by Rasha Adly
I woke this morning to the sound of pot lids clanging against one another. It was a terrible racket, growing louder and louder until it drowned out all other sound, deafening. I did not know what this could mean: why were they doing this? When I saw the masses of humanity in the street, it dawned upon me that this had been the signal to congregate. Men—old men, young men, boys, and even children of every stripe and manner—poured out into the squares and gathered on every street corner and in every passage and alleyway and in the mosques and churches and synagogues. They spilled out into the streets, rage on their faces, bearing all manner of impromptu arms such as sticks, staffs, knives, and daggers. Some went directly to the houses of French people to exact their vengeance. When General Dupuy, the commander of Cairo, heard the news, he took a contingent of men out to fight, and went straight to the home of the Turkish judge, Ibrahim Adham Effendi. The Egyptians were gathered outside the house of the judge, complaining loudly of the injustice they suffered, and calling for justice for Sheikh Muhammad Karim, whom Bonaparte had ordered to be executed by firing squad in Alexandria. Moments after General Dupuy arrived, his head was cleaved from his body.
It was as if the cry of demons had reverberated throughout every corner of this calm city. In every place, at the same time, there was robbery, looting, and murder of Frenchmen. At the moment when Dupuy was murdered, the army bakers were being slaughtered at the hands of the people of Bulaq, and General Caffarelli’s house was robbed and looted, and his architectural equipment and personal equipment destroyed. An attempt was made on his life, but he escaped death by a providential miracle. Not only that, but they scattered the heads and other body parts of the dead in the streets and alleyways. It was an extremely painful and repulsive sight.
The people of Cairo had neglected to take over the rooftops; the French positioned themselves there, aiming their weapons and cannons onto the heads of the populace. French fire erupted from the Citadel into the city; it was aimed at al-Azhar Mosque, the coal market, the Ghuri market, and the Carpenters’ Alley. The neighborhood of Bulaq was completely destroyed. The French continued their barrage on al-Azhar. Not only that, but they galloped into the heart of the mosque on horseback, and burned and ruined its religious books and valuable manuscripts and documents. Flames leapt up from within al-Azhar, and the horses urinated and defecated inside that holy place. This incident in particular incited redoubled hatred for all Frenchmen within the hearts of the Egyptians: al-Azhar was not only a mosque or a square to them, but a symbol of Islam, of faith and piety. Al-Azhar is also a university to which students come from every land throughout the world, known as ‘Qiblat al-Nour’ and ‘Qubbat al-Iman,’ the Mecca of Light and the Dome of Faith.
Our soldiers destroyed everything in their wake. Both sides had run amok, unfettered, and the vanquished Egyptians had fought bravely: Egypt’s poor, its peasants, its itinerant salesmen, and its craftsmen, those who knew nothing of fighting and battle and whose only weapon had been their love for their country. The loud reverberations of their hate for us rang out to equal the neighing of the leaders’ horses whose hooves pounded the streets, their turbans upon their heads their only shields against swords and lances.
By nightfall, all was calm. All at once, the streets and alleyways were void of the throngs that had crowded them earlier, although they were filled with dismembered corpses. Dogs came out and howled, and noxious odors pervaded the atmosphere. The cries of night owls and ravens echoed through the air.
The next morning, the fighting raged anew, but considerably less fiercely than the previous day. A delegation of imams, led by Sheikh al-Bakri, went to Bonaparte, asking him to call off his soldiers, in return for which they would call upon the people of Cairo to return to their homes. Bonaparte imposed a condition for this cessation, namely a list of names of the men who had organized this revolt. In the face of Bonaparte’s unbending insistence, they provided him with a list of the imams who had organized and incited the revolt, whereupon he ceded to their request and commanded the immediate cessation of fighting. Concurrently, the imams went out asking the people to give up and return home. Then, Bonaparte issued the order to have the imams who had incited the revolt executed, their heads mounted on the wall of the Citadel, and their bodies thrown over its walls. The execution was carried out, which only fueled the people’s hatred for us. They had only to see one of us in the street for their anger to be unleashed, cursing at us and pelting us with dirt and refuse. The situation had become untenable; any return to the relative calm of before was now unthinkable.
