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Egypt The History
Egypt has the oldest continuously existing civilization in the world. Most scholars believe that the Egyptian kingdom was first unified in about 3100 bc. Egypt maintained its independence and unity for many centuries thereafter. It suffered disunity now and then and experienced brief periods of foreign domination—by the Semitic Hyksos in the 17th and 16th centuries bc, the Assyrians in the 7th century bc, and the Persians in the 6th and 5th centuries bc—before the arrival of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 bc. Alexander made Egypt a part of his vast empire.
Alexander’s empire broke up after his death in 323 bc. One of his generals, Ptolemy, became ruler of Egypt, and in 305 bc he assumed the title of king. Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic dynasty. Under these rulers, Egypt became a center of the Hellenistic world—that is, the vast region, encompassing the eastern Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, in which Greek culture and learning were preeminent from Alexander’s conquest until the 1st century bc. Although the Ptolemies preserved many native traditions, they remained unpopular because they kept Egyptians from important governmental posts.
The Romans conquered Egypt in 30 bc, ruling it as a province of their empire for the next several centuries. One of the first countries to be exposed to Christianity, Egypt became predominantly Christian by the end of the 3rd century ad. In 395, when the Roman Empire was divided, Egypt was included in the Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire. By the 5th century a bitter religious dispute over the nature of Christ, involving a doctrine known as Monophysitism, had developed in the Eastern church. This dispute pitted the Coptic Church, Egypt’s indigenous Christian body, and other Middle Eastern Christians against the Byzantine rulers. The conflict weakened Byzantine rule in Egypt and helped open the way to the conquest of Egypt by an Arab army in 641. Many Egyptians welcomed the Arab conquerors as liberators from foreign taxation and religious persecution.
For a detailed history of Egypt up to the Roman conquest in 30 bc, see Ancient Egypt.
Egypt Under the Caliphate
The Arab conquerors brought Islam to Egypt. The country became part of the vast Islamic realm known as the caliphate. The conquerors established their military and administrative headquarters, which they named Al Fustat, in what had been a Roman fortress called Babylon. Al Fustat was situated on the east bank of the Nile south of the delta. Most Egyptians did not at first feel the effects of Arab rule. The predominantly rural population continued to farm the land, practicing Coptic Christianity and speaking the Coptic version of the ancient Egyptian language.
Over the course of many centuries, the majority of the Egyptians gradually embraced Islam and adopted the Arabic language. These changes were due in part to the immigration of some Arab tribes and intermarriage between Egyptians and Arabs. Some Egyptians converted to Islam out of genuine religious conviction, but others did so to secure political or social advancement.
The first great dynasty of caliphs (leaders of the Islamic realm), the Umayyads, ruled Egypt as a province between 661 and 750. They were based in Damascus (in present-day Syria). Their successors, the Abbasids, ruled from their new capital, Baghdād (in present-day Iraq). The Abbasids controlled Egypt from 750 to 868. They imposed heavy taxes on non-Muslims, causing peasant uprisings. The unity of the Islamic world began to erode in the mid-9th century, and Egypt fell under a succession of autonomous foreign dynasties. Two of these dynasties, the Tulunids (868-905) and the Ikhshidids (934-969), improved agricultural techniques, curbed taxes, and reformed governmental administration.
The next rulers, the Fatimids (969-1171), had established an independent rival caliphate in North Africa in the early 10th century. The Fatimid rulers, originally from Tunisia, claimed the caliphate for themselves on the basis of descent from Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Their branch of the faith, (see Shia Islam), was a minority sect in opposition to the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdād, who were majority Sunni Muslims (see Sunni Islam).
Despite the dispute over the caliphate, the first century of Fatimid rule over Egypt was marked by religious toleration, economic prosperity, and relative political freedom. It was probably during Fatimid rule that the majority of the Egyptians became Muslims, although they embraced Sunni rather than Shia Islam. The Fatimids extended Al Fustat northward, creating a major commercial and political metropolis that they renamed al-Qāhira, or Cairo. Untroubled by foreign invaders or conquerors, Cairo soon surpassed other Islamic cities such as Baghdād and Damascus in wealth and population.
During the First Crusade (1096-1099), a military campaign by Western European Christians to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims (see Crusades), Egypt faced a possible invasion. Although the Crusaders captured Jerusalem from a small Fatimid garrison in 1099, they did not invade Egypt. The Fatimids formed diplomatic and commercial ties with the newly established Crusader state known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, with other Crusader states along the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East, and with the various kingdoms and principalities of Christian Europe. Fatimid power declined in the 12th century, and in 1171 Kurdish military adventurer Saladin overthrew the dynasty.
