Muhammad Ali’s penal code punished by exile and revenge, not rehabilitation

Evidence

Although imprisonment is certainly less harsh and less spectacular than the scaffold, the way it was stipulated in Qānūn al-Filāḥa shows that it still retained conceptions of revenge against the culprit rather than of using him as a deterrent to stop further crimes. The idea was not to rehabilitate him so that he could be reintroduced into society as a better citizen, but to deprive him of his freedom and control over his own body since he dared to violate one of the Sovereign’s laws. Rather than meaning reform and cohabitation, imprisonment increasingly took the form of exile and banishment. The Qānūn al-Filāḥa. mentions two such places of exile: Mount Fayzuğlu in the Sudan and the Arsenal Works in Alexandria, the infamous Liman. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 693

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that Egyptian imprisonment functioned as exile to Fayzuğlu or the Liman rather than reform.