African workers imported to instruct their native counterparts in the art of fez making.

67 Jean Deny identifies Sharif ʿUmar as head of Cairo's merchants in 1253 (1837/38). See Sommaire des archives turques du Caire (Cairo: IFAO, 1930), 261. See also DWQ, Maʿiyya Saniyya Turki (translated summaries from the registers, 1st Jumad II–1st Dhul-Hijja 1252/13 September 1836–9 March 1837), reg 79. ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Tuwayyar was the Tunisian agent in Cairo; upon a request of the sultan of Fez, he was nominated by the viceroy to replace his predecessor in November 1836, until an agent designated by the sultan arrived in Egypt. Sami, Taqwim, 2:476. Muhammad, perhaps his brother, held the same office from 1856 to 1870.

68 DWQ, Bab ʿAli, 372, docs 710, 712, 4 Rajab 1238/17 March 1823; DWQ, Dasht 353 doc 1, 13 Muharram 1244/26 July 1828.

69 Sami, Taqwim, 309; Hamed, “The Siyasatname,” esp. 76–77; Enid Hill, “Courts and the Administration of Justice in the Modern Era,” in Hanna, The State and Its Servants, 98.

70 This institution also heard other cases; for instance, it notarized important events of the hijra calendar, such as the ruʾya or sighting of the crescent moon that marks the beginning of Ramadan, and of the agricultural calendar, such as the beginning of the Nile flood.

71 Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” esp. 194–95.

72 Tilche and Torto (or Toretto). The Tilche family established B. Tilche and Sons in 1854 to organize the cotton trade between Egypt and Italy. Saul, Samir, “Les relations économiques franco-égyptiennes du XIXe au XXe siècle: Une interprétation,” in La France et l'Égypte à l'époque des vice-rois 1805–1882, ed. Panzac, Daniel and Raymond, André (Cairo: IFAO, 2002), 17.Google Scholar

73 Sami, Taqwim, 2:333.

74 Identified as khawāja, a term used until the 19th century for the most important tujjār and then, more and more exclusively, to designate minority merchants protected by consular permits.

75 “Organization of the commercial courts,” in Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, 31.

76 Hunter places the apogee of Artin's career during the same period. Egypt under the Khedives, 111.

77 Marsot, Afaf, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 78, 165, 167.

78 Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, appendix 5, consuls’ regulations, subject to a supreme decree dated 18 April 1856, concerning the merchants’ court and the appellate council, article 1, p. 43.

79 Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, appendix 4, charter of the commercial courts, article 1, p. 33.

80 Relations between merchants and the state were seen as conflictual by definition, and the Siyāsatnāme reflects a constant concern with preventing merchants from causing losses to the government through their transactions; state employees (mustakhdamū al-mīrī) were held responsible for countering superfluous expenses. See, for example, Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, annex 2, basic code of the Siyāsatnāme, Pt. III, article 8, p. 23.

81 In Istanbul, where comparable processes were underway, an edict promulgated by the Sublime Porte in 1847 also stipulated that the commercial court be composed of twenty members: five Muslims and five non-Muslims, appointed by the Porte, and ten foreign merchants, nominated by foreign powers with representatives in Istanbul. Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” 197–99, 201; Mengin, Félix, Histoire sommaire de l'Égypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly, Ou récit des principaux événements qui ont eu lieu de l'an 1825 à l'an 1838 (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1839), 229–30.Google Scholar

82 By the late 18th century, various European powers were extending privileges and protection (for instance, related to legal immunity and tax breaks) to different groups within the Ottoman Empire. During the 19th century, the Sublime Porte increasingly viewed such protection (enshrined in the berat document that consular protégés received) as an infringement on the sultan's sovereignty over his subjects. Leaders of some Christian and Jewish Ottoman communities, for their part, sought increased autonomy from the sultan, invoking the self-sufficiency of the millets and looking to the European powers for assistance in this endeavor. On this topic, see, for example, Braude, Benjamin, “Foundation Myths of the Millet System,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Braude, Benjamin and Lewis, Bernard, 2 vols. (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1982), 1:69–88Google Scholar; Quataert, Donald, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chap. 9; and Rodrigue, Aron, “Difference and Tolerance in the Ottoman Empire,” interview by Reynolds, Nancy, Stanford Humanities Review 5 (1995): 81–92.Google Scholar

83 Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” 195.

84 Masters, “The Sultan's Entrepreneurs,” 581.

85 Ibid., 593.

86 Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, appendix 4, article 7, p. 36; Johansen, Baber, “Formes de langage et fonctions publiques: Stéréotypes, témoins et offices dans la preuve par l'écrit en droit musulman,” Arabica XLIV (1997): 345.Google Scholar

87 Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” 201–202.

88 See Ghazaleh, “Heirs and Debtors”; Marsot, Egypt, 188.

89 In 1818, according to the French agent in Alexandria, “the war in Arabia and the ruinous trade with India have caused money to disappear. It is so scarce that one can hardly borrow at three and a half per cent a month on mortgage. The trading houses are in a veritable state of suspended payment. People pay only by assignation. Even bills of exchange are hardly better received, and it is necessary to grant delays. The insolvency of Genoa and Livorno has added to the confusion in this port.” Driault, La formation, 105–106 (Roussel to the Duc de Richelieu, 9 June 1818).

90 In 1817, the French consul in Alexandria remarked bitterly that Levantine commerce, which had formerly been “almost entirely in the hands of our merchants established there,” had been opened to all nations. Driault, La formation, 73–74.

91 Marsot, Egypt, 186–87.

92 Lane, Edward William, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians: The Definitive 1860 Edition (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002), 104.Google Scholar

93 Colonial Bridgehead: Government and Society in Alexandria 1807–1882 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1997), 82, 218, n. 69.

94 Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” 207–208, 210, 213.

95 Zaghlul, al-Muhamah, appendix 4, charter of the merchants’ tribunal, article 16, 40–41. Of significance, the Ottoman commercial code of 1850, which reproduced certain sections of the Napoleonic commercial code of 1807, preserved parts I and III, regarding commerce in general, debts, and insolvency. Goldberg, “Majālis al-Tujjār,” 196.

96 Debt accusations were commonly registered in court; the plaintiff presented his attested complaint, and the defendant was summoned and ordered to reimburse the required sum. For an example of this type of case, registered in al-Bab al-ʿAli in 1827, see Milad, Salwa, al-Wathaʾiq al-ʿUthmaniyya: Dirasa Arshifiyya Wathaʾiqiyya li-Sijillat Mahkamat al-Bab al-ʿAli, 2 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa al-ʿIlmiyya, 2001), 534.Google Scholar

97 Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation, 3.