Saladin restored the official status of Sunni Islam and the formal authority of the Abbasid caliphate in Egypt. Soon afterward, he united Egypt with Syria. In 1187 he led the Islamic reconquest of Jerusalem. Saladin’s descendants, the Ayyubids, ruled Egypt, as well as parts of Syria and Yemen, until 1250. Ayyubid relations with the Crusader states varied; some rulers encouraged European Christians to settle in Palestine and even leased Jerusalem to the Crusaders for a short time. However, Egypt’s Nile Delta suffered Crusader attacks from 1218 to 1221 and from 1249 to 1250. The latter invasion, during the Third Crusade, led to the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty by the Mamluks (also spelled Mamelukes), who regarded the Ayyubid rulers as weak and corrupt. The Mamluks were slaves from Central Asia and Caucasus whom the Ayyubids used as soldiers.
Mamluk Rule and Ottoman Conquest
Between 1250 and 1517, Mamluk sultans ruled Egypt along with Syria. The Mamluks successfully resisted invasions by the Crusaders and the Mongols, brought about commercial prosperity, and fostered the arts and architecture, most notably in Cairo. A Mamluk sultan usually bequeathed his position to a son or other relative, but a rival Mamluk claimant often toppled the heir and seized the throne.
The Mamluk sultans who ruled from 1250 to 1382 were commonly referred to as the Bahri sultans. They were the descendants mainly of Turkic peoples from Central Asia. The sultans who ruled from 1382 to 1517 were called the Burji sultans. For the most part, they were Circassians, originally from the Caucasus. Egypt prospered under the Bahri sultans but succumbed to plague, famine, and mounting unrest under the Burji rulers.
Under the Mamluks, Egyptians, Syrians, and other Arabs were barred from positions of political or military power. However, they were able to be ulama (Islamic legal experts), merchants, landowners, and administrators. In 1261 the Mamluk ruler Baybars I reestablished in Cairo the Abbasid caliphate, which the Mongols had destroyed at Baghdād in 1258. The caliphs were allowed to perform only religious duties; the Mamluk sultans retained absolute political authority.
Equipped with cannons and other firearms, the armies of the Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamluks in 1516 and 1517. Egypt became an Ottoman province. The Ottomans sent a governor to Cairo, but a general uprising in 1525 convinced them that it would be wiser to delegate local power to the Mamluks. The Ottoman governors retained nominal authority and appointed the highest Muslim judges, but in practice the Mamluks continued to control Egypt in conjunction with the local ulama.
Egypt prospered in the 16th century but later declined as world trade shifted away from Egypt and the Middle East to sea routes around Africa and across the Atlantic. In addition, Mamluk factional strife caused much devastation in the countryside. In the mid-18th century Mamluk prince Ali Bey made a bold attempt to take Egypt and Syria from the Ottomans, as did his lieutenant and successor, Muhammad Bey. In the late 18th century widespread famine reduced the population of Egypt, and factional fighting in Cairo weakened the authority of the Mamluks.
Muhammad Ali
In 1798 France was at war with Britain, and French general Napoleon Bonaparte led a large-scale invasion of Egypt to disrupt British commerce in the region. Bonaparte quickly established French rule in the Nile Delta and Cairo and set out to conquer lands farther east and south. However, he encountered stiff resistance from the Mamluks in Upper Egypt and from the Ottomans in Palestine and Syria. In August 1798 the British navy destroyed the French fleet as it lay at anchor in Abū Qīr Bay near Alexandria. In 1799 Napoleon escaped to France, leaving behind a French army of occupation. British and Ottoman troops expelled this army in 1801, ending the French presence in Egypt.
Neither the Mamluks nor the local ulama and merchants could immediately fill the power vacuum that resulted from the expulsion of the French. In 1805 Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman officer leading an Albanian regiment, seized control. Backed by Cairo’s merchant guilds, he persuaded the Ottoman sultan to make him governor of Egypt. He slowly consolidated power, defeating an invading British army in 1807 and massacring many of the Mamluks in 1811. Between 1811 and 1819 he helped the Ottoman Empire to regain control of Arabia from the Wahhabis, who had seized control of much of it at the start of the 19th century. Starting in 1820, his troops conquered much of what is now Sudan. To maintain the strength of his army, Muhammad Ali began conscripting Egyptian peasants. With the aid of French experts, he transformed his inexperienced peasant soldiers into a powerful army that fought against Greek rebels who rose up against Ottoman rule in the 1820s.
In return for his assistance in Greece, Muhammad Ali demanded that the Ottoman sultan grant him rule over Syria. The sultan refused, and Muhammad Ali invaded Syria in 1831, defeating the Ottoman forces and briefly creating an Egyptian empire that stretched from Crete to Syria and Arabia. Wishing to protect the balance of power in the region, a British-led European force intervened in 1840 to restore Ottoman power and restrict Muhammad Ali to Egypt. Although forced to give up his territories outside of Egypt, Muhammad Ali secured hereditary rule in Egypt. He became viceroy of Egypt and freed the country of Ottoman control in all but name. The descendants of Muhammad Ali ruled Egypt until 1952.
Muhammad Ali and his heirs took the first steps toward modernizing Egypt’s economy. They ordered the construction of new canals, barrages (river barriers), and factories. Egypt could not industrialize on a large scale because of competition from foreign manufactures, but it did modernize its agriculture. A new irrigation method made possible the cultivation of three crops annually on lands that formerly had produced only one, and cash crops such as tobacco, indigo, and especially long-staple cotton replaced subsistence crops in much of the Nile Valley.
