Public punishment displayed excess rather than justice to affirm the sovereign’s unrestrained power.

Evidence

Underlying all the examples of “spectacular” punishment mentioned above is an attempt to restore the sovereignty of the Pasha which had been momentarily injured by the criminal’s act. These public punishments, therefore, were carried out in such a way as to give a spectacle not of measure, but of imbalance and excess; in this liturgy of punishment, there must be an emphatic affirmation of power and its intrinsic superiority … The ceremony of punishment, then, is an exercise of “terror” … [which intends to make everyone] aware, through the body of the criminal, of the unrestrained presence of the sovereign. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 686

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the logic of a ‘liturgy of punishment’ as an exercise of terror affirming sovereign presence rather than calibrated justice.