"I had not the benefits of early education. I was forty-seven years old when I learned to read and write. I have never seen countries more civilized than my own; so I do not expect to do what you are able to do, and to reach the height at which you have arrived.

 The difficulty is to begin. I had to begin by scratching the soil of Egypt with a pin; I have now got to cultivate it with a spade; but I mean to have all the benefit of a plough.

I have begun to improve her (Egypt); and she may be compared, in some respects, not only with Eastern, but with European countries. I have much to learn, and so have my people; and I am now sending 'Adham Bey with fifteen young men to learn what western countries can teach.  They must learn to work with their own hands; they must see with  their own eyes; they must examine western manufactures; they must try to discover how and why they are superior to us; and when they have been among European people a sufficient  time, they must come home and instruct my people."  {Muhammad `Aliy  Waliy Misr ; Viceroy of Egypt}

Industrialization seemed a precondition of a powerful independent state. It was natural, therefore, that Muhammad `Aliy should associate military power and its need for modern educated personnel with the establishment of an industrial complex to supply and equip his army; to increase his wealth and independence as well as to support the apparatus of a strong state.
 

The initial educational policy of Muhammad `Aliy thus had limited goals. It aimed primarily at the formation of a group of technicians capable of performing specific tasks for the State, especially its armed forces. Foreigners trained the Armed Forces and instructed Egyptians in technical skills necessary for the operation of State factories and public works. Professional schools of engineering, agriculture and medicine were staffed until 1845 mainly by Europeans, while the preparatory schools founded by the Pasha to prepare recruits for the higher professional colleges were entirely manned by Egyptians who had been trained in Europe.

 By 1835, Egyptians trained in Europe were already teaching in the professional colleges of Egypt. Such early graduates as the medical doctors Ibrahiym al-Nabarawiy and Muhammad al-Shaf`iy achieved eminence on the teaching staff of the Medical School and after 1845 replaced Europeans as heads of the School itself. The engineer and mathematician Muhammad al-Bayyuwmiy was, by 1836, a leading member of the Buwlaq Engineering School teaching staff. In 1849 another prominent Egyptian engineer, and later educator,` Aliy Pasha Mubarak, became principal of the same Engineering School.
 
 

 According to Ya`quwb Artiyn Pasha Italian was the most commonly used foreign language in Egypt until 1820, and initially it became the language of teaching - the medium of communication between teachers and students. Since not all Egyptian students could be sent abroad to study the appropriate languages, nor could the Pasha wait for some years until they acquired a knowledge of them, an elaborate scheme of groups of translators was devised for each professional school, to train these translators both for the classroom and for the preparation of manuals and texts for students. By 1835, Egyptians trained in Europe were already teaching in the professional colleges of Egypt.

 One may ask, why was Italian abandoned in favor of French by 1830?  One can only speculate that the cause of this shift was due to the influence of two prominent Frenchmen:  One was Colonel Sèves (Sulayman Pasha al-Firnsawiy); who was instructed with the training of the modern Egyptian army.  The other, Clot bey,  was given the responsibility in 1827 of all public health and medical School in Egypt including the founding in 1827 of the Medical school at Abuw Za`bal  north of Cairo.

The need for translated texts and their availability to the many state schools did not merely prompt the training of a generation of Egyptian translators and the founding of a Government Press. It also generated an interest, in Muhammad `Aliy  personally and in those students who studied abroad, in the collection of European books. In turn, this interest led to the creation of the first state libraries in the country.  (In the past, libraries had been exclusively attached to mosques and monasteries.)

In terms of education, and the beginning of a scholarly and intellectual milieu in Egypt, the founding of the printing presses and the School of Languages and Translation were perhaps the two greatest achievements of the Muhammad `Aliy period within Egypt.  However, this did not detract from the importance of the educational missions overseas. Apparently the interest of Muhammad `Aliy in a government press rose from his concern for the issuance and wide distribution of laws, regulations, order and ordinances throughout the country.  A press, so to speak, for the printing of government documents. He was also concerned with the provision of textbooks and manuals for his armed forces and newly founded schools. The machines, paper, and other essential materials for the presses were first imported from Italy, including Arabic, Italian and Greek fonts (letters).

Soon, ink and paper were being manufactured in Egypt, dispensing with their importation from Italy. The first technicians for both the press and the related factories of paper and ink were Syrians, Armenians and Italians. The publication of government decrees, orders and regulations facilitated more regular communication between central authority and the provinces and perhaps helped integrated a more effective administration.

Above all, the Pasha considered the printing press one of the best means of transferring modern technology to Egypt. (1)  After four years of study in Muhammad `Aliy in the techniques of printing, Niquwlah (Nicola) al-Masabbakiy al-Turkiyy (2) returned to Egypt to set up the first Arabic press "Sahib al-Sa`adah" in the Alexandria Arsenal (tirsanat al-bahariyah). This was later moved to Buwlaq, Cairo.  Soon there were printing presses in the Turrah Artillery school; the medical school at Abuw Za`bal; Madrasat al-Firuwsiyah the cavalry school at Giyzah; and at Tirsanat al-Qal`ah  the Citadel Arsenal.  In 1827, there appeared "al-gariydah al-khidawiyah"  the khedivial journal printed both in Turkish and Arabic at the citadel press. The following year saw the publication of "al-Waqa'i` al-Misriyah"  the Official Gazette, a third paper, "Le Moniteur" appeared in French at the Ra's al-Tiyn Press (Egyptian Admiralty) in 1832-3.

