Egyptian peasants rejected religious justifications for army service

Evidence

All attempts to persuade the fellahin that serving in the army was a religious duty and that being drafted was not like corvée labor fell on completely deaf ears. Even before the Pasha had turned against the Ottoman Sultan, the call to arms in defense of the faith, against the Persians, the Russians or the Greeks, was a completely alien and meaningless call with little or no emotional appeal. “A recruiting party with all the allurements of drums, ribbons, and promises, might march from Rosetta to Assouan without picking up a single volunteer … ” Anxious about the lot of their families left behind and the land that would necessarily lie fallow, the peasants found little incentive to join the colors, and given the illogical, “most arbitrary and unsparing” method of conscription, they attempted to resist it through all means possible. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 470

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Egyptian peasants saw no incentive to volunteer for military service at all (similarity 0.95)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army (similarity 0.89)
• Egyptian peasants universally hated conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.87)
• Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.86)
• Egyptian peasants experienced conscription as oppressive taxation rather than patriotic service (similarity 0.85)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army. (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian conscripts resisted the Pasha’s army through desertion and self-mutilation (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian peasants refused marriage and children to protest conscription. (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian peasants blinded and mutilated themselves to evade conscription. (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian conscripts served Mehmed Ali’s army entirely against their will (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian peasants overwhelmingly resisted conscription despite ideological appeals, via open rebellion (similarity 0.83)
• Fellahin resistance to Mehmed Ali’s conscription was pervasive. (similarity 0.83)
• Over 30,000 Egyptians rebelled against Mehmed Ali’s conscription in 1824 (similarity 0.83)
• Universal conscription of Egyptian peasants was adopted reluctantly after other options failed (similarity 0.83)
• Conscript soldiers resisted the Pasha’s project and undermined his army’s power (similarity 0.82)