The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

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Cairo, 1908. The heyday-or was it just past the heyday? — of indirect British rule. Thirty years earlier the profligate Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, had brought his country to the edge of bankruptcy. The Western powers had stepped in but at a price, and their yoke bore hard. In 1881 Egyptian unrest became open rebellion. To safeguard its financial interests Britain sent in an army, crushed the rebels and restored the Khedive, but from now on the Khedive governed in name only; the real ruler of Egypt was Cromer, the British Agent and Consul-General. A complex apparatus of control was introduced. There were British “advisers” at the top of all the major ministries; the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Army, the Sirdar, was British; so were the inspector-general of prisons, the commandants of the two key police forces of Cairo and Alexandria, and of course the Mamur Zapt, the head of the Political CID-the Secret Police.

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