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Tale of Two Cities: the Origins of Modern Cairo*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Janet Abu-Lughod
Janet Abu-Lughod
Affiliation:
Smith College
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Extract

The major metropolis in almost every newly industrializing nation is not a single unified city but, in fact, two quite different cities, physically juxtaposed but architecturally and socially distinct. Many observers have noted this in non-western countries throughout the world. These dual cities have usually been a legacy from the colonial past and, while increasing national autonomy and “nativization” are tending slowly to blend the two patterns, many generations may be required before the bifurcations drawn in the nineteenth century have been erased.

Type
A Dual City
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , July 1965 , pp. 429 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1965

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References

1 Lamplough, Augustus and Francis, R., Cairo and its Environs (London, Sir Joseph Causton & Sons, 1909).Google Scholar Quoted from p. xv of the introduction.

2 Fullerton, William Morton, In Cairo (London, Macmillan and Company, 1891), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar An earlier observer to whom the co-existence of two distinct cities appeared equally obvious was Gabriel Charmes. See his Five Months at Cairo and in Lower Egypt (an authorized translation by Conn, William [London, R. Bentley and Son, 1883]), esp. pp. 52 seq.Google Scholar

3 The 1830's saw the publication of two remarkably parallel books. The English introduction to Egypt, Edward Lane's magnificent The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians was first published in 1836 and proved so popular that it was reprinted several times. At that very time, Egyptians were avidly reading the first account of the manners and customs of the modern French, Takhlīs al-Ibrīz Ha Talkhīs Bārīz, by Sheikh R. R. Taḥtāwi, first published by the Būlāq Press in 1834 and reprinted in numerous editions.

4 In the early 183O's not a single steamship plied regularly between Alexandria and European ports. By the end of that decade there were “eighteen regular opportunities to and fro every month from Alexandria”. See Egypt: Familiar Description of the Land, People and Produce (London, William Smith, 1839), p. 294.Google Scholar

5 For the succession of Ibrāhīm, see Dodwell, Henry, The Founder of Modern Egypt: A Study of Muhammad ‘Ali (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1931), p. 261.Google Scholar There is a difference of opinion concerning the death of ˛Abbās. While the official medical report gave natural causes, the generally accepted opinion at the time was that he had been murdered by his guards. Various contemporary versions are recounted in Conversations and Journals in Egypt and Malta by the Late Nassau William Senior, based on his trip of 1855, edited by Simpson, M. (London, Sampson Low, et al, 1882).Google Scholar

6 A rather complete analysis of the British Rail vs French Canal rivalry is contained in Hallberg, Charles, The Suez Canal: Its History and Diplomatic Importance (New York, Columbia University Press, 1931).Google Scholar For information on the early railway, see especially pp. 101–113.

7 Mougel-Bey claimed that the concession to the British was granted in return for a “bribe” which was none less than influential British support of Egyptian autonomy vis à. vis the Porte, a not unlikely explanation. See Senior, op. cit., p. 28.

8 Lane, Edward, Cairo Fifty Years Ago, edited by Lane-Poole, Stanley from notes left by the author (London, John Murray, 1896), p. 43.Google Scholar

9 Fragmentary accounts of this settlement appear in Bréhier, Louis, L'Egypte de 1798 à 1900 (Paris, Combet et Cie, 1901), p. 150;Google ScholarClerget, , Le Caire: Etude de Geographie Urbaine et d'Histoire Economique, Tome I (Cairo, Imprimerie E. & R. Schindler, 1934), p. 197;Google ScholarFarāj, Fu˛ad, Al-Qāhirah, volume III (Cairo, Ma'araf, 1946), p. 527;Google ScholarSāmi, Amīn, Taqwīm al-Nīl, volume III, part I (Cairo, 1936), pp. 21–22;Google Scholar and Master Plan of Cairo (Cairo, 1956), p. 31.Google Scholar

10 Wilkinson, Sir John, Modern Egypt and Thebes, revised edition (London, John Murray, 1867), p. 151.Google Scholar

11 Lamplough, op. cit., pp. 28–34, describes graphically the jerry-building of that period.

12 Mubarak, ˛Ali, Khiṭaṭ al-Tawfīqīyah al-Jadīdah (Cairo, Būlāq Press, 1888), volume I, p. 82;Google Scholar Amīn Sāmi, op. cit., volume III, part I, p. 26.