In 1848 Muhammad Ali’s son Ibrahim Pasha, who had led many victorious military campaigns, assumed power, but he died soon after becoming viceroy. (“Pasha” was an Ottoman title, roughly akin to “Lord”; it was the title used by the viceroys of Egypt.) His successor, Abbas I, tried to undo Muhammad Ali’s reforms and to dismiss his French advisers. Abbas authorized the construction (by a British firm) of the first railroad linking Alexandria and Cairo. His successor, Said Pasha, resumed some of the reforms and also authorized French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps to construct the Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas. Completed in 1869, the canal greatly facilitated transportation and trade between Europe and Asia. However, it brought little benefit to Egypt.
Increased Foreign Involvement
Ismail Pasha was Egypt’s ruler at the time the Suez Canal opened. The Ottoman sultan had granted him the hereditary title of khedive two years earlier. Ismail used the canal’s inaugural celebrations to showcase the country’s Westernization, which included the construction of European quarters in Cairo and Alexandria, sumptuous palaces, the Cairo Opera House, and many factories, railways, and telegraph lines. He dispatched military expeditions to expand his empire in Sudan and to explore the African interior. The government could afford such luxuries because of the booming demand for Egyptian cotton, caused by shortfalls of American cotton as a result of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Foreign banks and individuals eagerly invested in Egypt’s economy.
Economic conditions later deteriorated, forcing Egypt to borrow from foreign creditors to finance its projects. To stave off economic crisis, the government adopted drastic measures such as collecting taxes in advance, selling its shares in the company that operated the Suez Canal, and finally declaring bankruptcy. Egypt’s inability to pay back its loans led to the appointment of foreign debt commissioners to monitor Egypt’s finances in 1876, the inclusion of British and French ministers in Egypt’s cabinet in 1878, and finally the forced abdication of Ismail in 1879. Under European pressure, the Ottoman sultan installed Ismail’s son, Tawfik (also spelled Tawfiq), who cooperated with Egypt’s foreign creditors.
Some Egyptians formed nationalist groups to combat the rising European influence. Inspired by Iranian-born Islamic activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, who lived and taught in Egypt for eight years, Egyptians produced plays and published newspapers demanding independence and constitutional rule. Demands for more control over their own country increased when the foreign debt commissioners reduced expenditures on education, economic development, and defense.
During the reigns of Said Pasha and Ismail Pasha, Egyptians had gradually been allowed to enter the officer corps of the military. Egyptian officers organized secret societies in response to discrimination by the traditionally dominant Turkish and Circassian officers. In 1881 an Egyptian colonel named Ahmad Arabi led a mutiny against the war minister and later a larger demonstration against the khedive. He demanded a popularly elected legislature and an increased budget for the army. In early 1882 the nationalists gained control of the cabinet and the army, threatening the Turkish and Circassian officers and even the khedive himself. Riots broke out in the port cities, and Britain and France sent warships to blockade Alexandria harbor.
Arabi, now minister of war, refused an ultimatum to pull down Alexandria’s fortifications. On July 11, 1882, British battleships bombarded Alexandria, setting the city afire. Khedive Tawfik, siding with Britain, declared Arabi a rebel, thus setting the stage for a British invasion and occupation, first of Alexandria, then of the Suez Canal, and finally (after defeating Arabi’s troops at Tel al-Kabir) of Cairo itself. Arabi and his followers were jailed, put on trial, and exiled from Egypt, and the khedive was restored to power.
British Rule
British forces occupied Egypt in 1882. Although the British government intended the military occupation to be brief, Britain became ever more involved in Egyptian affairs. Between 1883 and 1885 British troops attempted to crush a rebellion in Sudan that threatened Egypt’s control of the upper Nile and the Red Sea coast. The rebels, led by Muhammad Ahmad, also known as the Mahdi (“the rightly guided one”), destroyed the British armies that were sent against them. Sudan remained independent until it was conquered by a combined British and Egyptian force between 1896 and 1898.
The British exerted ever more control over Egypt’s government. Their consul general, Sir Evelyn Baring (known after 1892 as Lord Cromer), undertook to reform the country’s finances and to restore public order. His success in reforming finances restored European confidence in Egypt’s economy. However, it also caused a steady increase in the number of British advisers to the Egyptian cabinet and, over time, in the numbers of British irrigation inspectors, judges, police, and army officers. The resentment of ethnic Egyptians, who had long felt excluded from official posts by their Ottoman rulers and Europeans in general, now became focused on the British.
British control led to increased foreign investment in Egypt, greater public security, new public works to improve Nile irrigation, and lower taxation, all of which meant greater prosperity for Egypt. Nevertheless, many Egyptians felt that foreign domination was too high a price to pay for this prosperity. When Abbas II succeeded Tawfik as khedive in 1892, Egyptian nationalists demanded greater control over the ministries. Abbas tried but failed to assert control over the Egyptian army, whose high posts were held by British officers.
