As the only full-length scholarly treatment in English of Muhammad Ali' s lengthy and influential rule in Egypt, 1804-49, Henry Dodwell's biography holds its place as a major source on this topic over four decades after its publication. As something of a classic (having been published in 1931 and reissued in 1967),* Founder richly deserves a critical appraisal.
The book divides into four distinct parts: the first (pp. 1-38) deals briefly with the background to Muhammad Ali's appearance on the international scene in 1812. It includes a discussion of the circumstances in Egypt after the evacuation of the French expedition, Muhammad Ali's personal rise to power, and the elimination of his rivals in Egypt. The second (pp. 39-191) constitutes the bulk of the book and treats Muhammad Ali's role in international politics in detail for the period 1812-41, with an emphasis on his relations with Britain. The third (pp. 192-258) covers his rule in Egypt, Crete, and Syria. A short conclusion (pp. 259-68) carries the story through Muhammad Ali's death in 1849 and examines "his claim to our remembrance" (263).
Dodwell attempts to prove two theses about Muhammad Ali: Firstly, that he was anxious to ally with Britain but that his interests in a strong and independent Egypt inevitably conflicted with Britain's policy of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Dodwell goes to great lengths (sometimes bordering on the polemical) to demonstrate how both Muhammad Ali and the British properly followed their respective interests during the period 1812-41. Second, Muhammad Ali's government in Egypt was as humane, efficient, and stable as it could be under the adverse circumstances in which he operated. In judging his government, Dodwell asserts, one must remember Egyptian political conditions in the previous period, the poor human material Muhammad Ali had available to work with, and his urgent sense that Egypt's transformation had to be achieved within his own lifetime.
 Muhammad Ali, painted by Auguste Couder in 1840. |
Another virtue of Founder is fine style and many choice characterizations. Dodwell describes "that life of high drama which in the East stands for politics" (29). Comparing Muhammad Ali's efforts to modernize with the programs of the British in India, he writes that former's "real misfortune was that he was a man, not a system"(207). The chapter on Muhammad Ali's government in Egypt is especially full of interesting explanations and testifies to a real understanding of the problems that Muhammad Ali faced: justice (197-201), the fellah's reluctance to pay taxes (214-17), and conscription (226-28).
So much for the positive points. Unfortunately, Dodwell's contributions are more than outweighed by the many and significant problems in his book. These fall into four categories: (a) sources, (b) forced comparisons, (c) historical errors, and (d) technical mistakes.
(a) Dodwell gives the reader a lopsided impression of 19th-century Egyptian life. A check of his many footnotes indicates that about 95 percent of Dodwell's information derives from British and French consular correspondence. Such a heavy reliance on diplomatic sources not only restricts the scope of the book, but also leads to serious omissions. Obviously, a historical work based on reports submitted by diplomats emphasizes political and military affairs over all else; only the more astute observers might note economics or social trends. But none of those Dodwell quotes gives information on cultural or intellectual developments. The insight of such reports would in any case limited be limited, as few foreign diplomats spoke Turkish or Arabic even as almost no one in Egypt knew European languages.
Worse, it is a superficial impression. Dodwell offers no insights into the inner workings of Egyptian life or of Muhammad Ali as a person. As portrayed in this book, Egypt resembles a vast automated plantation inexorably operated by the mechanical but obdurate fellahs. Muhammad Ali appears as a brittle Egyptian plenipotentiary, forever out-talking the Europeans sent to wear him down. How can one hope to write the biography of a person based on the pickings of his conversations with alien diplomats? This is not good history and it is certainly not good biography.
Worse yet, reliance on diplomatic correspondence explains Dodwell's missing vital aspects of Muhammad Ali's reign. There is, for example, no mention of the large-scale immigrations of Europeans into Egypt (mainly Greeks, Italians, and French) and the important role they played in Egyptian commerce, beginning at that time. Also, it may be noted that although Muhammad Ali's governments in Egypt, Crete, and Syria are described in some detail (again, from consular reports), those in Arabia and the Sudan are completely ignored (presumably because consular reports are lacking). Another major omission concerns the significance of the Euphrates River passage (137-40). The major reversal of Russian policy towards the Ottoman Empire, signaled by the Nesselrode Memorandum of 1829, goes unnoted. The author offers no explanation why, suddenly, after centuries of mutual hostility, the Ottomans "accepted a Russian alliance" in 1833 (115). Dodwell misses all these significant aspects of Muhammad Ali's reign because of his almost blind dependence on consular reports.
