Egyptian peasant-soldiers had been denied the right to bear arms for centuries.

Evidence

The purpose of following the soldiers of this army so closely is not only to document their unprecedented experience and to check their reactions to what were novel and unfamiliar practices and institutions; it is also, and primarily, to check the validity of the common belief that this army was instrumental in raising Egyptian national consciousness and, indeed, in founding modern Egyptian nationalism specifically by giving these thousands of men the opportunity to bear arms and to defend their nation, a “right” that they were denied for centuries, if not millennia. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 20