Egyptian nationalism was aided by the French and the Ottomans, who resented the substantial British role in Egyptian affairs. The nationalists gained strength under the leadership of Mustafa Kamil, an Egyptian lawyer who had been educated partly in Europe. He founded a newspaper, a school, and finally a political party, the National Party, in his campaign to end the British occupation. In 1906 an altercation between Egyptian peasants and British officers, who were hunting pigeons, stirred up widespread opposition to the British. The British authorities accused the peasants of assaulting the officers, conducted a hasty trial, and sentenced the accused to death, public flogging, or imprisonment. A crisis loomed, but British officials restored calm by making a few concessions and adopting a policy of winning Khedive Abbas over to their side. Mustafa Kamil died in 1908, and his followers split into various factions. After his death the British authorities advised the Egyptian government to muzzle the press.
British Protectorate
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 temporarily halted nationalist activities in Egypt. Soon after the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of Germany in November 1914, Britain, which was already at war with Germany, declared Egypt a protectorate. Abbas II was deposed in favor of his uncle, Hussein Kamil, who was given the title of sultan. Legal ties between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire were formally severed, and Britain promised Egypt some changes in government once the war was over. In the meantime, the British stationed more than 100,000 troops in Egypt, mainly to guard the Suez Canal against German and Ottoman attacks coming from the Sinai Peninsula, and imposed martial law to stifle any expression of discontent.
The war years resulted in great hardship for the Egyptian peasants, who were conscripted to dig ditches and whose livestock was confiscated by the army. Inflation was rampant, harming the city-dwellers in particular. These factors were responsible for increasing resentment against the British and set the stage for a violent upheaval after World War I ended in 1918.
After the war, several nationalists, led by Saad Zaghlul, asked the top British official in Egypt, High Commissioner Sir Reginald Wingate, for permission to go to London to negotiate for an end to the protectorate. The British government refused to meet Zaghlul, who was then exiled with three of his colleagues to Malta. In March 1919 a nationwide revolt broke out, marked by random violence in the countryside, mass demonstrations in the cities, and expressions of national unity between Copts and Muslims.
Britain recalled Wingate and sent General Edmund Allenby, who had led the conquest of Palestine and Syria during the war, to restore order. Allenby freed Zaghlul and his colleagues to attend the Paris Peace Conference as a delegation (wafd in Arabic; the group became known as the Wafd). Although the Allies (the coalition of the victorious nations in World War I, including Britain) ignored the delegation’s demand for Egyptian independence, the Wafd became the major voice for Egyptian nationalism and democracy.
The unrest continued between 1919 and 1922. The Egyptians wanted complete independence, but the British felt they needed to keep their troops in Egypt to guard the Suez Canal, as well as their airports, their radio transmitters, and their other means of communications with India and the rest of their empire in Asia. In 1922 Allenby offered Egypt qualified, or partial, independence, subject to four reservations to be dealt with in future negotiations. These were the security of British imperial communications, the right of Britain to defend Egypt against outside interference, the right of Britain to protect foreign interests and minorities in Egypt, and continued Anglo-Egyptian control of Sudan, which had been placed under the joint administration of Britain and Egypt in 1899.
Qualified Independence
In 1922 Britain declared Egypt an independent monarchy under Hussein Kamil’s successor, Ahmad Fuad, who became king as Fuad I. The British reserved the right to intervene in Egyptian affairs if their interests were threatened, thereby robbing Egypt of any real independence and allowing British control to continue unabated. Egypt’s politicians agreed in 1923 to draft a constitution making the country a constitutional monarchy. The Wafd won the first parliamentary elections, which were held in January 1924. The organization’s leader, Zaghlul, became prime minister and formed a cabinet. The Wafd government did not last long. In November 1924 the British commander of the Egyptian army was assassinated. The police investigation uncovered a nationwide network of terrorists with ties to the Wafd. Allenby handed Zaghlul a stern memorandum containing demands for Egypt’s apology and reparations. Zaghlul accepted some of the demands but chose to resign rather than accept the others.
King Fuad, who saw the Wafd as a threat to his power, named a cabinet made up of politicians opposed to the Wafd. When new elections again resulted in a Wafd majority, the king locked the deputies out of parliament. The British exploited the rivalry between the Wafd and the king to prolong their occupation of Egypt. In 1930 Fuad, with the aid of anti-Wafd politicians, replaced the 1923 constitution with a new basic law that enhanced the power of the monarchy.
Fuad died in 1936 and was succeeded by his son, Faruk I. The government immediately restored the 1923 constitution and held free elections. The Wafd was again victorious and formed a new government.
In 1935 Italy, under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, invaded and conquered Ethiopia, thus challenging Britain’s position as the chief European power in northeastern Africa. The threat from Italy prompted the British and the Egyptian government to negotiate a treaty to resolve matters left outstanding since 1922. The treaty provided for an Anglo-Egyptian military alliance. It enabled Egypt to join the League of Nations and to establish its own embassies abroad. The terms of the alliance allowed British troops to remain in the Suez Canal zone but limited the total number of British troops in Egypt to 10,000 in peacetime. British troops were to evacuate Cairo and Alexandria as soon as the Egyptian government could build new barracks for them elsewhere.
