Japanese Studies

ISSN: 1037-1397 (Print) 1469-9338 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjst20

Mustafa and the Mikado: A Francophile Egyptian's

turn to Meiji Japan

Michael Laffan

To cite this article: Michael Laffan (1999) Mustafa and the Mikado: A Francophile Egyptian's turn
to Meiji Japan, Japanese Studies, 19:3, 269-286, DOI: 10.1080/10371399908727682

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10371399908727682

Published online: 15 May 2007.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 96

Citing articles: 3 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjst20
Japanese Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1999 269

Mustafa and the Mikado: A Francophile Egyptian's

Turn to Meiji Japan

MICHAEL LAFFAN, University of Sydney, Australia

The spectacular rise of Meiji Japan, symbolised most emphatically by the defeat of
Russia in the Straits of Tsushima, became the subject of avid fascination the world over,
but particularly so in the Muslim world. Yet Japan already had its attention. In 1890
a ship sent by the sultan of Turkey to the Japanese emperor set Southeast Asia abuzz
with the rumour of an impending alliance between Istanbul and Tokyo.1 After the
Russo-Japanese war some Muslims, such as the editors of the Singaporean journal
al-Imam in 1906, urged the conversion of the Japanese emperor in the hope that Japan
would take on the leadership of the Muslim community. Several sultans of the
Southeast Asian archipelago even wrote requesting Tokyo's military support.2 This
essay aims to explore the thought of an Egyptian nationalist within this context of
Muslim enthusiasms for Japan by examining his personal passion for the Meiji state,
particularly its success in the war with Russia.

Mustafa Kamil and his Egypt

In 1906 an Arabic book about Japan, predictably entitled The Rising Sun (al-Shams
al-mushriqa; Cairo, 1904), appeared in translation in Malay under the auspices of
al-Imam, a journal produced in Singapore which aimed for the revival and reform of
Islam among Southeast Asian Muslims. The Rising Sun seemed to be a work directed
at all Muslim peoples that encouraged them to take on Japan's example and advance
their state without compromising their indigenous cultures and religion. What then of
the original and its author, whom al-Imam presented as a great Muslim striving for the
good of his people? How was he attracted to the Japanese, and what affinity did he see
between them and the Egyptians in 1904?
Mustafa Kamil, 'the harbinger of the Egyptian national movement', was born in
Cairo in 1874 and died there in 1908.3 Throughout his brief political life he was
constantly involved with the Egyptian nationalist movement, within the context of a
regenerated Ottoman caliphate,4 as a polemicist, political activist, and unofficial Eu-

1 This ship, the Ertrogrül, sank within sight of the Japanese coast. However, the primary objective of
waving the Ottoman flag in Southeast Asian waters had already been achieved.
2 Barbara Andaya, 'From Rum to Tokyo: The Search for Anticolonial Allies by the Rulers of Riau,
1899-1914', Indonesia, 24 (1977), p. 139.
3 'Abd al-Rahman al-Rafi'i, Mustafa Kamil: ba'ith al-harakat al-wataniya(Cairo, Maktabat al-nahda
al-Misriya, 1950).
4 The rulers of the Ottoman Empire (1517-1914) claimed much of North Africa, the Caucasus, Egypt,
the Red Sea littoral, and Syria. With substantial Western encroachment during the 19th century, Turkey's
rulers began an active programme under Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909) for European states to consider
the Ottoman sultan the nominal (and spiritual) leader of all the world's Muslims. This movement, referred
to as pan-Islamism, was embodied by Turkish claims to the office of the Caliphate, originally established
with the death of the Prophet in 632, as an office of leadership of the entire Muslim community (umma).

1037-1397/99/030269-18 © 1999 Japanese Studies Association of Australia

270 Michael Laffan

ropean emissary of the Khedive 'Abbas Hilmi (r. 1892-1914).5 This complicated set of
loyalties revolved around Egypt's confusing status at the time as an Ottoman province
under British occupation and the nominal vice-regency of the local dynasty established
by Muhammad 'Ali Pasha (1805-48), known as the Khedives.6 After frenetic attempts
to modernise Egypt, including massive loans to complete the Suez Canal (opened
1869), by the 1870s Egypt was insolvent and forced to accept an Anglo-French
commission to manage the public debt. Moreover a coup led by Colonel Ahmad 'Urabi
Pasha (1839-1911) and anti-Christian riots in Alexandria led to direct British occu-
pation in 1882 and the return of the Khedive as a puppet of the British administration,
which paid lip service to Ottoman rule.7 Nonetheless, for many Egyptians, well aware
of the British occupation, their temporal sovereign remained the Turkish Sultan as
represented by the Khedive and hence both figures would be used as symbols of
national identification and struggle to be laid over the memory of Ahmad 'Urabi's
valiant failure of 1881-1882.
Kamil was thus only eight when the British annexed Egypt. The son of an Army
engineer, a middle class professional allied to the modern state, it was intended that he
too would find a career in the civil service. Hence he was educated in the secular
government system established under the educational reforms instituted by 'AH
Mubarak Pasha (1823-1893), who marked him for a future career in public life.8 Kamil
later studied at the Khedival law school in Cairo. This institution was the alma mater
of many of Egypt's future leaders and Kamil was a classmate of, or at least personally
familiar with, a core of future statesmen and literati now numbered among the
progenitors of the Egyptian national revival.9 These included the writer Qasim Amin
(1865-1908), the journalist and editor Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872-1963) and Sa'd
Zaghlul Pasha (1857-1927), who wrung important concessions from the British with
the first revolution of 1919. Through a classmate there Kamil met with members of
'Urabi's first revolutionary movement and the party that he was later to found took on
its name, al-Hizb al-Watani (the Patriotic Party). Whilst at the law school Kamil also
first met the young Khedive who most likely helped support him during his later studies
in France.
When Kamil returned to Egypt from France in 1894 he took direct control of the
Hizb al-Watani, founded in his absence in 1893, and in 1900 established its newspaper,
al-Liwa' (The Standard). Although Kamil was a spellbinding orator, tireless traveller,
prolific writer and charismatic personality, his party had a popular mass following only

