A dark-skinned official’s high rank shocked a young Egyptian’s racial hierarchy
Evidence
I looked at him and saw that he was black, Abyssinian, as if he were a Mamluk’s slave. Yet he was both magnanimous and dignified. I saw how the shaykhs and judges of the area stood before him, and how he counseled them. I stayed around until they had gone, and then entered his chamber and kissed his hand. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 255 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: A black high-ranking official shocked young Mubärak’s racial expectations; Circassian conscripts outranked darker children in Ottoman Egypt’s hierarchy; A black Abyssinian commissioner presiding over Arab dignitaries shocked young Mubarak (+3 more)
Related
- A black high-ranking official shocked young Mubärak’s racial expectations (similarity 0.96)
- A black Abyssinian commissioner presiding over Arab dignitaries shocked young Mubarak (similarity 0.94)
- A black Abyssinian official commanded deference from powerful Egyptian shaykhs. (similarity 0.92)
- Nineteenth-century rural Egyptians equated high office exclusively with Turkishness, not blackness (similarity 0.88)
- A dark-skinned high official’s rank shattered Mubarak’s racial hierarchy assumptions (similarity 0.87)
- Mubarak was deeply disturbed by a black African holding high office. (similarity 0.80)
- A village boy’s worldview equated racial blackness with slavery’s limits until shown otherwise (similarity 0.79)
- Egyptian social rank relied on race and ethnicity, not just wealth and family name. (similarity 0.79)
- Egyptian elites reframed slave descent as honorable social-capital currency (similarity 0.79)
- Circassian conscripts outranked darker children in Ottoman Egypt’s hierarchy (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- A black Abyssinian official commanded deference from powerful Egyptian shaykhs.
#corroborates(0.85) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 255 - Egyptian social rank relied on race and ethnicity, not just wealth and family name.
#corroborates(0.70) - Government schooling enabled a manumitted slave to rise to high office in Egypt
#corroborates(0.50)