An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians

Edward William Lane

Description

A new paperback edition of the classic study of Egyptians in the nineteenth century
Few works about the Middle East have exerted such wide and long-lasting influence as Edward William Lane's An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. First published in 1836, this classic book has never gone out of print, continuously providing material and inspiration for generations of scholars, writers, and travelers, who have praised its comprehensiveness, detail, and perception. Yet the editions in print during most of the twentieth century would not have met Lane's approval. Lacking parts of Lane's text and many of his original illustrations (while adding many that were not his), they were based on what should have been ephemeral editions, published long after the author's death. Meanwhile, the definitive fifth edition of 1860, the result of a quarter century of Lane's corrections, reconsiderations, and additions, long ago disappeared from bookstore shelves. Now the 1860 edition of Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians is available again, with a useful general introduction by Jason Thompson. Lane's greatest work enters the twenty-first century in precisely the form that he wanted.

Sujets

• Middle Est
• Histoire
• Egypt
• History

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617972447
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

An Account of the
Manners
and of the
Customs
Modern Egyptians
Edward William Lane
An Account of the
Manners
and of the
Customs
Modern Egyptians
The Definitive 1860 Edition
Introduced by
Jason Thompson
The American University in Cairo Press Cairo New York
Copyright © 2003 by The American University in Cairo Press 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt 420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 www.aucpress.com
Reprinted from the Fifth Edition of 1860
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 19212/02 e-ISBN 978 161 797 244 7
Printed in Egypt
Edward William Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
As these words are being written, Edward William Lane’s An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians has been continuously in print for almost exactly 166 years. It is one of the classics of Middle East studies. Its influence is difficult to overstate, for besides being a source for almost every aspect of nineteenth-century Egyptian society, Modern Egyptians is also widely used for contemporary, medieval, and even ancient Egypt, as well as for the entire Middle East. It has influenced major writers and visual artists such as Gustave Flaubert and J.F. Lewis. Generations of travelers and general readers have perused its pages. And far from being dismissed as a work of cultural imperialism, Modern Egyptians is as highly regarded by Egyptian intellectuals as by their Western colleagues. Seldom has a work about the Middle East exerted so much authority or excited such wide admiration.
The thought of attaching any text of mine to Lane’s master work seemed impossibly presumptuous at first. Modern Egyptians clearly stands well on its own merits. Yet the very longevity of a book so firmly rooted in another time—it was published in the year before Victoria became queen—makes a brief historical perspective about its inception and development useful. But the pressing need is to explain why, since the book is not out of print, this particular edition should be published now. For although it has indeed remained continuously in print since its first publication in 1836, Lane would not have approved of the editions of Modern Egyptians that have been available during the last century. The edition he would have wanted his readers to have, the definitive edition, is the fifth revised edition of 1860, which is here reproduced in full.
The 1860 edition of Modern Egyptians was the culmination of four decades of study, travel, writing, and reconsideration. Some time around 1821, when Lane, then about 20 years of age, was working as an engraver’s apprentice in London, he became enthralled by Egypt. 1 The initial stimulus for this is not recorded, but it coincided with the wave of Egyptomania that resulted from Giovanni Battista Belzoni’s best-selling book about his travels in Egypt and his sensational exhibit about the tomb of Seti I, which he had recently discovered. Like most people of that day, Lane’s interest was probably first drawn to ancient Egypt, but it eventually transposed to the Arabic language and modern Egyptian society, although his fascination with the ancient land never entirely vanished from his imagination and should be understood as a constant subtext to his writings about modern Egypt. For several years he maintained a course of self-directed study so rigorous that his health nearly gave way. He read everything he could find about Egypt, both ancient and modern, and learned a substantial amount of Arabic, colloquial Egyptian as well as the classical language. Someday, he resolved, he would travel to Egypt and write an illustrated book about it. Recalling his motivations, he later wrote:
A zealous attachment to the study of oriental literature, and a particular desire to render myself familiar with the language of the Arabs, and with their manners and customs, induced me to visit Egypt. But these were not my only motives. I had long entertained a wish to examine the antiquities of that most interesting country: and as I felt, even before I commenced my travels, that there was a probability of my publishing the observations that I might make; I purposed to execute a series of sketches of all the most remarkable objects that I might see; well convinced that a drawing, in many cases, is worth many pages of description: and to ensure the utmost accuracy in these, I determined to make use of the Camera Lucida. 2
