The Just Prince and the Nation: The Making of the Ottoman Egyptian Monarchy, 1860s

Based on hitherto unknown documents and poetry, this presentation argues that in the 1860s Koranic notions of Arab kingship helped local Egyptian notables to nationalize Ismail Pasha (r. 1863-1879), the semi-independent Ottoman governor, as an Egyptian Arab monarch. This attempt sprang from a carefully orchestrated invitation to participate in a new political system after a change in the dynastic order in 1866. Justice and technological progress were expressed in religious language. The petitions and capitalist projects (land, technological investments, etc) by village headmen and learned Egyptians provide the so-far missing background to the making of the Chamber of Delegates, the first ratified institution of elite national representation in modern Egypt. This discursive Muslim modernity associated with the new monarchy occurred at a global moment of incorporating nationalism into dynastic states.