The Camel of Destruction
“He saw the projected road as a major threat to order. The one through the Derb Aiah was bad enough but the one through the Old City was political dynamite. It would make some of the most conservative parts of the population explode in fury.
Any road built between the Bab-el-Futuh, and the Bab-el-Azab would inevitably mean the despoliation of a number of religious sites, including, almost certainly, the demolition of mosques. Some of these were among the most hallowed in the city and he could se...e no way in which an attempt to demolish them would not be resisted with blood.
Set against the command of religious loyalties, any loyalty the Khedive could call on was infinitesimal. He was seen as a foreigner anyway and, although Turkey was part of Islam, as part of a remote and secular power structure imposed from outside, a view reinforced by the fact that at the time of the nationalist Arabi uprising twenty years before the Khedive had had to call on British bayonets to maintain him in power.MoreLess
Any road built between the Bab-el-Futuh, and the Bab-el-Azab would inevitably mean the despoliation of a number of religious sites, including, almost certainly, the demolition of mosques. Some of these were among the most hallowed in the city and he could se...e no way in which an attempt to demolish them would not be resisted with blood.
Set against the command of religious loyalties, any loyalty the Khedive could call on was infinitesimal. He was seen as a foreigner anyway and, although Turkey was part of Islam, as part of a remote and secular power structure imposed from outside, a view reinforced by the fact that at the time of the nationalist Arabi uprising twenty years before the Khedive had had to call on British bayonets to maintain him in power.MoreLess
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