Many documents in the archives of France’s Foreign Ministry refer to Ismail
Pasha, Mohamed Ali’s grandson, Ibrahim Pasha’s son, and Egypt’s most important
ruler in the second half of the 19th century, as “the Magnificent,” portraying
him as a grand Renaissance prince and patron.
اضافة اعلان
Ismail, to use his famous phrase, wanted to make
Egypt “a part of Europe”. Indeed, he led a colossal urban transformation that
made parts of Cairo and Alexandria look like Paris, Rome, or Vienna.
For him, however, it was about much more than
architecture. Ismail also utterly overhauled life in Cairo and Alexandria. His
governments introduced modern sanitation, water purification, city lighting,
and paved roads. Cairo and Alexandria were redrawn into new districts and
boroughs, and entire new parts were developed, often planted with hundreds of
imported trees and plants from various parts of the world.
He commissioned an exquisite new opera house (sadly
burned down in 1970) and a number of theatres. Ismail sent out dozens of
scientific and cultural expeditions, often way beyond Egyptian borders. His
reign saw the emergence of Egypt’s first schools of modern geography,
agriculture, horticulture, and the first attempts at the preservation of
monuments.
It was during his time that a mania for Egyptology
began to appear in different parts of Europe, which in time provided the
momentum for building the world’s first purpose-built museum in Cairo. Fatma,
one of Ismail’s daughters, played a decisive role in the creation of Egypt’s
and the Middle East’s first secular university.
Ismail entered European consciousness through his
legendary lavishness in celebrating the opening of the Suez Canal, most likely
the grandest party in the world in the second half of the 19th century. For Ismail, the celebration was about much
more than the inauguration of the strategic maritime passage. He saw the
opening of the Suez Canal as the unveiling, in front of the entire world, of
modern Egypt, his Egypt.
That Egypt was very different from the country in
the first three-quarters of the 19th century, not only in terms of how it
looked, but also in its demography. Immigration boomed during Ismail’s time.
Entrepreneurs and adventurers came to Egypt from different parts of the world,
especially from the Eastern Mediterranean, attracted by the opportunities that
Ismail’s transformations had given rise to.
Many Egyptians participated in the transformation.
Dozens of families from the Nile Delta and southern Egypt sold major land
holdings to buy into the new Egypt that was then emerging. New fortunes were
made, often anchored on servicing the urban changes of the time. For the first
time since Mohamed Ali had come to power, Egyptians were beginning to appear
near the uppermost echelons of wealth and power in the country.
Cairo and Alexandria, and quickly after them some of
the larger towns in the Delta, saw revolutions in social norms and behavior.
But the truly important changes were taking place in the system of education
(more Westernized and secular), judiciary (the beginning of secular laws in Egyptian
courts), and governance (the first attempts at a national charter).
Ismail’s project was anchored in confidence. His
Egypt did not look at Europe with starry eyes and copy it blindly. By Ismail’s
time, in the third-quarter of the 19th century, Egypt already had over half a
century of exposure to the West through Mohamed Ali’s modernization program and
Ibrahim’s campaigns in Southern Europe and the Levant.
Ismail left us the most beautiful parts of Cairo and Alexandria. He envisioned and created Egypt’s first modern urban spaces, with all the services and amenities and regulations that this entailed.
By Ismail’s time, Egypt had enough experience to
discern what in European modernity could be imported and assimilated to the
country’s then increasingly multi-cultural society. To Ismail, making Egypt a
part of Europe meant incorporating Europe into the Egypt that he was weaving,
not imposing what was essentially Western on what was naturally Eastern.
But the project had enormous costs. Ismail
bankrupted Egypt, and his disastrous financial management was matched by his
administrative skills. He failed throughout his reign to sustain a coherent
government. He had a fiery temper, which alienated some of his most competent
aides and associates. And though he seemed to have had a genuine appreciation
for meritocracy, he was an absolute ruler. The state was his, and he was the
state. It was for this reason, and particularly for his creditors in Britain, that
Ismail was merely an incompetent and delusional despot.
Some of Ismail’s problems were not of his making,
however. By the time he came to power, Britain and France had already destroyed
his grandfather’s and father’s short-lived empire.
Throughout his reign, Britain was effectively
steering the Ottoman Empire’s most strategic issues, the result of the
Ottomans’ descent into irrelevance. This meant that Ismail faced an Ottoman
court that was often willing to prioritize the interests of the Western powers,
including those of English financiers, over any other considerations.
Ismail was not ruthless enough. He was a visionary;
he loved art and culture; he lived life to the fullest. But he was not cut out for
the maneuvering of geo-politics and the intrigue of international relations,
and lacked the steely determination of his grandfather, Mohamed Ali, to
eliminate opponents, whether near or far away.
As his debts mounted, Ismail lost control of Egypt
to foreign creditors. He tried to fight, and according to the archives of the
British foreign office, he often put on tantrums. His loss, however, was all
but inevitable.
He was removed from power and sent into exile and
spent the last years of his life between southern Italy and the quiet shores of
the Bosphorus, in Turkey. Illness took its toll. In photographs taken of him
shortly before his death, his body appears frail and the fiery sparkle of his
eyes is all but gone.
For many, Ismail failed. Egypt fell under complete
British control and lost its independence, and Ismail lost his kingdom. Egypt
was to suffer for at least four decades, until World War I, from the economic
dominance of the European powers.
Judging by Ismail’s legacy in the period that
immediately followed his reign, his project certainly failed. His legacy,
however, is much wider than its immediate political and economic consequences,
and remains with us almost 150 years after he was deposed and exiled.
Ismail left us the most beautiful parts of Cairo and
Alexandria. He envisioned and created Egypt’s first modern urban spaces, with
all the services and amenities and regulations that this entailed.
As a result of his project, Ismail made Egypt and
increasingly large sections of the Egyptian people confident and comfortable
with interacting with European modernity.
Ismail did not make Egypt “a part of Europe”. But he
did usher in different elements of the idea of Europe into Egypt.
Tarek Osman is the author of Islamism: A History of
Political Islam (2017) and Egypt on the Brink (2010). A version of this article
appeared in print in the July 7, 2022, edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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