The French Revolution and Islam Without the Egyptian Invasion.

[Christian]

This is something that has peaked my interest after I’ve read a few books on it. Surprisingly enough, despite the belief of how xenophobic the French revolution became, they were actually rather amiable to Muslims, with the Committee of Public Safety and a majority of its members all deciding to help out a Muslim named Ahmed Kahn after arriving in Paris and his brother’s dying, helping him find a place to live and assisting him in learning French which he used to make the first translation of the Rights of Man and Citizen (The superior ‘93 version of course) in Persian.

Robespierre also had a conviction that Islam and revolutionary ideals can go together, thinking that eventually, they can convince nations like the Ottomans who he stated were France’s natural ally to adopt their ideas over time.

Now, with this in mind, what are some interesting ways Islam and French revolutionary ideals can go together if not for the botched invasion of Egypt? Would there be better reception to liberalism in Muslim nations without the subsequent declaration of war against France?

Funnily enough, Talleyrand apparently thought that it would be seen as a friendly gesture (It most certainly wasn’t) and that he’d immediately go to Constantinople (He did not) to convince the Sultans of their good intentions.

 

[Gary Oswald]

I'm not sure exactly what it changes though, the Islamic powers are mostly quite far from france and outdated militarily and the restoration is on course to happen in less than 20 years anyway.

Is the history of the middle east vastly different without that invasion? Of course it is, it was a huge moment in Ottoman history.

But the relationship with the French Republic afterwards is not that important really.

If anything you might see less liberalism without the breaking of the old aristocracy in Egypt.

Haitian histiography will be better off without the largely baseless french insistence that the major slave rebels were islamic though.

 

[Indicus]

I’m not really sure if the French invasion of Egypt did limit the spread of French Revolutionary ideals into the Islamic world. Even before that point, those ideals only had a limited spread in the immediate term. Any alliance between France and Muslim countries is likely to be based around convenience than ideology, as indeed they were in OTL in this period, most famously when Tipu Sultan of Mysore was invoked into the Jacobin Club, with members declaring their hatred of all kings except for him.

Beyond that, there is a broad continuity between those in the Islamic world inspired by the rise of Enlightenment ideals, both before and after the French invasion of Egypt. This article is an interesting look at the immediate spread of French revolutionary ideals into the Islamic world, and it discusses heavily Muhammad D’Ghies, a Tripolitanian supporter of the French Revolution. His son Hassuna was also a supporter of French Revolutionary ideals, and during the 1820s he was part of Benthamite radical circles in London in which he made plans to take over Tripolitania with the help of an army of British liberals and then promulgate a human rights charter and a limited constitutional monarchy there. Ultimately these plans came to nothing and Hassuna D’Ghies saw his reputation destroyed after he was accused of killing the first Briton to visit Timbuktu, but I think this shows that there was, broadly speaking, a continuity that the French invasion of Egypt did not interrupt.

 

[Christian]

Beyond that, there is a broad continuity between those in the Islamic world inspired by the rise of Enlightenment ideals, both before and after the French invasion of Egypt. This article is an interesting look at the immediate spread of French revolutionary ideals into the Islamic world, and it discusses heavily Muhammad D’Ghies, a Tripolitanian supporter of the French Revolution.

Ian Coller! Funnily enough, the book I was talking about in the OP was from him, specifically “Muslims and Citizens: Islam, Politics, and the French Revolution”

It argued that France during the chaotic years of the revolution increasingly drew close to Muslim powers, with the first nation to recognize the republic being an Islamic sort of republic, and the Ottomans being one of the few non-republican nations they consistently stayed in relations with.

More still, he says that the declaration of Jihad against revolutionary France was a rupture of what were rather good relations and that it discouraged Muslim groups who were sympathetic to revolutionary ideals while the ones against it were given a boost.

 

[Indicus]

Ian Coller! Funnily enough, the book I was talking about in the OP was from him, specifically “Muslims and Citizens: Islam, Politics, and the French Revolution”

It argued that France during the chaotic years of the revolution increasingly drew close to Muslim powers, with the first nation to recognize the republic being an Islamic sort of republic, and the Ottomans being one of the few non-republican nations they consistently stayed in relations with.

More still, he says that the declaration of Jihad against revolutionary France was a rupture of what were rather good relations and that it discouraged Muslim groups who were sympathetic to revolutionary ideals while the ones against it were given a boost.

From everything I can gather Ian Coller is an authority on this, so I’ll trust that view. I still think that alliances between the French Republic and Muslim countries are likely going to be based solely on the national interest rather than on the ideals of the French Revolution.

