Egyptian peasant offenses were punished by exile to Sudan or the Alexandria Arsenal.

Evidence

The Qānūn al-Filāḥa. mentions two such places of exile: Mount Fayzuğlu in the Sudan and the Arsenal Works in Alexandria, the infamous Liman. The offender was sent to one of these two places of exile as punishment for any number of offenses. Art. 18, for example, stipulates that any fellah or village shaykh who attempted or succeeded in burning a jurn (i.e. storehouse of crops) would have to pay for the cost of the damage he caused; if he could not, however, he would be sent to Fayzuğlu for one year in the case of his burning a jurn; in the case of his burning a house, on the other hand, he would be sent to the Liman for the same period. If this offense was committed for the purpose of evading the land tax, Art. 20 stipulated that the offender be sent to the Liman for life. Art. 27 sentenced those fellahin or village shaykhs who participated in the uprising of a village against the authority of the ma’mūr or the ḥākim by sending the chief instigator (akbar al-mufsidīn) to Fayzuğlu for five years, the other instigators to the Liman for the same period, and any other fellahs or shaykhs who might have participated in the revolt would each be punished with 400 stripes of the kurbāj. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 693

Categorization

• SHARE: The scale and physicality of punishments under the Qānūn al-Filāḥa (400 lashes, life exile for tax evasion) is a specific enough drill-down that a person researching Mehmed Ali’s legal code would care.