The Pharaonic Kingdom of Torture and the Absenting of the Egyptian Nation by Force from History

Published in July 3, 2018

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Firstly:

1- Ahmad Ourabi, the Egyptian political and military leader who emerged shortly before the British occupation of Egypt, was the son of the mayor of a rural village in Al-Sharqiyah Governorate; his father owned 74 feddans and their family assumed to be among the so-called descendants of Ali and Fatima daughter of Muhammad. Ourabi was taught at Al-Azhar. The Khedive of Egypt, Saeed Pacha, allowed the sons of Azharite sheikhs and wealthy merchants and owners of farms to join the military army whose officers, soldiers, and troops had less number after Mohamed Ali Pacha killed off all the Mamelukes who formed the main people in this army of Egypt. Hence, Ourabi became a soldier and he was promoted later on; he suffered from the authoritarianism and persecution of Circassian military officers who hated and despised the new Egyptian soldiers, despite the fact that those soldiers were sons of rich owners of feddans of fertile, verdant farms, as such wealthy class came in the lower ranks and not from the high-rank class of non-Egyptian aristocracy. This is the primary cause for the revolt of Ourabi and soldiers under him against the Khedive Tawfik Pacha; the revolt failed and Great Britain invaded and occupied Egypt in 1882. We focus here on how Ourabi faced the Khedive; when the military solders demonstrated in the streets, Ourabi as their leader handed their written demands to the Khedive who told them they deserve no rights or demands as he inherited them alongside with land of Egypt from his royal ancestors, as they are his slaves who deserve only his charity! Ourabi told him that God created them as free people and not as inherited assets, commodities, or slaves; no one has the right to enslave or inherit them. This means that the military power is the basis of Pharaonic might and tyranny.             

2- This entails a brief analysis on our part; the Khedive here was a weak Egyptian pharaoh of non-Egyptian origin who ruled while depending on the military power which was originally formed by the remnants of the Mamelukes, who were among the high-rank retinue members. The low-rank owners of the farms (and their men of authority: police, mayors, etc.) were the fangs of the ruling pharaoh/khedive in rural villages; they tortured and flogged in public those peasants who hid any parts of the crops (some peasants withstood torture and flogging and bragged of the parts of crops they had hidden!); this is the dominant culture that drove the Khedive to despise Ourabi and to ridicule his demands in the scene when they confronted one another.     

3- The 1952 military coup deposed the last king of Egypt, Farooq, the descendant of Mohamed Ali Pacha. Abdel-Nasser was right when he said that the military army is the tool of the king used against the citizens; when monarchy ended, the retinue members of ministers, Pachas, governmental high rank employees, etc. obsequiously flattered the young Free Officers who controlled Egypt and the military army; Abdel-Nasser established the military rule in 1954 and allowed some civil bodies and persons to help him; Egypt was turned into a big military camp; torture increased by the men of the Pharaonic deep-state ever since, especially in prisons controlled by the military officers. Marxists, leftists, socialists, and MB members were tortured routinely in prisons. The Egyptian peasants felt the good influence of some reformist measures; yet, many of them were tortured and oppressed routinely by mayors and engineers/heads of agricultural societies who forced them what to plant, etc. and considered the peasants as NOT the owners of any stretches of land or the crops. Many peasants immigrated to the capital, Cairo, and other major cities to flee from oppression and torture; some of them fled to Jordan and the Gulf monarchies and felt more oppression and bore with it patiently for the sake of money; they knew that poverty, oppression, and torture spread more in Egypt and their relatives bore patiently (at least in the period 1952-2010) as they had no other options. Torture is still committed in Egyptian prisons now.      

Secondly: the Egyptian nation is the absent by ever-present element in the Pharaonic deep-state within the millennia-old Egyptian history:

1- Within Egyptian history written by historians, we notice that the focus is on any ruling pharaohs, their events and monuments, and their retinue members; no historians of the past had conscience to write few lines about eth oppressed nation whose members suffered oppression and torture to build those monuments, temples, palaces, etc.

