Egypt’s Divisible Sovereignty: Governance and Extraterritoriality in the 19th Century

The concept of sovereignty, as it relates to Egypt in the nineteenth century, is particularly ambiguous. To date, despite its centrality, there is not a systematic academic treatment of the subject of “sovereignty”. This paper will systematically examine the development of this concept in order to better understand one of the primary legal-political bases of the Egyptian independence movement, which was solidified several decades later, at the turn of the twentieth century.   

During the nineteenth century, Egypt was ruled by a hereditary dynasty that oversaw the creation of a complex set of governing laws and regulations. At various points during the century, Egypt’s rulers occupied and ruled over parts of the Eastern Mediterranean (1830s) and East Africa  (1860s-70s). Significantly, during the same time period, Egypt was not politically independent. It was a province of the Ottoman Empire. Between 1882 and 1914, it was simultaneously an Ottoman province and a British-occupied territory. Furthermore, throughout the nineteenth century, and regardless of who held actual political power, European residents of Egypt enjoyed wide extra-territorial privileges.  

The objective of this paper is to explore the multiple and continuously evolving meanings and uses of “sovereignty” in nineteenth-century Egypt. It will do so through comparing three sets of historical sources: the proceedings of Egypt’s legislative council, which was established in 1866; a range of nineteenth-century Egyptian newspaper collections; and contemporaneous British consular records. Collectively, these sources will enable the charting of “sovereignty” in the thought and practice of governance in Egypt in the nineteenth century