Abstract
On the evening of the 15th September 1882, General Sir Garnet Wolseley, the commander of the British forces, attended a banquet given in his honour by cAbd al-Baql al-Bakrl, who was naqib al-ashrdf, shaykh al-sajjdda al-Bakriyya and supreme head of the sufT orders in Egypt.1 This event, which took place on the very evening of the day on which the General had entered Cairo, in a sense, seems to be similar to the ecstatic welcome the British troops received in many of the villages in the Delta when, after the battle of al-Tall al-Kablr, they made their way to Cairo:2 an expression of joy that the war was over and that peace had returned, bringing an end to conscription and a return to normal life. In addition, however, it seems justifiable to look upon cAbd al-Baqlal-Bakrl's gesture towards the General as a public manifestation of approval of the occupation by a religious dignitary who had given his support to the khedive against the cUrabiyyun. With regard to the heads of the orders under al-Bakrl's jurisdiction it is known that none of them played any part in the events culminating in the cUrabi insurrection and the subsequent British occupation. There is no reason to suppose, however, that in their attitude towards cUrabI they differed from the majority of those belonging to the religious establishment who, actively or passively, had remained loyal to the khedive.3 An explanation for the apparent political aloofness of these heads of sufT orders can be given when taking into account the nature of the realm of the orders in 19th-century Egypt.4 Since the early 19th century, one of the main structural characteristics of this realm had been
Published Version
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