2- No historians of the past wrote about corvée or forced labor under the threat of being flogged, humiliated, and tortured in public; they never wrote about cries/screams of oppressed Egyptian people who built all achievements of enthroned pharaohs in all eras.

3- Those unjust historians remained this way in all eras: the Pharaonic Era, the Coptic Era, and the stages of Arab Era as well as the Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman eras. All enthroned pharaohs/caliphs sans exception (e.g., Ramses, Ptolemy, Amr Ibn Al-As, Ahmad Ibn Tulun, Saladin, Mameluke sultans, M. Ali Pacha, and Khedive Saeed) employed corvée or forced labor within little or no wages and within the threat of torture.

4- Within our book titled "Slavery: A Fundamental Historical Overview" (found in English on this link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=87), we tackle the worst type of corvée or forced labor inflicted on Egyptians within the project of the Suez Canal. Within our book on the influence of Sufism on buildings and monuments erected within the Mameluke Era in Egypt, we tackle the torture and the grave injustices which accompanied the erection of grand mosques, religious institutions, etc. Within our book on the Egyptian society during the reign of the Mameluke sultan Qaitbay, we tackle how the authorities arrested people in the streets to use them in unpaid, forced labor. We hope one day that a just and fair historian with a conscience would emerge to write researches about the absent but also the ever-present Egyptian people between the lines of history who built all these monuments in all eras.

Thirdly: the Egyptian nation is the absent by ever-present element in the Pharaonic deep-state: a Quranist vision:

Moses' Pharaoh and his people, family, troops, and military leaders or generals assumed they own the land of Egypt:

1- Moses' Pharaoh proclaimed in a conference that he owned Egypt while he compared himself to Moses: "Pharaoh proclaimed among his people, saying, "O my people, do I not own the Kingdom of Egypt, and these rivers flow beneath me? Do you not see? Am I not better than this miserable wretch, who can barely express himself?" (43:51-52). The query raised here is as follows: did Moses' Pharaoh owned Egypt alone or along with the retinue members: courtiers, wealthy affluent class/family, soldiers, viziers, generals, military leaders?

2- Moses' Pharaoh was the head of the regime; the rest of its body was the affluent, powerful retinue members; both they and him owned the land of Egypt, as we infer from this verse about Pharaoh expressing alarm regarding Moses and asking their advice: "He said to the dignitaries around him, "This is a skilled magician. He intends to drive you out of your land with his magic, so what do you recommend?"" (26:34-35).

3- This sharing of the land of Egypt between Pharaoh and his retinue members is inferred from these verses: "The retinue members among Pharaoh's people said, "This is really a skilled magician." "He wants to evict you from your land, so what do you recommend?"" (7:109-110); "He said, "Did you come to us to drive us out of our land with your magic, O Moses?" (20:57).

4- Their owning Egypt made them unjustly feel superior and arrogant on earth; the link between ownership and superiority/arrogance is expressed here: "They said, "Did you come to us to divert us from what we found our ancestors following, and so that you become prominent on earth? We will never believe with you."" (10:78); "They said, "These two are magicians who want to drive you out of your land with their magic, and to abolish your exemplary way of life. So settle your plan, and come as one front. Today, whoever gains the upper hand will succeed."" (20:63-64).

Moses' Pharaoh and his people employ the Egyptians within forced labor within projects of agriculture, manufacturing, and building:

1- Regarding 43:51, of course, Moses' Pharaoh did not till, irrigate, sow, plant, etc. the stretches of land himself; he employed corvée or forced labor on poor peasants of Egypt who feared being tortured by Pharaoh's men among the lower-rank ones who infiltrated in all villages and cities and watched everything and everyone.  

2- Hence, tears, blood, and sweat of the toil of peasants of Egypt filled the treasuries of Pharaoh and his retinue members with wealth and food; famine struck Egypt as a punishment inflicted by the Lord God; Pharaoh knew that peasants had nothing to do with it; they were silent, submissive, hardworking peasants; Pharaoh and his family and courtiers knew that Moses was behind this plague/curse: "And We afflicted the people of Pharaoh with barren years, and with shortage of crops, that they may take heed. When something good came their way, they said, "This is ours." And when something bad happened to them, they ascribed the evil omen to Moses and those with him. In fact, their omen is with God, but most of them do not know." (7:130-131).