Lane’s resolution became reality in September 1825 when he arrived in Egypt for the first time. Likening his feelings to “an Egyptian bridegroom about to lift up the veil of his bride,” he plunged into Egyptian society, adopting the native lifestyle that enabled him to make his close observations of Egyptian society. As he explained in Modern Egyptians, “I have associated, almost exclusively, with Muslims, of various ranks in society: I have lived as they live, conforming with their general habits…” 3 In his earlier work, Description of Egypt, Lane described his Egyptian lifestyle more fully:
I resided at Musr [Cairo], at different times, a little more than a year and a quarter. As my pursuits required that I should not be remarked in public as a European, I separated myself as much as possible from the Franks, and lived in a part of the town (near the Ba’b el-Hhadee’d) somewhat remote from the Frank quarters. Speaking the language of the country, and conforming with the manners of my Moos’lim neighbours, renouncing knives and forks (which, till I saw the really delicate mode of eating with the fingers, as practised in the East, I was rather averse from doing), and abstaining from wine and swine’s flesh (both, indeed, loathsome to me), I was treated with respect and affability by all the natives with whom I had any intercourse. 4
The other half of Lane’s first trip to Egypt was mostly spent on the Nile, which he twice ascended as far as the Second Cataract, near Wadi Halfa. He filled his notebooks, many of which are still extant, with his observations and made frequent use of his camera lucida, a device that enabled him to trace outlines of the objects being drawn with careful attention to detail, scale, and proportion. Later, it was with the camera lucida that Lane initially captured most of the images that illustrate Modern Egyptians.
Although Lane did indeed associate “almost exclusively” with native people, he was also part of the informal group of British orientalists and Egyptologists that assembled in Egypt during the 1820s and 1830s, a group that included Sir Gardner Wilkinson (whose Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians was published the year after Lane’s Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians ), Robert Hay, James Burton, Joseph Bonomi, Henry Salt, and others. Aided by the enigmatic Osman Effendi (a Scot whose original name was Donald Thomson), they too mostly assumed Eastern lifestyle and took a deep interest in their host country. 5 Because of the unprecedented order imposed by the authoritarian regime of the pasha, Muhammad Ali, they were able to travel throughout Egypt and Nubia in relative comfort and safety, gaining an intimate knowledge of the land, which they frequently shared among themselves. It was an exciting moment in the Western encounter with Egypt, one that can never be replicated, for Lane and his British colleagues observed Egypt when they could enjoy the advantages of increased Western contact with it but before the implications of that contact and the forces of development and modernization transformed it. Although the book that directly emerged from Lane’s first trip to Egypt was not Modern Egyptians, the experiences of that trip were crucial to it, as its subtitle suggests: “written in Egypt during the years 1833, –34, and –35, partly from notes made during a former visit to that country in the years 1825–, –26, –27, and –28.”
When Lane returned to England in 1828, he set to work on his first book, entitled Description of Egypt . 6 It is a remarkable book, part travelogue, part history, part geography, and much more. The urban geography of Cairo receives careful attention, as do the antiquities of Egypt, to which approximately half of the book is devoted. It also initially contained an extensive section entitled “Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians.” Description of Egypt has some faults: the various parts do not always lie easily together, the detail of the description can be almost overwhelming in places, and Lane had not in general hit his stride as a writer. But it compares favorably with other books of its day and would have been a major event in the history of travel and exploration in Egypt, had it been published in a timely fashion.
In early 1831, after he had completed approximately one-third of the book, Lane submitted it to the eminent London publishing firm of John Murray. When John Murray II met with Lane in his famous drawing room on Albemarle Street, he expressed his admiration for the work. He had, however, received expert advice to the effect that the section on the modern Egyptians ought to be removed. It contained important material, the adviser said, but it did not fit; it should be developed into a separate book. Lane strongly opposed this suggestion and acquiesced to it only with reluctance. That issue settled, Murray agreed to publish the book and instructed Lane to complete the text and illustrations.
Inspired by the acceptance, Lane set to work. With characteristic speed and energy he completed the text, nearly 300,000 words, and finished its more than 160 illustrations within an astonishingly short per