Rural Revolt and Provincial Society in Egypt, 1820–1824

Abstract

Given Gabriel Baer's 1962 study “Submissiveness and Revolt of the Fellah,” there should be no more talk of the political passivity of Egyptian peasants and their rural neighbors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Baer demonstrates that rural uprisings were frequent and widespread during the years just before and on into the regime of Muhammad Ali Pasha. Furthermore, he describes three series of provincial rebellions which were significantly larger and better organized than any that preceded them. These three series of rebellions, which are associated with the village of as-Salimiyyah between Qina and Farshut in 1820–1821, with that of al-Ba'irat opposite Luqsur in 1822–1823, and with virtually the whole of Qina province in 1824, illustrate both that a very large number of people in this region would actively support an antigovernment leader during the 1820s and that these people were willing and able to establish effective and legitimate governmental institutions of their own on a local level.