When World War II broke out in 1939, Britain still had troops stationed in Egypt’s major cities. The outbreak of war prompted Britain to increase its garrisons in the canal zone. Many Egyptian nationalists hoped that Britain’s enemies, the Axis Powers (principally Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), would win the war. The British ambassador to Egypt demanded that King Faruk appoint an all-Wafd government, since the Wafd had negotiated the terms of the 1936 treaty and would carry out Egypt’s alliance obligations.
The Wafd government supported Britain’s war efforts in Egypt. The government soon lost its legitimacy as an advocate for Egyptian nationalism. In a vain effort to maintain its credibility it instituted educational and social reforms in the early 1940s and even spearheaded the drive for Arab solidarity. That drive culminated in the formation of the Arab League in Cairo in 1945.
The war ended in 1945, and British troops left Cairo and Alexandria in 1946 but remained in the canal zone. As nationalist sentiment intensified among Egyptians, disaffection with the Egyptian government also grew. The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in 1928 to bring Islamic principles into government and society, gained prominence in the mid-1940s. The growth of labor unions and the prestige gained by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) by its victory over Nazi Germany in the war emboldened Egypt’s Communist movement, although it remained fragmented.
In 1948 Egypt, along with other Arab countries, went to war in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel in the historic region of Palestine. A UN armistice ended the fighting in 1949, with Israel securely established in most of what had been Palestine. Because of Israel’s close ties with various Western nations, Egypt’s defeat aggravated anti-Western sentiment. The defeat also discredited King Faruk and inspired some Egyptian army officers to start plotting his overthrow. Although the Wafd won the parliamentary elections in 1950, it had lost many of its ablest politicians to rival parties and failed to devise policies to stem the loss of public trust in the government. In January 1952 a confrontation in which British troops killed 50 Egyptian police officers sparked a mass demonstration in protest of the killings. Widespread looting and arson that destroyed much of downtown Cairo followed, further discrediting the king and the Wafd, which was immediately dismissed from office, never to return.
The armistice that ended the fighting with Israel gave Egypt control of a small region of Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip. This region remained under Egyptian administration until its capture by Israel in 1967.
Coup and Independence
In July 1952 a secret society in the Egyptian army called the Free Officers, led by General Gamal Abdel Nasser, took control of the government in an almost bloodless coup. They forced Faruk to abdicate and replaced him as head of state with General Muhammad Naguib. Naguib promised to restore democracy and rid the country of corruption. The officers who formed the government soon realized that Egypt needed more comprehensive reforms.
The new government’s first action was to issue a decree that no person could own more than 80 hectares (200 acres) of agricultural land. This action had the effect of breaking up huge estates and redistributing the land to thousands of peasants who owned no land. In the course of the next year the Free Officers took over government ministries to implement other reforms. They banned the old political parties, tried many politicians for corruption, and postponed indefinitely the restoration of parliamentary rule. In June 1953 they put an end to the monarchy by declaring Egypt a republic. Naguib was named the first president of the republic.
Egypt Under Nasser
When Naguib voiced support for the old parties and the Muslim Brotherhood, most of the Free Officers, under the leadership of Nasser, opposed him. In early 1954 Nasser became prime minister, while Naguib retained the presidency. A failed attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to assassinate Nasser in late 1954 gave him a reason to clamp down on the Brotherhood and on other groups thought to favor Naguib, who subsequently was dismissed from the presidency and placed under house arrest. Nasser became acting head of state. He was formally elected president in 1956.
The revolutionaries gave precedence to domestic reforms, but they soon turned their attention to foreign affairs. They secured an agreement by which the British would evacuate the Suez Canal bases by June 1956. They also agreed to let the people of Sudan choose between union with Egypt and independence. The Egyptian government fiercely opposed attempts by the Western powers, especially the United States and Britain, to create a Middle Eastern alliance against Communism. In particular, the Egyptians condemned the British-sponsored Baghdād Pact, which brought together Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan against the USSR. An Israeli raid into the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip in early 1955 underscored Egypt’s military vulnerability and hence its need to buy arms from abroad. Unable to purchase any weapons from the West without conditions, Nasser looked to the Communist countries. In September 1955 he concluded a $200 million deal to buy weapons from Czechoslovakia.
One of the new government’s most ambitious domestic projects, construction of the Aswān High Dam across the Nile, soon had a tremendous impact on foreign affairs. Egypt initiated the project in order to increase cultivable land and generate hydroelectric power. Initially, the World Bank, Britain, and the United States offered to lend money for the project. However, in 1956 the United States withdrew its offer, and Britain and the World Bank followed suit. The U.S. government claimed that Egypt would not be able to repay the loans, but it was widely believed that the Americans were punishing Nasser for recognizing the Communist-led People’s Republic of China. Nasser responded a week later by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company, which operated the canal and was owned by the British and French governments and private investors. In 1958 the Soviet government agreed to help finance the dam project.
