Before the Throne

by Naguib Mahfouz

  Osiris then welcomed him, “For all that you deserve a seat among the Immortals—we shall note this in our certificate on your behalf.”

  55

  HORUS HERALDED, “Al-Sayyid Umar Makram!”

  A straight-backed man, neither tall nor short, entered the court in his shroud, walking onward until he stood before the throne.

  Osiris invited him to speak.

  “I was born in Asyut,” recited Umar Makram, “and learned science, morals, and religion from the flower of the elite. Then I became chief of the association of the Prophet’s descendants, indefatigably repelling the powerful in defense of the suffering people. When the French came to invade our country, I called on the people to fight, and marched at their head, but our armies were routed and the French occupied Cairo. They chose me as a member of their local council, but I refused with contempt and escaped to Syria, leaving my money and property exposed to theft. When the French overran Syria, Napoleon brought me back to Egypt, heaping honors upon me, but I shut myself in my house. Then Cairo rose up in revolt, and I led the rebellion myself. After it was put down with brutality, I again left for Syria, and did not return until the French had gone.

  “Next I directed the insurrection against the Mamluks, and another against the Turkish governor. I swore allegiance to the latter’s replacement when I saw that he inclined toward the Egyptians, as well as toward justice and probity. But I resisted even that governor when he forgot his compact with us—and he forced me to leave once more. I remained in exile until I died.”

  “You are an individual from the people,” Abnum addressed him, “who based his life on the defense of the people, calling on them to fight for the first time since my blessed revolution. They rose up against the foreign governor, and through their own power, installed a new ruler in his place. Tell me, was the new governor a son of the people, too?”

  “No,” Umar Makram replied, “but he was a Muslim, and he seemed just to me.”

  “What a catastrophe,” recoiled Abnum. “Why didn’t you try to take over yourself?”

  “The Ottoman government would not agree.”

  “I tell you again, what a catastrophe,” argued Abnum.

  “Perhaps you simply revered the unity of Islam, the religion of the God Who is One?” suggested Akhenaten.

  “Indeed,” affirmed Umar Makram, “that is what I thought—as a believer in God and His Prophet.”

  “In any case, I am happy with this son,” said Isis.

  “You merit a place among the Immortals: your commendation from us shall state this clearly,” assured him Osiris.

  56

  HORUS CALLED OUT, “Muhammad Ali Pasha!”

  A stout, straight-backed, and powerfully built man strode firmly into the room until he stood before the throne.

  Osiris asked him to speak, and Muhammad Ali recalled for the court, “I was born in the city of Cavalla, where I was raised as an orphan. Upon reaching manhood, I enlisted in the Ottoman army, and went to Egypt to join the fight against the French. When the French retreated, I began to study the conditions there and to ponder the future. Discovering the weakness of the Ottomans, and the meanness of the Mamluks, I became aware of a third force neglected by everyone, that being the power of the local people and their native leaders. I resolved to forge close ties with them, for perhaps they could form a sound base upon which to set up a new state that would bring back the glories of ages past.

  “In this I scored an outstanding success, as the people ousted the Turkish governor and swore allegiance to me instead. The Sublime Porte recognized this fait accompli and all went well—so I set to work carrying out my project, not stopping once till the end of my life. I put paid to the prevailing evil of the Mamluks, then obtained an order from the imperial palace to wage war against the Wahhabis in the Arabian Peninsula—and vanquished them as well. I created an army made up of Egyptians, and conquered the Sudan. When my son Ismail was killed there, I avenged him by slaughtering twenty thousand of the enemy. For the army I set up academies and factories, just as I fashioned a formidable navy, employing the help of French experts to accomplish it all. Nor did I neglect reform, for I introduced new agricultural crops, such as cotton, indigo, and opium; I planted orchards and established parks. I also built medical schools and hospitals, and sent Egyptians on study missions to France, the land of modern civilization. I reorganized public administration and security, and among my most important monuments are the Khayriya Barrages. I also set up the first printing press in the Middle East, located in Bulaq.

  “The sultan in Istanbul demanded that I campaign on his behalf in the Morea and Syria—and my victories were so stunning that terror beat in the heart of the Seraglio itself. The emperor wanted to keep me in my place, but I waged war against him, invading his country. I would have seized control of his capital were it not for the intervention of the foreign powers, who feared the revival of Islam at my hands. The nations conspired against me, forcing me to submit to the Sublime Porte’s authority in return for making Egypt a hereditary fiefdom for my family. I was compelled also to reduce the size of my army and to close its schools and factories too. As the nation fell into ruin, I could not endure to the end: I lost my mind, then my life as well.”

  “This was like a new Pharaonic dynasty,” remarked King Khufu, “despite its foreign origins.”

  “You restored my empire,” said Thutmose III, “and I testify to your skill at military command. But you lost it in your own lifetime, making it the shortest-lived empire in history. Moreover, I’m amazed at your killing twenty thousand in revenge for your son’s death, as though you had not heard of my own wise policy in the countries I invaded.”

  “I had never heard of it,” Muhammad Ali admitted. “And in truth, no one paid any attention to the ruins of your age before the savants who accompanied the French invasion arrived in Egypt, unlocking the secrets of their forgotten tongue. I acquired my own wisdom through my direct dealings with people.”