Printing and translation efforts, as well the proliferation of presses,  became a source of enlightenment for the Egyptian masses in many areas of knowledge.  This in turn led to the revival of the Arabic language and Arabic studies in general. The publication of books in Arabic became the basis of further educational and social advances and change in Egypt.  Ultimately Egypt emerged as the center of both modern technological learning and Arab-Islamic culture in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Muhammad `Aliy now embarked upon a massive state program of translation from European languages into Arabic. For this purpose, in 1835, the Pasha founded Madrasat al-'Alsun, a School of Languages which, for the next twenty years, had the most direct influence of any institution over educational and cultural matters in Egypt. The first trainees of the school were 'Azharite students and teachers who knew Arabic well.  Moreover, newly trained Egyptian medical doctors, engineers, agriculturists and scientists were assigned specific translation tasks once they had learned, not only the particular science of their specialty, but also the appropriate foreign language in which many of its sources were written.

For all the reasons stated above, Muhammad `Aliy insisted upon total governmental supervision over education, and the selection of students for the schools who were then treated as soldiers under military supervision. Education, in his view, was simply a means to an end. His desire for modernity, which was a precondition of his power ambitions, led the Pasha to bypass the traditional cadres of Egyptian leadership in education, who were also the arbiters of social norms. Further, by promoting the rise of a state trained, European influenced native élite of public officials, teachers, technical scientific and administrative officers, his state educational program unwittingly eventually produced the conditions under which an intellectual schism would be felt a century and a half later.

The support Muhammad `Aliy gave to the drive toward modernization programs had a serious drawback;  the Pasha  had a mania for foreigners, and as Cameron says, "the Pasha and the foreigners were drawn together by a mutual necessity: they both wanted money; he, for consolidating his power, and they out of sheer greed and rapacity"

Under Muhammad `Aliy the Europeans began to be the privileged class of Egypt. He created absolute trading and manufacturing monopolies which he shared with European Consuls, who had to agree to his exorbitant terms but who reaped the benefits anyway.  As a result of these deals, "a wail of agony rose from every peasant in the land" (3)

(To be continued)

Foreigners now came to Cairo looking for something subtly different. They were mostly Europeans sniffing the Egyptian air, and many of them had an uncanny nose for what was going to happen and for what might be useful to some future situation in their favor. They thronged to Egypt to dig up profitable lumps of antiquity.  Muhammad `Aliy's open door policy toward the West had opened an exotic path for the tomb robbers, the antiquarians, and the Orientalists.  In short, the vandals were outnumbering and outlasting serious scholars.  Every foreign Consul in Cairo was taking part, indiscriminately, in the monopolies that Muhammad `Aliy had set up, and  they were all, without exception, involved in the biggest racket of smuggling Egyptian antiquities in history.  Ironically George Gliddon (4), an egyptologist, in his 1841 pamphlet: An Appeal to the antiquaries of Europe begged European adventures to be more discriminating in their plundering of  Egyptian antiquities, though, God forbid, not suggesting that they desist altogether! Next:

(1) The first educational missions in the period 1809-16 were conceived in  the view of training Egyptians in the art of printing.  The printing press at Buwlaq was in operation by 1822 when its first book was published that year: An Italian-Arabic dictionary prepared by Father Rufa'iyl (Rafael) Zakhuwr ( a Lebanese). (2) Niquwlah al-Turkiyy ( 1763-1828) a famous poet in the princely court of Bashiyr II  ( from Dayr al-Qamar in Gabal Lubnan, Mount Lebanon)  was one of the  main Arabic sources on  the history of the French expedition in Egypt .   He was the author of Dhikr tamalluk Djumhuwr al-Faransiyah `ala al-'Aqtar al-Misriyah wal Shamiyah ( Abbreviated as al-Tamalluk) and Mudhakirat Nikuwlah al-Turkiyy ( abbreviated as Mudhakirat).   Nicola was in close contact with the French Orientalist J. J.  Marcel who was in charge with the first printing press introduced during the French expedition. He was later commissioned by Muhammad `Aliy to head the efforts of introducing the printing press and its technology in Egypt.  (3 )D. A. Cameron. Egypt in the Nineteenth Century (London 1898) (4) GLIDDON, George Robins, archaeologist, born in Devonshire, England, in 1809; died in Panama, 16 November, 1857. At an early age he went to Alexandria, where his father was a merchant, and also United States consul. For nearly twenty-three years he resided in Egypt, and during a great part of that time served as United States vice-consul, he visited the United States, and lectured in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia on Egyptian antiquities. He was agent for the Honduras interoceanic railway at the time of his death. He wrote " A Memoir on the Cotton of Egypt" (London, 1841) ; "An Appeal to the Antiquaries of Europe on the Destruction of the Monuments of Egypt" (1841)-"Discourses on Egyptian Archaeology" (1841); "Ancient Egypt" (1850" new ed., 1853); "Types of Mankind," written in conjunction with Dr. Josiah C. Nott, which contained contributions from Agassiz and Dr. Samuel G. Morton (Philadelphia, 1854)" and "Indigenous Races of the Earth," with Dr. Nott and others (1857).