Sudanese slave origins carried stigma even in Egypt’s cultured elite

Evidence

Muhammad Imäm al-Abd grew up in roughly the same generation as Ahmad Lutfï al-Sayyid. Born in either 1860 or 1861, he came of age in the house of an Ottoman-Egyptian pasha in the wealthy Cairo neighborhood of Garden City, not far from the British barracks. This area was also a short distance from the Azbakïya Gardens, the part of the city that, by the late nineteenth century, had become a vibrant cultural center studded with theaters and music halls and coffeehouses frequented by young musicians, poets, writers, and journalists. Like his artistic contemporaries, Imäm al-Abd began his education in a kuttab and then entered one of the elementary schools created by Khedive Ismaïl; like them, as he grew up he wanted to write poetry. As an adult, he spent many hours at the same coffeehouses with budding young poets like Hafiz Ibrahïm, the musician Sayyid Darwïsh, and the comedic playwright Badi Khayrï. But unlike them, Imäm al-Abd was the child of two Sudanese slaves. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 785

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Both Egypt and Sudan struggled to fit former slaves into nationalist identities — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 782; Sudanese slave women served as boundary markers for Egyptian racial and civilizational identity; Popular Egyptian culture stereotyped Sudanese as a servant class within the empire. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 57 (+3 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Both Egypt and Sudan struggled to fit former slaves into nationalist identities — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 782; Sudanese slave women served as boundary markers for Egyptian racial and civilizational identity; Popular Egyptian culture stereotyped Sudanese as a servant class within the empire. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 57 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Elite Egyptian households absorbed Sudanese slaves so thoroughly that their origins became bedtime folklore #complicates (0.82)
• Egyptian writers framed Sudanese slave influence as an internal threat to elite households #complicates (0.75) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 449