The members of the Campaign were saddened at the death of one of their senior architects in the Cairo Revolt. Testifout had been a kind and keenly intelligent man, and his name had been foremost on the list of assassinations because he had been planning a new layout for Cairo, which meant the demolition of old houses and mausoleums, and the first thing he had done away with were the gates to the neighborhoods that were locked at night and without which Egyptians did not feel secure. These gates had meant security and privacy to them, and that man had come and demolished them, so they had not only killed him but mutilated his corpse, beheading him and mounting his head on one of the gates he had ordered to be destroyed. On the same list were the names of the surgeons who dissected human corpses; this was a violation of the sanctity of the body under Islam, which states that a body must be buried intact. But what I found truly incomprehensible, and was a great blow to me, was the murder of Dupré, an artist whose only concern since we arrived here has been to draw the architecture of the houses, streets, and mosques of this fair city.
One thing I admired and found odd in equal measure was that our neighbors and the inhabitants of the neighborhoods occupied by the scientists of the Campaign, around the palace of Hassan al-Kashef Bey or Beit al-Sinnari, and other far-flung quarters, protected us from being murdered. A number of men had gathered and formed a protective barrier all around the house and prevented it from being looted. This is the Egyptian people: a people to perplex and astonish. Why had they done this? Did they know the value of what we were accomplishing in their country, what works we would leave to history, although they knew not what we were executing or what work we were doing?
I was grateful for the attitudes of the water carrier and the man who sold the licorice drink. They had not forgotten that I had once painted their portraits, and that my only weapons were my brush and palette, so they stayed close to my house with several of their friends to protect me. It was a wonderful way to return the favor: this is a people that does not forget, and can distinguish between those who seek to harm them and those who seek to do them good.
Cairo: October 1798
It had been a strange day from the start. The sun did not rise as usual, obscured by a great dark cloud. Rain began to fall. Was it truly rain, or the tears of the sky lamenting what was to happen on this day?
Ravens had been cawing on the walls of houses, at the gates of alleyways, and on the tops of palm trees, a cry of ill omen, since early on. Zeinab woke to the sound of brass saucepan lids clanging together. Everyone in the house ran to gather in the central courtyard. “Heavens!” Zeinab cried, hands clapped to her ears. “What’s that sound?”
Her mother rushed out, muttering garbled prayers under her breath, the verse of the Qur’an that says, Allah is the best guardian, and He is the most merciful of the merciful.
Sheikh al-Bakri was not immune to the fear that swept the household: he hurried out with his head bare of the great turban he usually wore, forgetting even to put on his caftan over his house clothes. “They’ve done it! They’ve carried out their plot!” he cried, wringing his hands.
“What plot?” Zeinab’s mother asked.
“Yesterday,” he said, “some of the imams from the council addressed the matter of exorbitant taxes, the breaking down of the alley gates, the ransacking of houses, and the confiscation of horses, cows, bulls, and weapons, and demanded that Napoleon cease and desist, but he refused. Several of them pl
otted a revolt!” He shook his head. “It’s the head of the serpent, Sheikh Abdel-Wahab al-Shabrawi! And al-Jawsaqi, the head of Ta’ifat al-Imyan, the order of blind imams!”
“That makes you mad, does it?” she sneered at him. “Don’t they have the right to plan a revolt? Or are you the one who’s blind to the injustice of the French?”
“You don’t think we’ve a chance of winning against them, do you?” he moaned. “We’ll get nothing out of it but that we’ll anger the general, and killing and ruin as well!”
Sheikh al-Bakri tried to keep his son Ahmad from going out and taking part in the revolt; but Ahmad, with the impetuous courage of youth, refused. For the first time ever, his eyes held disdain and resentment toward his father. “Shame on you to keep me from it! And shame on you for not taking part!”
