Egyptian nationalism framed Sudan as Egypt’s natural colonial site, not a threat

Evidence

The Sudan itself is lost here, serving only as the anathema to Egypt, the darkness against which Egypt is better drawn in contrast. But two years after publishing Mawäqial-aflak, al-Tahtawï published his masterpiece on Egyptian history and geography, Manähij al-albäb al-misriya fï mabähij al-adäb al-`asriya, in which the Sudan serves a much more complicated purpose. … In Manähij al-albäb, al-Tahtawï presents Egypt as a natural community, using the word watan and the phrase hubb al-watan (love of the nation, patriotism) to discuss both the unity that bonded Egyptians to Egypt and their duty to their country. This community was not an Arab one, as Hourani points out, but specifically an Egyptian one. To inculcate this sense among his readers, al-Tahtawï drew sharp lines along Egypt’s borders. Israel Altman suggests that this increased sense of geographic and national specificity was al-Tahtawï’s response to European colonialism, which he realized was beginning to target Islamic countries. … But European colonialism was less a threat to al-Tahtawï and more a model, offering great promise for Egypt’s future colonial expansion in its natural site, the Sudan. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 235

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on resistance to European colonialism reproducing colonial hierarchies within the colonized world.