13 Mubārak, op. cit., volume III, p. 83. This was still less than half the distance to the eastern desert.

14 Bréhier, op. cit., p. 158, gives the early history.

15 Hallberg, op. cit., pp. 117–118.

16 Mubārak, op. cit., volume I, p. 83.

17 This palace is now occupied by the Tawfiqiyah Secondary School. See Farāj, op. cit., volume III, p. 529.

18 Mubārak, op. cit., volume I, p. 84. One should not overemphasize the “pulling power” of the rail-line, however, since this area still remains one of the least developed sections of Cairo.

19 It will be recalled that the major cleaning and restoring of Cairo that had been undertaken during the terminal years of Muhammad ˛Ali's reign are traced to the influence of Ibrāhīm.

20 The Civil War, which cut off supplies of American cotton, created a heavy demand for the Egyptian substitute. In 1861 Egypt exported less than 600,000 kantars of cotton, selling at an average of 14 Tallaris per kantar. By 1863 the quantity exported had more than doubled, and the average price had tripled. By 1865 Egypt exported in excess of two and a half million kantars at a similarly high price. But, with the end of the war and the rapid recovery of the lost markets, demand for Egyptian cotton fell off. By 1867 the price of Egyptian cotton tumbled to only half of what it had been the preceding year. See Douin, G., Histoire du Règne du Khédive Ismail, tome I: Les Primieres Années du Règne, 1863–1867 (Rome, 1933), pp. 257–259.Google Scholar

21 At the end of Ismā˛il's reign the population of Egypt was probably in excess of seven million. Two generations earlier at the time of the Napoleonic Expedition, the population had been estimated variously at between two and three million, a figure which did not begin to mount until about 1840.

22 The claim that Ismā˛ils irresponsible borrowing and excessive spending were the major reasons for western intervention in the affairs of Egypt is one-sided if not naive. Perhaps the fairest appraisal of Ismā˛il is given by Young, George, in Egypt (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927),Google Scholar who points out that the milking of Egypt to pay for the Suez Canal, from which she could not profit, and the unscrupulousness of both foreign contractors and financiers, must share this responsibility.

23 For other concessions revoked and compensations agreed upon, see Hallberg, op. cit., esp. pp. 197, 207, 212–214; Douin, op. cit., tome I, pp. 19–52, 188–201.

24 All the land west of Shāri˛ Abū Faraj had hitherto been subject to periodic flooding and could be used only for agriculture. Between 1863 and 1865 the embankments were improved and, with the Isma˛īlīyah Canal siphoning off Nile water south of Būlāq, this land was permanently added to the city. See Faraj, op. cit., volume III, p. 529. After that, the area served as a northern extension of the river port of Būlāq. Today, long after the closing of the main installations at Būlāq, sailboats still deposit their wares and service the shūnah and warehouses that stretch along the shore at Sāḥel.

25 Eventually a permanent separation between Jazīrah and the west bank was accomplished by the channeling of the “Blind” Nile. Even before this, however, the island was raised and protected from flood. See, for example, the 1885 edition of Baedecker's Guide to Egypt.

26 See Douin, op. cit., tome I, p. 265. It is difficult to understand where M. Clerget obtained his information that the gas company was not founded until 1873. See his peculiar statement in op. cit., tome I, p. 194. This later date is an anachronism since we have ample evidence to indicate that the entire vicinity of Ezbekiah, the train station, as well as the palaces and hotels to which guests were assigned, were already illuminated by gas when the Suez Canal opening was celebrated in 1869.