Sheikh al-Bakri vacillated between bouts of rage and spells of silence. His wife kept on muttering Qur’an verses under her breath. Zeinab felt a strange combination of fear and worry for Alton on the one hand, and pride and a sense of challenge that they were standing up to the French, on the other. She wondered what would happen to Alton if the revolt succeeded. Would he be killed? Would they throw him into prison, there to be tortured to death?
Sheikh al-Bakri closed the doors to the house and bolted the courtyard gates, then hid in his bedroom, refusing to eat or drink. The sounds that came to his ears from outside told him and his family the story of what was happening. After a time, the weeping and wailing of women came to their ears, and the cries of battle rang out, echoing throughout the city. The next day, the sound of cannon fire was deafening, and smoke belched into the sky from the fires everywhere. Houses were demolished, their walls falling in upon the heads of those living there, and thousands died under the rubble. Everyone within the house was weeping and crying in terror.
There was a knock at the door. At the first it was a regular knock, gradually increasing in force and speed, indicating that some disaster had struck. Fatima’s heart trembled in fear for her son. Had something happened to him? She ran to the door to open it, praying to God that she was wrong. “God have mercy!” she cried, working the bolt and flinging the door open.
At the door was a great delegation of Azhar students and imams, asking to see Sheikh al-Bakri. Sheikh al-Bakri, who had sequestered himself in his room for a day and a night, thinking of the black fate that awaited him if the revolt succeeded, enjoyed a renewed surge in confidence. He put on his turban, donned his fur caftan, and stood puffed up like a peacock listening to the entreaties and pleas of the delegation, who knew all too well how close he was to the general. They begged him to go to Bonaparte and ask him to cease bombarding the city.
“Of course,” he told them, head raised with his usual arrogance, “I could easily convince Bonaparte to cease firing, but it is no easy matter to get him to forgive those who plotted the revolt. I expect a severe punishment to fall upon their heads.”
The man’s response to the entreaties of the delegation betrayed the pride and arrogance that ran in his blood. This was confirmed to Zeinab, who was watching the entire scene from behind the wooden barrier.
Napoleon agreed to cease firing, on condition that they give him the names of those who had plotted the revolt. The delegation fell silent, suddenly struck dumb. Napoleon threatened to resume firing. Sheikh al-Bakri looked at the delegation, and in a threatening, menacing tone, said, “Perhaps we must sacrifice a few men for the sake of the lives of the people . . . or else there will be no end to the fighting.” He went on, “With one look at what is happening outside, at the severed heads rolling in the streets, the burned bodies, and the people expiring beneath the rubble of demolished homes, we know the fate that we are heading toward.”
The men murmured loudly among themselves, consulting with one another. Sheikh al-Bakri added in order to convince them, “Be assured that with every moment that passes, more of our children and wives are dying.”
At last, they agreed to give the names of the men. One of the imams took on this distasteful duty, grating the names out through a tight throat. He spoke a great many names, foremost among which were Sheikh Abdel-Wahab al-Shabrawi and al-Jawsaqi. Napoleon was pacing back and forth, and as was his habit when preoccupied, had one hand folded behind his back and stamped his feet loudly, while his secretary took down the names and made out an arrest warrant.
The men left Napoleon’s seat weighed down with guilt and shame. None of them could say a word. Silence reigned over them. A few days later, the heads of the imams were mounted on the Citadel walls.
Cairo: October 1798
I was in my studio painting The First Cairo Revolt. The scenes I had witnessed bent my brush to their will; I could draw nothing but this. It was injustice incarnate. I did not obey the commands of our power-mad general by immortalizing him in a painting exalting his courage and strength. I cannot but depict the bravery of this people who came out in defense of their land, bearing whatever makeshift weapons they could lay their hands on—stones, kitchen tools—and took to the streets to resist with these primitive implements in the face of cannons and artillery.
Monge watched me as I painted. When the painting was done, he expressed displeasure. He did not approve of the manner in which I had depicted the Egyptians’ valor in facing down their enemy. I gave his comments all the attention they merited, that is to say, none at all. In art, it is your brush that leads you, and I heeded mine. It is the brush that paints, and not the artist.