  “I acknowledge your greatness,” Thutmose III continued, “but by its light I see your delusions. I very much wanted to indulge you to the last, but for the regrettably rapid end that befell your empire. This means that, despite your intelligence, your perception of things was wanting. You did not grasp the international situation well enough, and thus unwittingly exposed yourself to a force that you could not control.”

  “I thought that France would stand by me until the end …,” Muhammad Ali started to say.

  “This, too, does not aid in your defense,” Ptahhotep interrupted him. “A very short-sighted policy.”

  “Yet it was a tempting opportunity to renew Islam—the Islamic State rising from a rejuvenated Egypt.”

  “I comprehend that completely,” enthused Akhenaten, “and I hail your ambition to reinvigorate the state of the One and Only Divinity.”

  “If only you had put your genius and your dreams to the strengthening of Egypt,” lamented Khufu, “and contented yourself with that.”

  “You did not believe enough in the people,” Abnum berated him. “Nor was your love for them sufficient for you to devote your real efforts to their revitalization and support. You exploited the peasants for the sake of the land and the state, when you should have set every institution at the service of the people. Yet only someone like me would think this way. However, one cannot forget in your favor that you also drove the peasants into the fields of administration, politics, the military, and science.”

  “For that reason,” insisted Isis, “I consider this alien viceroy as one of my sons.”

  “If this were the court that would seal your final fate,” Osiris addressed him, “it would hand you a harsh critique and a wounding rebuke—while preserving your right to a seat among the Immortals. Accordingly, we shall send a report to your Islamic trial in praise of your majestic achievements, conveying therein a recommendation on behalf of your person from Egypt and her gods.”

  57

  HORUS HAILED, “Ahmad Urabi!”r />
  A tall, corpulent man of dignified mien came in and stood before the throne.

  Osiris invited him to speak.

  “I memorized the Qur’an as a child in my village in al-Sharqiya,” Ahmad Urabi replied, “and enrolled in the military academy at the age of fourteen. I attained the rank of Qaimqam, the first Egyptian to reach that level. The higher grades were reserved for those of Circassian origins—the Egyptians were scorned in their own country. I persuaded some of my colleagues to demand the dismissal of the minister of war, a prejudiced Circassian—and when we were arrested, the patriotic troops rose up to demand our release. I felt the people’s sense of debasement, and moved with the army to Abdin Palace to insist on the king’s abdication and the creation of a popular assembly.

  “The khedive told me, ‘I inherited this country as my personal fief, and who are you but slaves of our beneficence?’ In reply I told him, ‘God created us all free, not as possessions or real estate. By the God but for whom there is no other god, we will not be passed on as inheritance nor be enslaved after this day.’

  “We were victorious over the enemies of the people, and established a popular assembly and a nationalist government, when the foreign powers intervened to prevent the people from controlling their own affairs, out of fear for their interests. The khedive and some of his opportunistic followers betrayed the homeland, coming to an agreement with our English foes. Although we defended our nation with everything we had, we still were defeated. They sentenced us to exile for life, and the expropriation of our possessions.”

  “But you challenged the occupant of the throne,” said Khufu, “and reproached him in ways that one does not do to kings!”

  “Times change, O king, for monarchs no longer rule as the deputies of God,” Osiris told him, “but with the participation of the people.”

  “Sharing power with the peasants means chaos,” rebutted Khufu.

  “Rather, it’s a bold undertaking on the road to virtue,” asserted Abnum.

  “The khedive and his followers were foreigners,” said Ahmad Urabi.

  “The unity of Egypt was forged out of differing kinds of people,” said Menes, “who all joined together to create a nation, and who were loyal to the throne.”

  “I only battled those who disdained from joining with the rest of us,” explained Ahmad Urabi, “and the proof is that my party also had members of Circassian descent.”

  “Why didn’t you kill the khedive,” demanded Abnum, “and install a new royal family of commoner blood?”

  “My goal was to liberate the people,” answered Urabi, “and for them to share the responsibility of rule.”

  “It would have been better to kill him,” repeated Abnum. “But, in any case, you get much credit for guarding the people’s rights.”

  “The situation required military leadership of exceptional genius,” said Thutmose II. “Unfortunately, you were not endowed with anything of the kind.”

  “I gave everything I had,” pleaded Urabi.

  “You should have fought until death alongside your troops,” scolded Ramesses II.

  “And you should have eliminated all your enemies in order to throttle treason in its cradle,” added Abnum.

  “You are a good-hearted man,” said Akhenaten, “whose end was the one fated for all with this virtue.”

  “You launched a revolution to free the people—and gained a foreign occupation for them, instead,” concluded the Sage Ptahhotep.

  “This is a son of Egypt, whose heart is full of good intentions,” said Isis. “He gave the people his limitless love and his limited ability. His foes plotted to put down his revolution—yet they could not extirpate the seed of freedom that he had planted in our good soil.”

  “I consider you a light beaming in the darkness that had descended on your country,” Osiris told him. “You were punished during your lifetime and so have paid for your mistakes. Perhaps you will gain blessings in your final trial—we shall not withhold praise for the merit you have earned.”