27 See Douin, op. cit., tome I, p. 266; Bréhier, op. cit., p. 177.

28 See the fascinating narrative of The Life and Times of Baron Haussmann, by J.M., and Chapman, Brian (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1957)Google Scholar in its entirety.

29 See Edmond, Charles, L'Egypte à l'Exposition Universelle de 1867 (Paris, 1867),Google Scholar for a full description.

30 Douin, , Histoire du Règne du Khédive Ismail, tome II: L'Apogée, 1867–1873 (Rome, 1934), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 8.

32 There is no documentary evidence of such a meeting. However, that Barillet-Deschamps was the landscape gardener for the Bois de Boulogne and assistant to Alphand in preparing the Champs de Mars for the Exposition is incontestable. See, for example, Chapman, op. cit., p. 201. Both the 1885 edition of Baedecker and ˛Ali Mubārak in his Khiṭaṭ … attest to Barillet-Deschamps' later role in designing extensive parks and gardens in Cairo between 1869 and his death in 1874.

33 The modern reader, familiar as he is with fiscal controls, vested property interests and legislative bottlenecks which impede urban improvements, may find it difficult to accept the fact that the whim of any ruler could play so crucial a role in altering a city. Yet this was the last era of royal prerogatives, when the will of the sovereign was supreme. His personal purse was the entire wealth of the country, and his powers included the right to mortgage the future tax revenues of the state for even personallyincurred debts.

34 We are most fortunate to be able to rely heavily on this first hand source of data on developments in Cairo under Ismā˛;īl. Much of the preceding information about Mubārak has been taken from his autobiography, included in Al-Khiṭaṭ …, volume IX, pp. 52–53. Details of his career were traced in scattered references contained in the archival documents reproduced in Amīn Sāmi, op. cit., volume III, part II (Cairo, 1936).

35 Mubārak, op. cit., volume III, pp. 67 and 119.

36 Ibid., volume I, p. 83; volume IX, p. 53.

37 Many versions of the founding of Ismā˛īlīyah are extant in the literature. According to the 1885 edition of Baedecker (p. 259) “the new town of Ismā˛īlīyah was begun about the year 1865, when the Khedive presented sites there gratuitously to anyone who would undertake to erect on each a house worth at least 30,000 francs within eighteen months.” Clerget, who unfortunately fails to cite his sources here, seems to accept this version, noting merely that the land was unoccupied until 1865, after which “Ismail Pasha gave gratuitously land to anyone willing to construct there a dwelling worth at least 2,000 Egyptian Pounds.” See op. cit., tome I, p. 198. (Our translation) The version of Mubārak (which we accept as authentic and which Clerget has evidently not consulted) is at variance with both these secondary sources. Mubārak states categorically that the offer of free land was made after the area had been improved. See his op. cit., volume IX, p. 53. We know that streets had not yet been laid out in the Ismā˛īlīyah quarter by 1867, both from the testimony of Mubārak and from the graphic evidence of a map of Cairo prepared by the Ministry of Public Works to facilitate its planning. This map, which is evidently the one reproduced in Clerget and dated 1868 (see Volume I, insert before p. 193), shows no streets for the Ismā˛īlīyah quarter and no subdivision of the vacant triangles adjacent to the Ezbekiah. It was obviously made at the end of 1867 or the beginning of 1868, since it shows the Ismā˛īlīyah Canal (opened in 1866) and the rectangular enclosure of Ezbekiah Gardens (made in 1867). Therefore, to date the founding of Isma'Iliyah as early as 1865 is to anticipate it prematurely.

38 See Zincke, F. Barham, Vicar of Wherstead, Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedive (London, Smith, Elder and Company, 1871), p. 405.Google Scholar Italics ours. This book covers the author's trip to Egypt made in the winter of 1870–71 and allows us to establish the exact date of his observations.