After the First Cairo Revolt, something changed about the Egyptians’ attitude toward the Campaign and its leader. This great hatred was a thing that permeated every heart and mind, expelled with the very air they exhaled, until the atmosphere was laden with it. None had forgotten the scene when al-Azhar had been violated, when they had galloped in on their horses and blasted it with cannons, burning and defiling copies of the Qur’an. None had forgotten the sight of the corpses that had filled the streets and the screams of men, young and old, and even of women, being arrested from their homes in dead of night, their bloated corpses bobbing up on the opposite bank of the Nile days later. None had forgotten the heads of the imams mounted next to one another, their mouths stuffed with straw, on the Citadel wall, a choice meal for the worms and ravens.
The populace grieved. Those who had previously been generous with us merely cast us a look of derision. The tradesmen and the bakers, the butchers and the water carriers, would no longer have dealings with us. In the face of this great hatred that surely heralded dire consequences and would doubtless put paid to Bonaparte’s plans to win over the people, the emperor must do something.
The way into Egyptians’ hearts, in his view, was through their religion: but the Azhar incident had destroyed everything he had worked toward. Therefore, when he held a meeting with the leaders and senior scientists of the Campaign, we found him crying out, pounding the table with his fist, “What if an invader stormed the sanctuary of Notre Dame Cathedral, for instance, and wrought such havoc? Would our own people have taken it lying down? Indeed not! What occurred was a mistake and a grave one at that.” This time it was even worse, for what well laid plan could he possibly have made to make these resentful masses forget what had happened?
But he was a genius when it came to strategy, and was not without a plan for long.
It was a little past midnight when one of Napoleon’s men knocked at the door of Sheikh al-Bakri, who was deep in slumber. Not giving him the time to adjust his clothing or properly settle his turban upon his head, the messenger took him off straightaway. Al-Bakri wondered what on earth was going on, stroking his long beard and asking himself what he could want with him at this hour of the night. Would his fate be the same as that of the imams who had been executed? He shook his head vigorously, rejecting the idea. He had, after all, done nothing: on the contrary, he was Napoleon’s faithful man in Cairo. But no one could know the general’s intentions, or what he had in mind. He tried to coax the servant who had come to get him into conversation,
hoping to glean something, but he received no answer.
Sheikh al-Bakri went into the meeting room, rumpled and his turban askew, with a heart that trembled in terror. But his fears were allayed when Napoleon greeted him with a broad smile, “Sheikh al-Bakri!”
The door closed on the pair of them: they did not come out until three hours later, when Sheikh al-Bakri and Napoleon had finished penning a convincing speech to erase all that had taken place from the memories of the Egyptian people. Lines were written, erased, written and erased again, to be replaced with other, more convincing phrases. Finally, Bonaparte was satisfied with the speech and went out to give it to the populace at large.
The Lord God has commanded me to be merciful and forgiving to the populace, and so I have been. I am disappointed by your revolt, which has deprived me for two months of my customary meeting with your Diwan. But today I return to you, clerics, descendants of the prophets, religious scholars, and imams of mosques. I would have you declare that he who sets himself against me in enmity will have no safe place to escape to in this world nor the next. Is there a person who can deny that it is fate that guides all my campaigns? I could judge each person for the slightest emotion they hold within their hearts, for I know everything that is in your hearts, even that which you have told no one.
It was a rousing, religiously inspired speech, where he informed them that he was fated to lead them, and that they must follow. He thus appealed to the fatalistic nature of the Egyptian populace, who fell under the spell of his speech thanks to that very fatalism. It was so convincing that there were rumors that the general would soon convert to Islam and trade in his tricorne for a turban and have himself circumcised. As for Napoleon’s generals and the scientists of the Campaign, they were provoked by that speech, all asking as one man, “What does Napoleon hope to achieve by speaking so?” He became the butt of jokes for some, and the target of disapproval and astonishment for others. A third, smaller, contingent believed that this was the best way to guarantee the safety of the Campaign and achieve its ends.