Suez Crisis
The takeover of the canal company infuriated the British, for whom the Suez Canal was a vital waterway. It also angered the French, who had built and managed the canal. Both governments threatened to force Nasser to relinquish the canal, despite the U.S. government’s opposition to military action. After diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis failed, Britain and France entered into a secret alliance with Israel, which was already considering military action against Egypt. Egypt had refused to allow Israel to use the Suez Canal and since 1951 had blocked Israel’s access to the Red Sea from its port of Elat through the Egyptian-controlled Strait of Tiran, which lies at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. Furthermore, Egypt was sponsoring Palestinian raids into Israeli territory.
Israel attacked Egypt in October 1956 and soon captured the Gaza Strip and most of the Sinai Peninsula, while Britain and France invaded Port Said and began occupying the canal zone. Within a week, however, the United Nations, at the urging of both the USSR and the United States, demanded a cease-fire, forcing Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw from the lands they had captured.
United Arab Republic
The Suez Crisis enhanced the prestige of Egypt. The canal remained nationalized, Egypt was at last free from British control, and Israel was obliged for the first time to withdraw from Arab territory. The United States and other maritime nations gave Israel an informal guarantee of access to the Gulf of Aqaba. Syria sought to unite with Egypt, and Nasser agreed to the formation of the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958. Syrian enthusiasm cooled, however, as it became apparent that Egypt would dominate the UAR. The UAR suffered a further blow when a new regime in Iraq, which had just overthrown the pro-Western monarchy there in July 1958, chose not to enter the union. Newly independent Sudan also chose not to join the UAR. In July 1961, when the Egyptian government moved toward an openly socialist policy, Syria’s business leaders turned against the union. Syria seceded from the UAR soon thereafter.
Nasser was chagrined at the breakup of the union with Syria. Nevertheless, he retained the name of the UAR for his country and looked for other allies in the Arab world. In 1962 he set up a one-party political system in the UAR, with his Arab Socialist Union the sole party. When Algeria gained independence from France in 1962, the UAR hailed its new regime. When a military coup ousted the ruler of Yemen and established the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962, the UAR recognized the republican regime and sent troops to aid it against royalist forces, which Saudi Arabia supported. This action led to a prolonged proxy war with Saudi Arabia that tied up thousands of the best UAR troops. In 1963, coups in Iraq and Syria led by army officers in the Arab socialist Baath Party installed pro-UAR governments, but talks to bring these countries into the UAR broke down.
Although his attempts to create a political union failed, Nasser promoted Arab unity in other ways. When Israel threatened to draw water from the Jordan River for its national irrigation project, Nasser convened the Arab heads of state to develop a common policy against Israel. In 1964 he facilitated the birth of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), created to provide an organized channel for Palestinian nationalism. In 1966 Nasser made a mutual defense pact with Syria, hoping to moderate the stance of the radical wing of the Syrian Baath Party that had taken power. Instead, the pact emboldened Syria to engage Israel in aerial clashes in April 1967. Israel shot down six Syrian fighter jets and warned Syria against future attacks.
The Soviet government warned the UAR that Israel was concentrating its troops for an invasion of Syria. The Israelis denied the warning, which later proved false. Nevertheless, Nasser responded by sending troops into the Sinai Peninsula, which had been demilitarized after the 1956 war. He called for the removal of UN forces from the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea port of Sharm al-Sheikh, where they had been stationed since the end of the 1956 war. After reoccupying these buffer zones, the UAR announced that it would reimpose its blockade of the Strait of Tiran, preventing Israeli ships from entering or leaving the Gulf of Aqaba. The UAR press and radio also made threats against Israel.
War with Israel
In June 1967 Israel, unable to secure military assistance from the United States or any European nations, launched surprise air attacks against its Arab enemies, virtually destroying the air forces of the UAR, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. In the ensuing Six-Day War, Israel captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from the UAR. Nasser retaliated by breaking diplomatic relations with the United States, which he accused of aiding Israel, and again closing the Suez Canal. Jordan and Syria likewise suffered defeat and lost territory to the Israelis.
In the wake of its defeat, the UAR sought more weapons and military advisers from the USSR. It also began to make peace with Saudi Arabia, on whom it had to rely for economic assistance. Under the terms of a peace plan for Yemen, Egyptian troops were at last withdrawn from Yemen in December 1967. As Saudi influence increased, the Egyptian government began, imperceptibly at first, moving from Arab socialism toward a more Islamic orientation.
In November 1967 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242, a peace proposal that called for Israel’s withdrawal from lands taken in the recent fighting. In 1968 UAR and Israeli forces began firing regularly at each other across the Suez Canal, leading Nasser in March 1969 to declare a War of Attrition against Israel. Israel responded with air and land attacks on the UAR. Nasser, in turn, requested more Soviet military assistance.
