PROFILES- Nafissa Al Muradiah
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Whenever there is any mention of women in the Ottoman age or even in the nineteenth century they are associated with life in the harem, life from behind a veil. This view seems to depend on travellers' tales about life in the Egyptian society, at a time when the legislative courts' records are overfilled with documents that prove, without doubt, that women throughout the Ottoman era were not prisoners of the harem. The archives show that they managed their own money and practiced all "legitimate" actions like selling and buying and exchanging and placing a waqf and donating, etc. They would attend court themselves, and even in case the father or husband (in his capacity as legal guardian) took care of some business or called for certain rights for his daughter or wife it was not in his capacity as legal guardian or
husband, but according to an official authorization or permission from her, and the
legislator guaranteed that she wouldn't be deprived of any of those rights.
Nafissa Al Muradiah, who lived through the French campaign in Cairo is a good representative of an Egyptian woman of her time. Further she held a great status among princes, the ulama, and the (the people), not only because she was the wife of Ali Bey Al Kabir and after him Murad Bey, but also because she had a strong personality, was cultured and refined. She learned Arabic, read and studied books, which widened her scope of knowledge and gained the reverence of the ulama. People loved her for her generosity and helpfulness. Al Jabarty wrote about her kindness and charitableness to the poor and that the New Khan and the cistern in Bab Zuweila rate among her glorious deeds.
She also realised, owing to her broad knowledge and a keen mind, the amount of danger threatening the country's economy as a result of the procedures and arbitrary tributes that Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey imposed on dealers, especially foreign ones. So, she tried, through her web of social contacts with foreign dealers and consuls like Magallon and his wife, to take the edge off the conflict between them and her husband Murad Bey. After one of such crises in 1775, the French consul wrote to the Commercial Bureau in Marseille that the conflict was resolved thanks to the relationship between Madame Magallon and Nafissa Al Muradiah..
When the French occupied Egypt in 1798, and Murad Bey fled to the South of
Egypt, Nafissa lingered behind along with other princes' wives in Cairo, and when
Bonaparte was desperate for money by all means, he forced the wives of the Mamluk
Beys to redeem themselves by money or offering their husbands' possessions. In his book, The Scientific and Military History of the French Expedition in Egypt, Rebeaud mentions the decree passed by Bonaparte on the first of August 1798 according to which Nafissa Al Muradiah alone pays a penalty of six hundred thousand francs. Even in these hard times she did not give up her duty towards other princes' wives.
Al Jabarty mentions that she redeemed herself and her female followers by paying 120 thousand French francs though La Jonquiere pointed out that 4,92857 francs were collected from her to ransom her liberty herself and 324717 francs for the rest of the women in December 1798. These were no doubt large sums of money. She had, according to the French source: The Scientific and Military History of the French Expedition in Egypt, to give up her jewellery (pay her share of the military penalty) among which was a watch inlaied with gems that was Consul Magallon's gift on behalf of the French Republic in gratitude for her services "so giving up this gift was an honorable gesture of objection", according to that source.
The French realised how influential this lady's word was, the infallibility of her opinion and honesty of her advice,so they had to go back to her when Kleiber wanted to make a deal with Murad Bey and she managed to play an important role in the completion of this deal. The French never forgot this favour, so Al Jabarty states "that the French were generous to her and arranged for her to get 100 thousand silver from their "Diwan" every month, and her intercession was never turned down. French documents reaffirm Al Jabarty's story even when the matter is related to senior Sheikhs and senior members of the Diwan. After the second Cairo Revolution when the French captured the wife of Sheikh Al Sadat and Ahmed Al Mahrouky's women, Nafissa Al Muradiah interceded on their behalf. Also, when Billiard had to make a deal with the Ottomans so that the French would leave Egypt by mid 1801, he writes a message to the high Porte about her telling him:"It is my great honor to inform your highness that the French government has fiefed Mme. Nafissa Al Muradiah a number of villages, therefore I implore your highness to give orders pertaining to conserving her property, her present status, and that no harm befalls her since this lady deserves all care and attention on account of her personality".
Hence, Nafissa Al Muradiah emerged from the experience of the French Invasion of Egypt having lost her husband Murad Bey and also her fortune. Yet she managed to win over and sometimes to force the leaders of the French Invasion to revere and appreciate her without losing any of the respect and appreciation of the Egyptians whether laymen/common people or senior ulamas, and
without being affected by the evident Ottoman wrath that led to the execution of many of those who dealt with the French which applied even to the daughter of Khalil Al Bakry leader of al ashraf (the descendants of the prophet). Nafissa Al Muradiah retained her distinctive personality and her fearlessness of the power or tyranny of rulers even after her glory and fame had gone, and in the chaotic period that followed the departure of the French from Egypt, when it was rare to find anyone standing up against power and authority. She was neither afraid of Kurshid Pasha's assault nor intimidated by his might. When Khurshid Pasha summoned her to his castle to blame her because "Manawar" her maid was instigating Mamluks to rebel but; let Jabarty (the great historian of the period) tell us the story: "so she answered him that if it was proven that my maid said this then I am responsible for it, not her. So he took out of his pocket a paper and told her what about this? So she told him: 'and what's this paper? Show it to me I can read. So he put it back in his pocket". When the following day the news spread that Khorsheid ordered her confinement in Sheikh Alsuhemi's house the people were distressed. Al Sheikh Alsadat and Al Sheikh Alamir went to the Pasha to inquire about her crime. Al Sheikh Alfayoumi and Al SheikhAlmahdi talked to her about what had been said, so she answered "this is not true and I have no husband in Egypt to endanger myself for. So if confiscating my property is what he's after, I have nothing left and have many debts". So the Sheikhs went back to Khorsheid objected to her treatment and he released her. To sum up the above aspects of Nafissa Al Muradiah's life we can say that she was not only an able advocate of her own and her social class's interests at a time of great upheaval, but was also possessed of keen social commitment even after she herself became destitute. Archival sources of the period however, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that her example was neither rare nor exceptional. Women of that period did actually hold rights, especially in the personal sphere, that they practiced under the aegis of the law and in prefect harmony with the culture in which they lived. The end of the 18th century is popularly regarded as a time of darkness and deterioration, yet it is exactly during that period that the wife of the grand sheikh Al Mahdi, dealt in the field of real estate, a practice that Jabarti wryly comments on by saying that shiekh Al Mahdi's wife's business astuteness must have incurred on her husband great profits every month, for she was also responsible for the sheikh's investments. The question that is worth stopping here with, is: how can we adopt more studies and theses that would bring to light such areas of personal status rights and practices related to such rights so that we may be able to read the history of that society in relation to current issues on women's rights. It is also to my mind paramount to pose questions with regard the process whereby women have come to be deprived during the 19th century of rights they held before it, so that we find women by the latter half of the nineteenth century, demanding what they had enjoyed previously as if they were demanding previously unheard of rights. The interesting point however, is that those " new " demands were made from the point at which they connect with western practices, and not as matters related to an indigenous, cultural/historical framework.
 
Ramadan El- Kholy*
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*Ramadan El-Kholy is a graduate student at Ain Shams University, Faculty of Arts, Department of History.
 

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