"For His Correction and as a Deterrent Example For Others" Mehmed Alī's First Criminal Legislation (1829-1830)

Abstract

Until now, the first criminal legislation promulgated by Mehmed Alī has been available only in an unreliable Arabic summary. In this essay, I edit and translate the original Ottoman Turkish text, as found in the Egyptian National Archive. The edition and translation are preceded by an analysis of the code in which I argue (1) that this code is best regarded as an expression of Mehmed Alī's attempt to centralize and rationalize the governmental apparatus and the administration of justice, in order to tighten his control over Egypt; and (2) that the document can be read as an articulation of the perceived social distance between the Turkish-speaking ruling class and other groups in Egyptian society.

Fiscal Dimensions of Sustainable Development

“…Public outlays on health care are positively correlated with life expectancy at birth 38 and negatively correlated with malnutrition rates. 39 However, the majority of econometric studies find that per capita income is a much more important determinant of health outcomes than health spending. 40 Nonetheless, many of these studies have focused on the nexus between total public spending on health care and the health status of the population as a whole.…”

At the Crossroads of Empires

“…Such demands for labor could very well be the reason behind transformations in criminal punishments. In this era, capital punishment was replaced with hard labor in government arsenals and shipbuilding so as to ensure an adequate number of workers (Lane 1989(Lane [1836Peters 1999a). In later years, when a cattle murrain killed off livestock utilized to power machinery, criminals and invalid men were used in their place (Hekekyan 1843, 2: folio 148).…”

“…Coterminous to demands for labor serving as a catalyst for efforts to clear the streets of the idle but able-bodied, fear of crime was also one impetus behind efforts to clear the streets of the itinerant poor. In 1829, Ibrahim Pasha, Muhammad Ali's son, decreed a criminal code which included calls for the arrest and forced employment of gypsies, peasant women, orphans, and invalid men found begging on the outskirts of Cairo (Peters 1999a).…”

“…The reinitiation of prohibitions on begging fit within the Egyptian government's repeated attempts to control access to the city of Cairo, its efforts to harness the labor potential of workers for industry (1830s) as well as peasants (1840s and 1850s), and its ongoing concern with order and the regulation of space. Muhammad Ali's use of the tadhkira system to control peasant flight had been modeled after that in use in the Ottoman Empire, but in the case of precedents for the policing of public spaces and the use of shelters, he looked to the French Code Pénal-various articles of which had been applied in other areas of the criminal justice system (Peters 1999b)-for approaches to dealing with the idle poor. Efforts under way to intern beggars in the Mahall al-Fuqara' closely followed strictures on the use of shelters as laid out in the Qanun al-Muntakhabat (promulgated in August 1844), which read: (article 191) In areas where poor shelters are found, beggars must be sent to them and are not allowed to leave for a period of three months and that person will be treated as a prisoner.…”