In 1970 U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers proposed a peace plan that would have extended Resolution 242 by requiring Israel to give back almost all the land it had taken in 1967 in return for peace treaties with its Arab neighbors. Israel rejected the plan, while Nasser decided to join Jordan in accepting the plan. Palestinian commandos who opposed the plan challenged Jordan’s King Hussein. Nasser called another Arab summit in Cairo and managed to reconcile the two sides. He died of a heart attack within hours after the meeting ended. Nasser’s death and funeral led to an outpouring of grief throughout the Arab world.
Egypt Under Sadat
Anwar al-Sadat, who had been vice president under Nasser, became president upon Nasser’s death. Sadat was generally assumed to be too weak to hold power for long. He surprised everyone in May 1971 by removing Nasser’s most trusted lieutenants from key leadership positions. Sadat quickly gained popular support by repealing many censorship policies, calling for a new constitution, and changing the country’s name to the Arab Republic of Egypt.
Sadat’s early initiatives in foreign policy were less successful. He proposed peace with Israel, calling for an Israeli pullback from the Suez Canal in exchange for Egypt’s renunciation of war. His proposal fell on deaf ears. Libya desired union with Egypt, and in 1971 there was hope for a broader federation including Syria and Sudan, but no union ever occurred. In 1971 Sadat signed a friendship treaty with the USSR, but it did not enable him to buy from Moscow the weapons he wanted. Frustrated that the USSR was not providing Egypt with enough weapons, Sadat asked in 1972 that most of the Soviet military advisers in Egypt leave the country.
Sadat came under increasing domestic pressure to initiate a new war against Israel to recapture the territories lost in 1967. He had hoped that the expulsion of most Soviet military advisers in 1972 would prompt the United States, now Israel’s chief ally, to seek reconciliation with Egypt, but there was no such move on the part of the United States. Meanwhile, the leaders of Israel believed that the Soviet exodus would reduce Egypt's war-making potential, and so they discounted the possibility of an Egyptian attack. In September 1973, during an Israeli election campaign in which the leading candidates favored keeping the captured territories, Sadat made a secret agreement with Syria to attack Israeli positions in the Sinai and in the Golan Heights, Syrian territory that Israel had captured in the 1967 war.
The joint attack, begun on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, broke through the Israeli defenses. Egyptian forces advanced into the Sinai as Syrian forces retook part of the Golan Heights. Neither Egypt nor Syria fully capitalized on their initial gains, however, and soon the Israelis, completely mobilized and rearmed by the United States, went on the offensive. After 18 days of fighting, Israel broke through the Egyptian lines, crossed the Suez Canal, and seized portions of the canal’s west bank down to Suez City. The UN Security Council passed resolutions calling for immediate negotiations between the warring parties. A Soviet threat to attack Israel and a U.S. threat of nuclear war finally ended the conflict. After the fighting ended, Egyptian and Israeli officers met in an attempt to disengage their troops. See Arab-Israeli War of 1973.
Following negotiations by U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger with Sadat and Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, the Egyptian and Israeli governments agreed to a peace conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 1973. The meeting adjourned after one day and was not reconvened. In January 1974 Kissinger began traveling between Egypt and Israel, negotiating with the countries’ leaders in a technique known as shuttle diplomacy. His efforts produced a disengagement agreement that allowed Egypt to keep territory it had recaptured east of the Suez Canal and established a buffer zone separating the Egyptian and Israeli forces in the Sinai. Sadat agreed to reopen the Suez Canal and to allow the passage of ships to and from Israel. The two governments reached an interim agreement whereby Israel withdrew from additional Egyptian territory in return for a pledge by Egypt not to go to war with Israel.
As Egypt edged toward better relations with Israel, Sadat began a domestic economic policy, known as infitah (meaning 'opening'), that encouraged private investment in Egypt. He hoped to stimulate Egypt’s economy, which had stagnated under Nasser’s brand of socialism and the effects of two wars with Israel. In the mid-1970s Sadat drew away from the USSR, terminating the 1971 friendship treaty between the two nations, and moved closer to the United States. Continued economic troubles and the election of a conservative government in Israel prompted him to take drastic action to end the costly conflict with Israel. In 1977 Sadat made a historic visit to Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem to offer a peace settlement.
Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem produced no immediate progress, but his initiative led to further meetings and negotiations between Egypt and Israel. In September 1978 U.S. president Jimmy Carter invited Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin to the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, to continue negotiations. Although the Palestinians and almost all the other Arab governments opposed Sadat’s actions, Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, a framework for peace that provided for Israel’s phased withdrawal from the Sinai in return for full diplomatic ties with Egypt. Further negotiations led to a comprehensive peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979.
Most Egyptians hailed Sadat’s peace policy, mainly because they hoped that it would improve economic conditions. Instead, the economy suffered further from a boycott by Arab nations that opposed Egypt’s separate peace with Israel. Egypt also became politically isolated from the Arab world. It was expelled from the Arab League, and the league’s headquarters was moved from Cairo to Tunis, Tunisia.