(b) Historiographically less serious, but very irritating are the repeated references to and comparisons with India. In his own career, Dodwell had extensive experience with India both as an administrator and historian (he co-edited The Cambridge History of India), and he uses India as a reference point throughout. Occasionally, this leads to useful insights (e.g., concerning the similar reluctance of the Indian and Egyptian peasants to pay taxes, 214-17), but more often it leads to uninformative or forced comparisons. Two examples: He compares the position of Albanian troops in Egypt in 1806 with that of Arab mercenaries in Baroda and Hyderabad (162), which is not enlightening; and he explains the Turkish word "chiaoushe" with this supremely uninformative footnote: "Corresponding with the Chobdars of Indian courts" (84). While Dodwell could probably assume that British compatriots would be fairly familiar with India, surely neither of these comparisons helps the general reader understand the situation in Egypt. Some comparisons are inaccurate for the two countries were a century apart, in different circumstances, and with rulers motivated by different objectives: Muhammad Ali sought glory for himself and his family, the British worked to extract maximum profit. Dodwell compares the two not because they resemble one another; perhaps he does to because his readership would be likely to sympathize more with Muhammad Ali if presented in the same light as the East India Company. But it remains misrepresentation.
c) Historical errors and discrepancies of no little import abound. Selim III was not deposed because he attempted "to enroll his janissary corps in new corps" (62); in fact he never tried to do this; his attempt to introduce Western uniforms into the janissary corps directly caused his downfall. Mahmud II, far from being an "incompetent autocrat" (123) is rightly considered by many historians one of the most capable Ottoman sultans in centuries.
If Muhammad Ali relentlessly killed all the Mamluks he could catch, how did he only a few years later own 300 of them as his personal property (63)? Dodwell's explanation for the death of some 15,000 Sudanese brought to Egypt to serve in the army is inadequate, to say the least: "they refused to be kept alive. Trivial ailments, which would have hardly laid up a European or an Arab, in them ended fatally. They died like sheep with the rot" (64). Clearly, there must have been other factors at work but Dodwell made no attempt to discover these.
On two occasions, the author seems to forget that Muhammad Ali did not speak Arabic: when discussing the idea of his standing as a champion of the Arab against the Turk (127) and when claiming that Muhammad Ali "frequently went on tour, travelling virtually without a guard, and was accessible to the complaints of the humblest fellah" (201).
As a final example, consider this rash generalization: Muhammad Ali "seems to have been the only eastern ruler who recognized the importance of sea power and who set himself deliberately to cultivate it" (66). Even the slightest knowledge of Middle Eastern history reveals Muslim domination of the Mediterranean Sea from the 7th to 10th centuries and then in the 16th century. These and other mistakes expose Dodwell's inadequacy reliably to assess the career of Muhammad Ali.
(d) Finally, a multitude of technical errors mar the book. Footnotes are careless and inadequate, particularly in the absence of a general bibliography. Publication information is completely lacking, archival references are deficient ("To the mudirs, Muharram 9, 1249"). Too many titles contain errors: A.A. Paton wrote The History of the Egyptian Revolution, not Egyptian Revolution (33) or Revolutions in Egypt (194). Nassau Senior's Conversations and Journals in Egypt and Malta turns up as Conversations in Egypt (194). James St. John's Egypt and Mohammed Ali comes out as Mohamed (206). George Baldwin's title is Political Recollections related to Egypt, not relative to Egypt (11). And so on.
The spelling of Arabic and Turkish words is pseudo-scientific (note the spelling of Ali in the title and throughout) and inconsistent. Chavush is spelled chiaoushe (84); müdürlük is spelled mudirliq (the "q" is inexcusable); jizya comes out as jaziya (244); etc. Turkey is not synonymous with the Ottoman Empire (111); this and references to "Turks" are anachronistic and misleading.
This sampling should suffice to indicate Founder's profusion of errors. While well written and filling an obvious gap in English historical literature, the Founder of Modern Egypt is an unsatisfactory scholarly study based on poor source material with wrong information, false analogies, historical ignorance, and technical errors. It cannot be relied on for facts or opinions.
Dodwell's inadequate work has maintained its position only because it has no rival. In brings to mind Bernard Lewis' devastating comment about Middle East studies: there is an "acceptance and acclamation as authorities, even as 'standard works,' of books of breathtaking superficiality and inaccuracy. Unfortunately such books really are 'standard works' in the sense that they are cited, recommended, and even read by many people, in many places, for long periods."
* And reissued in paperback in 2011 by the Cambridge University Press.