39 Mubārak, op. cit., volume I, p. 85. The estimate includes the section of Fajjāllah.

40 The Khedivial order to acquire this land was issued just before Ismā˛īl's second trip to Paris in 1869, which he made for the purpose of extending personal invitations to the Suez Canal Inaugural. See Amīn Sāmi, op. cit., volume III, part II, p. 87.

41 The opening performance, Rigoletto, was given for the Empress Eugénie and others on November 1, 1869. It was then that Ismā˛īl commissioned Verdi to write an opera on an Egyptian theme and, two years later, Aida was performed at the Cairo Opera House. The Opera still stands, anachronistically, in its currently not too fashionable district but there have been recent rumors of its planned demolition.

42 For a description of the completed Ezbekiah, see on the complimentary side, de Vaujany, H., Le Caire et ses Environs (Paris, E. Plon et Cie., 1883), pp. 129–130.Google Scholar Less enthusiasm was shown in the acid comments of Rhoné presented later in this paper.

43 For information on the palace at Jizah and the extensive gardens designed by Barillet-Deschamps, see Mubārak, op. cit., volume I, p. 84. The railway between Jīzah and Embābah and the Upper Egyptian terminus at al-Minyah was begun in 1865 but was not completed until several years later. See Amīn Sāmi, op. cit., volume III, part II, p. 632, and Wilkinson, op. cit. (1867 edition with addendum to 1869), pp. 2 and 7. A rail bridge to connect the Delta Line terminating at Bāb al-Ḥadīd with the Upper Egyptian Line terminating on the West bank was not constructed until the twentieth century. For information on the first Qaṡr al-Nīl bridge, see Amīn Sāmi, op. cit., volume III, part II, p. 815 for contract and p. 919 for demonstration of opening.

44 One of the most acid critiques ever levelled against any master plan was that A. Rhoné concerning Cairo's. He recalled the early days of Ismā˛īl when “the Viceroy and his ministers spoke then with glowing enthusiasm of the rebirth of Cairo according to the expeditious methods of Paris. They displayed with pride their plans for new quarters laid out in checkerboards, and for bold new thoroughfares that could evoke one only a shudder. In all directions, the ancient city of the caliphs and sultans was criss-crossed by straight and endless incisions which formed patterns like those emblazoned on coats of arms … [as if they were planning] the eruption of an American city in the heart of a virgin forest.” See A. Rhoné, Coup d'CEil sur I'Etat du Caire, Ancien et Moderne, extracted and reprinted from the November, 1881, and February, 1882, issues of La Gazette des Beaux Arts (Paris, A. Quantin, 1882).Google Scholar Ours is a translation of an excerpt from p. 1.

45 The Pasha's monopoly of carriages is substantiated by the contemporary account Clot-Bey, from whom we have taken our estimate of about thirty. See his Aperçu Général sur l'Egypte (Paris, Fortin, Massin, et cie., 1840), volume II, pp. 456–457.Google Scholar Wilkinson, in his edition of 1867, cited above, remarks sarcastically on their outmoded style. “Many of the private carriages are curiosities. They might be supposed to have come from some European museum, which had preserved them unchanged for a century or two, and had taken advantage of the new want in Cairo, and of the inexperience of the purchasers, to sell off all of the duplicates that could be spared.” p. 113.

46 Mubārak, op. cit., volume I, p. 103, lists 174 carts for water, 1,675 carts for goods, 400 privately-owned passenger carriages and 486 passenger carriages for hire.

47 This map of Cairo at the end of Ismā˛īl's reign shows the new quarters of Ismā˛īlīyah (west and south of the Gardens of Ezbekiah) and Fajjālah (north of al Maqs, east of the train station and south of the Isma'illyah Canal), the replanned triangles north and south of Ezbekiah, as well as the area covered by the medieval city of Cairo. Our reconstruction of the only partially executed master plan is shown in broken lines and the maydāns listed above have been located by their corresponding numbers. Actually no map of the master plan has survived. We have based our tentative reconstruction on the verbal descriptions given by Mubārak. See his op. cit., volume I, p. 83; volume III, pp. 63, 67–68, 82–83, 118–120 ff; volume IX, p. 53.

