Village shaykhs were whipped and fined for harboring deserters

Evidence

Having succeeded in escaping from their units, where did these men go? One obvious place was to go back to their villages. After the registers had been checked and the villages of these deserters identified, however, an order would be issued to the governor of the province in which these villages lay. The order would give the names and descriptions of the deserters; the shaykh of the village would be fined fifty piasters for every deserter found in his village as well as receiving 100 stripes of the whip. Spies (baṣṣāṣṣīn) were also sent roaming the countryside searching for deserters. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1346

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• DEFINE: ‘basṣāṣṣīn’ (spies) and the fine/whip penalties introduce the Egyptian coercion vocabulary.

Related

• Village headmen were whipped and fined fifty piasters per deserter harbored (similarity 0.91)
• Village shaykhs helped peasants evade conscription by force (similarity 0.81)
• Village shaykhs held the local knowledge conscription depended on and often refused to cooperate. (similarity 0.78)
• Mehmed Ali punished officers for desertions with salary deductions (similarity 0.78)