The beginnings of municipal government in Egypt

Abstract

It has been often pointed out that, in contrast with the classical Greek city, the Islamic city never developed into an autonomous league of citizens or attained corporate status or rights. It was not independently administered by its inhabitants but by the central government, which created the administrative apparatus of the city and appointed all its important functionaries. Juridically it did not differ from its rural surroundings and it was not distinguished by the grant of privileges. Among other reasons, this was the result of the fact that the Islamic umma was an indivisible unit, and the town was first and foremost considered to be the place where the religious duties of the Muslim could best be performed.' The universal validity of this characterization has recently been challenged. In particular, it has been Professor Claude Cahen who has stressed the existence of different types of urban society in different areas of the Islamic world, and the emergence of autonomous and popular forces in some of the Islamic cities. However, even he has come to the conclusion that such a development did not take place in Egypt, where no traces of urban popular autonomy or municipal development could be detected.2 Compared with the countries of the Fertile Crescent, Egypt always has had a much more centralized government. This was the result of the pre-eminent importance of the government for the economy as a regulator of irrigation by the waters of the Nile, Egypt's relatively easy communications and of its relatively uniform population.