Al-Tahtawï reconciled his Sudan exile as involuntary yet celebrated it as Egyptian civilizing work

Evidence

This prose summation of the qasïda and al-Tahtawï’s experience in the Sudan offers an interesting opposition of feelings. He made it clear in the qasïda that the only reason he had been sent to the Sudan was the slander of rivals, which resulted in his banishment from his country.Yet he followed that with praise for the work done there by Egyptian intellectuals like himself. This he supported with the assertion that the new school built for the children of Egyptians, the establishment of the first mosque, the introduction of Europeans to the area, and the building of railroads all helped bring the Sudan into modern civilization. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 245

Categorization

• XREF: The personal-grievance-versus-imperial-duty tension recalls how officials elsewhere narrated empire as compensation for domestic failure.