Religious framing for troops failed once Egypt fought the Ottoman Sultan’s army
Evidence
And if this were indeed the case, can one argue that the soldiers, in spite of knowing that they were fighting the Pasha’s own wars, still managed to produce all the victories that they did? Was there at least an attempt on the part of the Pasha and his authorities to sell these wars, so to speak, to the soldiers as their own wars? As the example mentioned above shows, the language used both to incite the soldiers to fight and to describe their performance afterwards was often a religious language. Referring to the Egyptian fighters as the “believers,” to the enemy as the “infidels,” quoting from the Quran, and citing particular episodes from Islamic history, all show that defending the faith, rather than the patrie, was, in this case, the prime concern of officers and soldiers alike. In the Morean war, when the enemy was composed of the Christian Greek subjects who had rebelled against the authority of the Ottoman Sultan, this could very well have been the case. However, the situation was essentially different during the Syrian campaign, when the enemy was nothing other than the army of the Ottoman Sultan, the Defender of the Faith and Protector of the two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. Using religious language to incite the soldiers to fight the Asakir-i Mansure-yi Muhammadiyye (The Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad), as the new Ottoman army was called after 1826, would not have been appropriate. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1313
Categorization
- DEFINE: Explains the Ottoman-era name Asakir-i Mansure-yi Muhammadiyye and when it came into use.
- QUESTION: What alternative motivational language did Mehmed Ali’s officers use facing the Syrian enemy, if religion was impossible?