48 See Baedecker's 1885 edition on Egypt, pp. 76 and 329. This park formed the nucleus for the present Zoological Gardens and the Jlzah campus of Cairo University.

49 Mubārak, op. cit., volume III, p. 69.

50 Rhoné caustically described it as follow: “Like a shot, one fine day it [the Boulevard] took off from the Garden of Ezbekiah, without knowing where it was going, and landed some two kilometers away, at a formidable angle from the Sultan Hassan Mosque, which it could not avoid encountering.” Our translation from p. 23 of ARhoné, op. cit.

51 The complex and still beclouded events transpiring between 1879 and 1882 cannot be treated here. This brief summary of very controversial material, gleaned primarily from the account in Hallberg, op. cit., pp. 230–265, has been presented merely to indicate that no changes occurred in Cairo after 1875 and to prepare the reader for the new era which British occupation introduced in the development of Cairo.

52 These conflicts in the British position are painfully obvious in the writings of the time. Among the sources are: The Earl of Cromer, , Modern Egypt, in two volumes (London, The Macmillan Company, 1908);Google Scholar Sir Milner, Alfred, England in Egypt, revised edition (London, Edward Arnold, 1899);Google ScholarAdams, Francis, The New Egypt (London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1893);Google ScholarLloyd, Lord, Egypt Since Cromer, in two volumes (London, The Macmillan Company, 1933Google Scholar and 1934); and, of course, the innumerable Government Blue Books on the Egyptian question (98 of which appeared in the first three-year period following Tel al-Kabīr alone!). French-English conflicts of interest are treated in Ragatz, L.J., The Question of Egypt in Anglo-French Relations, 1875–1904 (Edinburgh, Pembroke, 1922).Google Scholar

53 The purpose of a barrage, unlike a dam, is to maintain a relatively constant height for water downstream to permit year-round irrigation. For an early first-hand account of the barrage, see Senior, op. cit., various scattered notes. For later developments and an evaluation of this scheme, see Milner, op. cit., pp. 232–245; and Balls, W. Lawrence,Egypt of the Egyptians (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), pp. 150–151.Google Scholar

54 It is unlikely that the population growth was as great as these figures indicate. The 1882 Census is generally admitted to be inaccurate and an underestimate of true population. It is our considered judgment that the population was already in excess of 7 million at the early date. Even so, the increase is sizeable and neither the influx of foreigners (small, absolutely, although large relative to the past) nor t he settling of the Bedouins can account for more than a fraction of the increment. Although reliable death rate statistics are unavailable for the period, it is an inescapable indirect conclusion that some net decrease in mortality must have occurred during these years, although such a decrease is certainly not apparent in the Cairo data. Our best judgmenton this is that the period was marked by a decline in the average mortality rate achieved primarily through a control over what might be termed the “catastrophic” death rate, i.e. that sudden inflating of the “normal” rate due to periodic disasters such as floods, famines, and epidemics. Greater control over irrigation brought about a break in the recurrent cycle of flood, drought and famine, while epidemics became less frequent although they were certainly not eliminated. In 1883 an extremely virulent cholera epidemic ravaged the country. Elementary health precautions were taken soon after, such as compulsory smallpox vaccination and free mass vaccinations, begun in 1890; enforced compulsory reporting of contagious diseases; licensing of medical and veterinary personnel; port quarantines, etc. The proof of efficacy was found in 1896 when a recurrence of cholera was nipped before it reached epidemic proportions.

55 In the 1897 Census the population of Cairo is given as 570,000. The 1947 Census reestimates this at 589,000. A higher death rate in urban than in rural areas seems to be universally characteristic of the preindustrial and early industrial era. The average estimated CDR in Cairo between 1882–1897 was about 46.6/ 1000/yr., as contrasted with an average CBR of 45/1000/yr. See Clerget, volume II, p. 24.

56 Clerget, op. cit., volume I, p. 202.