Egyptian scribes felt deep ambivalence about defeating the Ottoman sultan’s army

Evidence

The tension apparent in this act of defacing and disfiguring an official text was not only caused by two competing scribes with different systems of inscription, though. Like the case of the incomplete training manual mentioned above this tension that is already manifest in the text is symptomatic of deeper tensions in society. For Mehmed Munib could have asked for the Ottoman scribe’s words to be simply replaced by his; rather, he kept the Ottoman scribe’s words and crossed them out and then wrote his words above. This, arguably, is a reflection of the ambivalence that the scribes in Mehmed Ali’s service and especially those in the army felt when referring to the defeats inflicted on the Ottoman army, the army of the “Defender of the Faith,” the “Protector of the Two Holy Shrines,” as the Ottoman Sultan was known. We have already seen Mehmed Ali being ambivalent himself regarding his act of rebellion against his master in Istanbul. It is true that Ibrahim, and probably his men in the army, too, did not have so many scruples and were keen on asserting their victories in a clear, unambiguous way. Nevertheless, it has to be remembered that the battle of Horns was the first real encounter in open field between Ibrahim and the Ottomans. (The siege of Acre, although it took place two months earlier, was, firstly, a siege and not an open battle, secondly, it lasted for an entire six-month period, and, thirdly, was not fought by any Imperial forces dispatched from Istanbul the way the Ottomans fought in Horns.) Referring to the Ottoman defeats was an embarrassing matter for the officials in Mehmed Ali’s administration. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 961

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Mehmed Ali’s own ambivalence about rebelling against Istanbul discussed earlier in this book.