In 1978 Sadat tried to promote political freedom by replacing the one-party political system under the Arab Socialist Union with a multiparty system. However, he tolerated no criticism of his peace with Israel and continued to suppress socialist and Islamist groups that he deemed subversive. In September 1981 he ordered the arrest of more than 1,500 dissident political and intellectual leaders, thereby alienating most educated Egyptians. In addition, he imposed a state of emergency to prevent the Islamist groups from gaining power. On October 6, 1981, while reviewing a military parade in Cairo commemorating Egypt’s victory in the 1973 war, Sadat was assassinated by a group of Islamist officers. Egyptian security forces unearthed a widespread conspiracy of terrorists alienated by Sadat’s peace with Israel and the socioeconomic problems caused by his infitah policies. Few Egyptians or other Arabs mourned Sadat’s death.
Egypt Under Mubarak
Vice President Hosni Mubarak succeeded Sadat as president. Mubarak promised to stress continuity in foreign policy and betterment of economic conditions in Egypt. One of his first acts was to release the politicians whom Sadat had jailed. While maintaining Egypt’s close ties with the United States, Mubarak also pursued closer ties with other Arab countries and kept his distance from Israel. By 1987 most Arab states had restored their diplomatic ties with Egypt. Egypt was readmitted to the Arab League in 1989 and the league's headquarters was moved back to Cairo.
Within Egypt, the government continued to move away from state-controlled enterprises but also curbed some of the excesses of businessmen and speculators who had taken advantage of Sadat’s infitah policy. Corruption, even among members of Sadat’s family, was exposed and halted. Mubarak allowed new political parties to form and eased some curbs on press freedom, but he maintained the state of emergency that Sadat had imposed in 1981 to prevent the Islamist groups from gaining power. Yet the government seemed less able than the Islamists, who maintained a traditional Islamic social services network, to deliver medical, educational, and social benefits to poor people. Continued inequities between a rich and powerful minority and the impoverished masses appalled most Egyptians.
In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and Mubarak supported the U.S.-led allied coalition that was formed to reverse the occupation (see Persian Gulf War). Egypt’s intellectuals widely criticized his support of the coalition, and many Egyptians sympathized with the Iraqis. Between 1990 and 1997, radical Islamist groups engaged in violent action to overthrow the government. Members of these groups murdered secular-minded politicians, a leading secularist writer, Copts, and foreign tourists. Mubarak himself barely escaped an assassination attempt in 1995. The government responded by imprisoning or executing numerous radicals. Economic reforms in the 1990s promoted economic development and raised Egypt’s per capita income, but the economy stagnated from 2000 to 2002. Afterward the economy picked up somewhat due in part to a devaluation of the currency in 2003. The peace policy with Israel and Egypt’s close ties to the United States remained widely unpopular. Nevertheless, the Egyptian government formally upheld the peace treaty with Israel and on occasion sponsored meetings aimed at promoting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
During the early 2000s Mubarak continued his policies of suppressing radical Islamists and permitting only weak opposition from other political parties. He was quick to condemn the September 11 attacks on the United States, and in the wake of those attacks reaffirmed the importance of his crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists. In the meantime more moderate Islamic groups were demanding a more overtly Islamist state based upon Sharia (Islamic law). Although Egyptian legislation is nominally based upon Sharia, some would like to see Sharia more rigorously enforced in practice. Such a policy was opposed by religious minorities, chiefly Coptic Christians (see Coptic Church); some secular liberals; and also by the United States. The holding of relatively free elections by Palestinians and in Iraq in early 2005 led to some publicly expressed Egyptian sentiment in favor of more democracy at home. As Mubarak’s fourth six-year term drew to a close in 2005, some groups called for changes in the constitution, including a two-term limit on the presidency. In May 2005 voters approved a constitutional amendment that allowed for multiparty candidates and direct election of the president by secret ballot.
As presidential elections approached, Egypt became the scene of several terrorist bombings. In October 2004 suicide bombers at two resort towns in the Sinai Peninsula killed 34 people, many of them Israeli tourists. Then in July 2005 three explosive-filled trucks driven by suicide bombers detonated in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The reported death toll in those three explosions ranged from 64 to 88 people.
Nevertheless, Egypt’s first multiparty presidential election took place without violence in September 2005. Mubarak was easily reelected with more than 85 percent of the vote, although voter turnout was low with only about 7 million votes cast from a pool of 32 million registered voters. The turnout of about 22 percent contrasted with a turnout of more than 53 percent in the referendum on the constitutional amendment. Opposition parties charged election fraud and said Mubarak’s campaign dominated the state-owned media.
Mubarak again pushed for changes to Egypt’s constitution in 2007 when a referendum approved several amendments that increased presidential power. The changes gave the president the power to dissolve Egypt’s bicameral legislature without holding a referendum, limit the role of judges in monitoring elections, and suspend civil rights protections in cases that the president determines are associated with terrorism. The referendum also reconfirmed the existing ban on political parties based on religion. Opposition groups and human rights organizations said the outcome of the referendum was affected by widespread vote fraud. The referendum passed overwhelmingly with more than 75 percent approval and a voter turnout of about 10 million people, according to government reports. |
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