Esmat Mohamed Hassan, Aspects of Egyptian Social Life through the Writings of Al-Jabarti, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation, pp200
In his work the premiere historian of Cairo Abdul Rahman Al-Jabarti (1753-1825) demonstrates how changes in political life reshape society. Unlike most historians of his time, writing daily, Al-Jabarti paid close attention to every aspect of life: saints anniversaries, weddings and funerals, the Hajj, protests and revolutions take up as much space as major political events. He writes about the inner life of his times, and records encounters with the French scientists who came along with Napoleon Bonaparte.
In the preface to his book, Aspects of Egyptian Social Life through the Writings of Al-Jabarti – first published in 2003 – Alexandria University historian Esmat Mohamed Hassan explains, “We cannot understand our history or apprehend the present, nor can we draft a correct, successful, straightforward method to deal with the near and distant future, without both close contemplation and a broad perspective on that recent period of our history.”
Supplementing Al-Jabarti’s definitive tome Ajaib Al-Athar fil Tarajim wal Akhbar (The Marvelous Compositions of Biographies and Events) with other works from that period, Hassan provides as exhaustive a picture of Egyptian society in the late 18th century as possible. The book is divided into thematic sections. In the first the author discusses society’s demographic makeup: the rulers (divided into Turks, military leaders, Mamelukes, and religious scholars); and subjects (merchants, fellahin, members of trade guilds, non-Muslims, Bedouins and women). He deals not only with these categories roles but also with their distinct customs and costume.
In the second section of the book, Hassan deals with social functions, focusing on celebrations both religious and secular including the Flooding of the Nile and the reception of the Ottoman viceroy as well as everyday weddings and circumcision celebrations. Hassan goes on to discuss the spread of Sufism, its excesses and corruption – a topic Al-Jabarti, being a practitioner of Sufism himself, spent time elucidating – as well as the rise of religious quackery and the role it played in social and economic decline building up to and through the Ottoman era. Hassan also deals with the health conditions of the population at that time, dealing with drought, famine and plague.
Hassan dwells, as Al-Jabarti did, on smallpox, ophthalmia and bubonic plague, describing the effects of a bad crop when low water levels led to food shortages that left all but the richest hungry. He also spends time on medical practices and facilities including the country’s only hospital in Cairo, returning to the theme of quackery. He quotes one episode that Al-Jabarti cites when a sheikh gave a relatively well-off man the wrong powder for his eyes by mistake, blinding him for life.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 1 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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