Conscription evasion drove Muhammad Ali to introduce passports and tattooed soldiers

Evidence

A solution had to be found for this situation in which the central authorities found themselves at the mercy of the village shaykhs, the nāirs and the ḥākims and subject to their intrigues. New techniques of surveillance were introduced to enable the government to have a tighter control over the population both in the cities and in the countryside. For example, in an attempt to curb the phenomenon of fellahin fleeing their villages and escaping to neighboring ones where they might be caught by the shaykhs of these new villages, the authorities decreed that every villager should carry a stamped certificate or passport (tezkere) which should state his name, his father’s name, his physical description, and his village. If found without this certificate he would immediately be sent back to his village. Even village shaykhs were ordered to carry such tezkeres when visiting Cairo. More radically, the authorities resorted to tattooing some soldiers’ bodies in order to facilitate catching them in case they deserted. When it was discovered that sailors were escaping from their ships every Friday, the day on which they were given leave to go ashore, it was decreed that all marine soldiers should have their arms and legs stamped with the signs of a ship and an anchor. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 481

Categorization

• XREF: The passport (tezkere) and tattoo surveillance parallels the reader’s interest in how the modern Egyptian state built administrative control.
• FICTION: The detail of sailors escaping ships every Friday and being tattooed with ship-and-anchor marks is strikingly evocative for a story about conscription and identity under an authoritarian ruler.