TNT History Archives: Egypt Loses Its Turkish Accent (1903)

//Ed. Note: Turkish journalist Dr. Şerefeddin Mağmumi,
in exile in Cairo, bemoaned the loss of Turkish and 
Turkishness in Egypt, after four centuries of Ottoman
rule.//

turk-arab relations today click here for a recent TNT report.


Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Selim entering Cairo on 15 February 
1517.

I’m Thinking That...

“Türk” newspaper (Cairo): 24 December 1903

They say that a person can do more harm to himself than a stranger can.  

How true.  We can apply this to groups and nations, as well.  

Sometimes a person or group of people can do so much more harm to 

their own nation than a foreigner could do.  The thing that brought this 

to my mind was the news that the Emir of Afghanistan has ordered the 

learning of Turkish in the new Kabul medrese.  

Upon hearing this, I began to think about the sad state of Turkish here 

in Egypt, which is that element of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish 

family to which this continent has been entrusted.  I felt so badly about 

this, recalling that Egypt has been a Turkish nation since Yavuz Sultan 

Selim’s conquest of Cairo.  The Egyptian state officials and military 

officers have mostly come from Turkish stock for the past four centuries. 

muhammed ali paşa click here for background.


An Albanian Ottoman subject who ruled Egypt,
1805-1848.

In fact, the late Muhammed Ali Paşa practically turned Egypt into an 

Anatolian province and the official language was Turkish.  Still today 

one can see that the official documents and registers of various 

departments from that period held in the basement storerooms were 

written in Turkish.  But just look at the current situation. 

The number of well-off, landed Turkish families in the Nile Valley, 

which once numbered 40,000, has decreased such that these families 

can be counted with one’s fingers.  Most of the current youth whose 

parents came from Turkey to settle in Egypt as farmers do not speak 

Turkish, their native tongue.  Since they don’t know their mother 

tongue, they are strangers to Turkishness and have begun to be 

indifferent to both the tribulations and the joys of the Turks.  In fact, 

most of their children say “we’re Egyptians”, forgetting, or wanting 

to forget, that the blood in their veins in Turkish blood.

  

In this way, thousands, tens of thousands of Turkish farmers are being 

sucked up like a sponge and lost.  Yet, this sad and painful image we 

see was brought about by ourselves, not by foreigners.   The Khedive 

İsmail Paşa, obsessed with a passion for independence, smashed the 

hatchet on Turkishness in its heart and in its soul.  Even if we were to 

forgive him all these transgressions in his quest for the throne, he can 

never be forgiven for the harm he did to Ottoman and Turkish history.   

He chased the Turks from Egypt in order to cut off material and 

spiritual ties with Istanbul.  Turkish was eliminated everywhere and 

could neither be spoken nor read.

ismail paşa click here for background.


Lavish spending led to British occupation.

It may be that if Egypt had been taken over by a foreign government 

the breach with Istanbul would not have been so serious but İsmail Paşa 

wanted it this way.  What about our statesmen in Istanbul at that time?  

Did they look the other way or partner in these heinous acts for five or 

ten thousand liras?

Last year, England wanted to make English the official language of 

the island of Malta, which is under England’s administration.  However, 

the Italian state and nation, although not having any administrative or 

political relation to Malta, objected vigorously and rained down protests 

on the English.

Unfortunately, there was no subsequent effort to heal the breach between 

Egypt and Istanbul.  A shame, a sin.  Today, Egypt is under the military 

occupation of England, whose officials and military officers are given a 

100 lira bonus for learning Arabic, but those who learn Turkish get a 200 

lira bonus!   And in Afghanistan, a remote and desolate country in Asia, 

the Emir has ordered the teaching of Turkish!  Yet, in Egypt, many 
senior and respected officials of Turkish origin have been forced to
abandon their Turkish education and perform their duties in a different,
foreign tongue.  What a shame...