3- The tears, blood, and sweat of the toil of Egyptian builders and workers allowed Pharaoh to build huge temples, palaces, tombs, statues, obelisks, edifices, etc. that made him famous at the time: "And Pharaoh of the huge edifices." (89:10); they are the real builders of such monuments and not Pharaoh or his vizier Haman. Pharaoh's arrogance as a self-deified tyrant led him to demand mockingly from his vizier, Haman to build him a tower to see the God of Moses: "Pharaoh said, "O courtiers, I know of no god for you other than me. So fire-up the bricks for me O Haman, and build me a tower, that I may ascend to the God of Moses, though I think he is a liar."" (28:38); "And Pharaoh said, "O Haman, build me a tower, that I may reach the pathways. The pathways of the heavens, so that I may glance at the God of Moses; though I think he is lying."..." (40:36-37).   

4-Sone Egyptologists and archeologists are ignoramuses and disbelievers who negate that Moses' Pharaoh existed; we prove them wrong in our book (in English) titled "Egypt in the Holy Quran" (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=97); we assert in this book of ours that no monuments or remnants of the era of Moses' Pharaoh will be found as God destroyed all of them after Moses' Pharaoh and his deep-state men drowned in the Red Sea: "And We made the oppressed people inherit the eastern and western parts of the land, which We had blessed. Thus the fair promise of your Lord to the Israelites was fulfilled, because of their endurance. And We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people had built, and what they had harvested." (7:137); we should imagine easily that once the impoverished Egyptians knew that the tyrant Pharaoh along with his tyrannical men were dead, they destroyed all his monuments, palaces, etc. and robbed everything inside them; who would dare to blame them, then?!

5- The Pharaoh of Egypt and his deep-state men of his kingdom drowned in the Red Sea as they chased the Israelites during the exodus, as if they were in an 'easy' military mission; God destroyed them and allowed the Israelites to inherit momentarily the verdant, fertile gardens; they returned to Egypt and controlled (for a while before heading to the Promised Land) the stretches of lands along with the Egyptian peasants in them: "So We drove them out of gardens and springs. And treasures and noble dwellings. So it was. And We made the Israelites inherit them." (26:57-59); "How many gardens and fountains did they leave behind? And plantations, and splendid buildings. And comforts they used to enjoy. So it was; and We passed it on to another people." (44:25-28).

Lastly:

1- The military rulers of Egypt who occupy it since the 1952 coup controlled and managed the treasures of the Egyptian land by the civil or non-military retinue members who submitted to such rulers; e.g., Gamal Abdel-Nasser nationalized many projects in Egypt. As for now, those on top of the current military rule control and manage everything without retinue members who are civil or non-military persons. The military generals control, monopolize, and steal now trade, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. and all aspects in Egypt and the revenues and wealth enter into their bank accounts; they have provided themselves with all profits and privileges; in contrast, the oppressed Egyptian citizens suffer poverty and submission in silence because they fear that torture might be inflicted on them if they would dare to protest against the status quo.     

2- Egypt has been ruled for more than 50 centuries by both Egyptian and non-Egyptian rulers/pharaohs. Within our reading and studying the Egyptian history, we never found more cruel and unjust pharaohs than the ones of the military rule initiated in 1952, because their tyranny exists despite the fact that we live in the modern era of human rights and democracy. The ancient Pharaonic rulers acted as per the culture of tyranny which dominated their ancient eras. In contrast, the current pharaohs act against the dominant culture of the modern era. The ancient enthroned pharaohs have their own victories and glory, as for the pharaohs of Egypt who rule it today, they have never achieved any sort of victories except over the poor, unarmed, impoverished Egyptian citizens!

3- As the current pharaoh of today has gone into extremes within torture, silence reigns supreme among the Egyptian citizens now; who would dare to blame them, then?!