  58

  HORUS CALLED OUT, “Mustafa Kamil!”

  A slender, sweet-featured man came in, with head uncovered and feet unshod, and stood before the throne.

  Osiris invited him to speak.

  “I came to consciousness as a pupil during the British occupation. I hated it and resolved to combat it—this is what I felt when only a student. One day, His Honor the Khedive, Abbas Hilmi II, came to visit our school, and I greeted him with a passionately patriotic speech that found an echo in his own youth and nationalism. From that time onward we became close collaborators, and he provided me with encouragement and money to be rid of foreign control. I developed similar relations with the caliph and the Islamic League. As for my own aspiration, it was always for the freedom and independence of Egypt—which is why I changed my relations with Abbas Hilmi when he reached a modus vivendi with the enemy.

  “Things were such that the people had given up hope, but I did not stint from awakening their national awareness, through word of mouth, the press, and public speaking. Likewise I advocated the nationalist cause abroad, until the liberals of Europe—especially in France—knew of it as well. And when the British carried out their great crime in Denshaway, I denounced their vicious deeds and decried the sentences that the puppet court had pronounced on the innocent people of that village. I shook the throne of the English despotism in Egypt until I forced their nation to reconsider it. Then I founded the Nationalist Party, the first political party formed in Egypt. Its program called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and a constitution within the dominion of the Ottoman State. I kept on waging this jihad both inside and outside the country, until I gave up the ghost while still quite young.”

  “Didn’t the British kill you?” asked Psamtek III.

  “No, they did not,” Mustafa Kamil replied.

  “That is odd,” said Psamtek III. “In my time we had the Persian occupation, just as you had the English in yours. Like you, I strove to arouse patriotic awareness—and when Cambyses learned of this, he ordered my execution without hesitation. How could the British let you go unpunished?”

  “The occupiers had taken total control of the country,” answered Mustafa Kamil. “They could afford to permit a certain degree of freedom that in fact they despised, but which made them look as though they respected such principles in the eyes of the world.”

  “But weren’t you exposed to palpable harm?”

  “The occupation concealed its hatred of me, while inciting its friends to attack me.”

  “Your age granted you clemency such as I did not receive even a part of in my own day,” remarked Psamtek III. “In truth, I have never known a holy warrior as fortunate as you. You enjoyed the support of the khedive, the caliph, and the Islamic League, smiting your foes both at home and abroad without any penalty. You won glory and fame without paying a price, and were not slaughtered as I myself was. Nor were you exiled, like Ahmad Urabi.”

  “Ahmad Urabi was a traitor,” spat Mustafa Kamil, “who drew foreign occupiers into the country.”

  “How can you accuse the man of treason when he did not rise in rebellion or endure banishment from his homeland except to defend the right of your people! And what was the traitor but the father of your friend, aide, and loyal supporter? Yet in your testimony he had betrayed his country, like his father before him.”

  “I consider him to be the foremost of those to responsible for the occupation,” sneered Mustafa Kamil.

  “You are an ardently patriotic lad,” proclaimed Abnum, “you were lucky enough to live your life in the fragrant atmosphere of the throne, the caliphate, and French civilization, without smelling the odor of sweaty labor, nor suffering the pains of true struggle. Nor do you refrain from defaming a true revolutionary.”

  “He is a son that awoke nationalist zeal and enthusiasm,” said Isis, “when the occupation had nearly snuffed them out.”

  Osiris then faced him.

  “It was not in your powe
r to do more than you did, and we shall not forget the favor in your words,” he assured Mustafa Kamil. “Go to your final trial with our heartfelt regards.”

  59

  HORUS HERALDED, “Muhammad Farid!”

  A medium-built man with a plump face walked in, wearing nothing on his head or his feet, until he stood before the throne.

  “Coming from an ancient, aristocratic family,” said Muhammad Farid, “I shared Mustafa Kamil’s nationalist stance from the start. For this reason, I resigned from the government to devote myself to the patriotic cause above all else. My bond with Mustafa Kamil grew so strong that he named me as his successor to lead our party. I followed his ideology, his way of speaking to crowds and of writing, until I was arrested and tossed into prison. There they tried to persuade me to soften my position in exchange for a pardon, but I rejected any deal. After I got out, I was even more stubborn and refractory than before.

  “I traveled throughout the country, making the case for nationalism, and they conspired to send me to prison with the leaders of the party. I decided to emigrate in order to carry on agitating from abroad. We crafted our escape at the right time and successfully got away. And as much as we were able to accomplish some things outside the country, the party was also subject to weakness and fragmentation within. We bore the bitterness of longing for Egypt and our families, and many people spurned us. Then the 1919 Revolution broke out back home, a totally unexpected revolt, one that never had occurred to my mind. It happened while I was forgotten in exile, while others sat on the leader’s chair instead of me.

  “We proclaimed our satisfaction with the movement’s bosses without believing that most of them were sincere, congratulating the masses for their courage. We cheered the memory of their martyrs and urged them to hold steadfast until the end. My life ended while I was yet banned from returning to Egypt.”