But if the ideals spread quicker, I imagine such activity is likely to be similar to what occurred in the 1820s Maghreb, where various liberals proposed the promulgation of human rights charters and the establishment of representative assemblies that would elect the monarchs in order to prevent succession wars. Many of these liberals did indeed come into positions close to power - Hassuna D’Ghies was briefly the chief minister of Tripolitania during the 1820s succession wars, and Hamdan ben Othman Khoja was a wealthy Algerian merchant - but then came imperial conquest. France conquered Algeria, and Khoja’s response was to write Le Miroir, a searing indictment of the conquest which advocated that France leave Algeria, but this did not occur and he lost his influence. The Ottomans conquered Tripolitania, and D’Ghies allied with this administration and headed the official government newspaper until his death. In this scenario, if this liberal activity starts a few decades earlier, this may allow greater success without being interrupted by imperial conquest. Assuming they do win out without being overthrown or the liberal projects failing quickly, Maghrebi states having constitutional government, though not democracy, for a couple decades before empires come knocking would have a host of run-on effects.

 

[lerk]

Never understood why Islam itself has to change if you want liberalism in the Middle East. Back in the day you used to hear a lot of "we need to reform Islam" takes until people just realized that it would be easier to just get people to be less religious than to change Islam itself. You can totally get a Middle Eastern liberalism - but Islam wouldn't be changed, and really you just need to find a way to get people in the region to be less religious.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Never understood why Islam itself has to change if you want liberalism in the Middle East.

I assume it's either (or both):

a) A view that Christianity (and other religions) has changed in more liberalised countries and that caused the liberalisation, rather than adapting because people of Christian (and other) backgrounds got less religious

b) An assumption Muslims in the Middle East won't become less religious, unlike other faiths in other places

 

[Indicus]

I mean, in the nineteenth century especially, liberalism was deeply intertwined with religion and liberals sought to account for religion in their ideologies. Beyond the infamous use of religion by Revolutionary France, many of the moderate July Monarchy liberals like Benjamin Constant were of the belief that liberalism was inherently Protestant and France needed the substitution of Catholicism with a suitably “liberal” form of Protestantism. The emergence of liberal Catholicism, which emerged to “reconcile” liberalism and Catholicism, also occurred in this period - the Irish nationalist Daniel O’Connell was highly influential in its spread, and in Germany, France, and Belgium he inspired other liberal Catholic movements.

If a liberal movement did emerge in the Muslim world in this period, it would invariably be quite focused on “reconciling” liberalism with Islam. The 1820s Maghrebi reform projects I mentioned advocated integrating imams into the administration and turning them into a sort of civil service exercising government functions; a state in the Islamic world inspired by the French Revolution might very well have imams elected by primary assemblies or something like that.

 

[lerk]

imams elected by primary assemblies or something like that.

No

 

[Indicus]

No

Fair enough, that would be entirely unworkable and alienating. But nevertheless, religion and its place in society was highly important to liberals in the age of revolutions, if liberalism were to rise in the Muslim world in this era it would be deeply concerned about Islam and its relationship to liberty.

 

[lerk]

Fair enough, that would be entirely unworkable and alienating. But nevertheless, religion and its place in society was highly important to liberals in the age of revolutions, if liberalism were to rise in the Muslim world in this era it would be deeply concerned about Islam and its relationship to liberty.

Well I mean it would require government micromanagement to an absurd degree. An imam is just someone who can lead the prayer, and the only requirement needed is that you know what to do during prayer. Who ever can lead the prayer is just someone who earns the respect of his community enough to have it decide that he should be the one leading them. I suppose in this sense you can say that an imam is, in fact, "elected", but that's only when you stretch the definition of the word "elected" to where it doesn't really become something political.

As for liberalism trying to find a relationship between Islam and liberalism, it really depends on what ends up happening to liberalism. If France, or some other countries, establishes itself as a liberal superpower, it is likely that liberals from other areas of the world would try to get support from said superpower in order to succeed in their own nation. Of course they will try to make liberalism palatable to their countrymen in some way but a lot of time and resources would also be spent on getting outside support. You see this nowadays with many liberal NGOs operating out of the Western World in the Islamic World. But if butterflies from more Muslims witnessing the French Revolution mean that the revolution is ultimately crushed leading to a return to Bourbon Absolutism (I do not know whether or not this is plausible, mind, nor am I saying that it is) it is likely that you probably do see a greater focus on trying to make a more native form of liberalism.