The offense punished was violating the sovereign’s person, not the brutality itself.

Evidence

When Mehmed Ali heard about this he was so furious that he expelled this governor from public service. He explained that he did so not because of the brutality of the punishment, but because he was not authorized to do so by the Pasha in person. Here we come at another logic of these “inhumane,” severe corporal punishments. They were seen as acts of retribution exacted by the Sovereign against someone who dared to violate his wishes. Again the Old Ottoman Criminal Code offers a good example of how certain acts were punishable because they were seen as infringements of the Sultan’s rights, e.g. forging decrees and legal certificates and counterfeiting currency. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 674

Categorization

• XREF: Directly states Foucault’s sovereign-power logic: punishment reconstitutes injured sovereignty — parallels the reader’s interests in sovereignty and state violence from the Sacrifice article and Frankfurt School readings.