5 During the ministerial crisis of January 1893, Kamil was to first rise to prominence as a student radical,
leading the sack of the offices of the Anglophile daily al-Muqattam.
6 Muhammad 'Ali, often called 'the father of modern Egypt', was the Ottoman governor of Egypt who
succeeded in gaming an unprecedented degree of autonomy, establishing his own family as the ruling
dynasty. Although he took the title of Khedive, it was only officially recognised by Istanbul as pertaining
to his grandson Isma'il in 1867. Throughout Muhammad 'Ali's reign, he prioritised the acquisition of
Western military technology and services designed to suppon his rule. Having invaded the Sudan as a
source of manpower, in the 1830s his ambitions in Syria at the expense of his suzerain had to be checked
by the European powers.
7 Egypt was only officially detached from the Ottoman Empire with the outbreak of the Great War,
whereupon the Khedives were granted Regal status.
8 Robert L. Tignor, Modernisation and British Colonial Rule in Egypt 1882-1914 (Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1966), p. 261.
9 P. M. Holt (Ed.), Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt: Historical Studiesfrom the Ottoman Conquest
to the United Arab Republic (London, Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 216.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 271

during the brief period between the public outcry surrounding the Dinshaway incident
of 1906 and the amazing mass scenes of national grief that surrounded his cortege in
1908. The Dinshaway incident takes its name from the Delta village where, on 13 June
1906, a party of British officers chose to make some sport of shooting the villagers'
pigeons. An altercation ensued which resulted in the death of a British officer who
collapsed while running for help, and of a peasant who went to his assistance and was
beaten to death by British troops who suspected him of murder. Imperial vengeance
was swift, resulting in the public hanging of the 'ring-leaders' and the flogging and
lengthy imprisonment of many others. Although the British intended this as a warning
against 'Islamic' militancy, they only succeeded in arousing unprecedented public
outcry which was effectively harnessed by KamiPs nationalists who channelled the rage
of a nation. The Dinshaway incident and its aftermath thus 'accomplished more for the
Egyptian nationalist movement than Mustafa had been able to gain in twelve years of
travelling and haranguing'.10 From that point on Kamil even seemed capable of taking
on the government.11 However, his rise was to be cut short by his death and the
spawning of rival factions eager to gain the support of the Egyptian people. Little more
would be achieved until ZaghluPs movement of 1919.

From France to Japan

Kamil's idolisation of France was always a feature of his writings. The ideals of the
revolution and patriotism had left their mark on many of the Egyptians who had
travelled to France before him. One such traveller was Rifa'a Badawi Rafi' al-Tahtawi
(1801-1873) who was sent to Paris as a guide and prayer leader for the students there.
Al-Tahtawi is credited with redefining the homeland (al-zvatari) and formulating a sense
of devotion to it.12 He and others were to play a crucial role in the transformation of
Egypt in the 19th century into a state run largely on militarist lines that emphasised the
importance of education, order (nizam), and devotion to the zvatan.13
For Kamil France held the key to Western progress, prosperity, civilisation and
liberation, at least until the Anglo-French Accord, signed on 8 April 1904, effectively
spelt the end of Franco-British competition in Africa. François Deloncle, an advocate
of French ambition in the Nile valley, was welcomed by Kamil during his visit to Egypt
in 1895, and subsequently arranged for the young law student to return with him to
Paris.14 However Deloncle soon proved a disappointment to Kamil when he passed the
earnest 21-year-old off as his secretary rather than introducing him to influential
French politicians as he had promised.
Kamil first broke with Deloncle in September 1895 and subsequently wrote to the
famous French nationalist Juliette Adam (1836-1936) on the 12th ofthat month.15 She
invited him to submit articles to her journal (La Nouvelle Revue) and enabled him to

10 Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr, 'The Egyptian Nationalist Party: 1892-1919', in Holt (Ed.), Political and Social
Change in Modern Egypt, p. 320.
11 Alben Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939 (London, Oxford University Press, 1962,
reissued 1983), p. 201.
12 Ibid., p. 79.
13 Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 137.
14 Goldschmidt, 'The Egyptian Nationalist Party', p. 313.
15 The letter is also reproduced in Adam's L'Angleterre en Egypte, which she dedicated to him. See Juliette
Adam (Lamber), L'Angleterre en Egypte (Paris, Imprimerie du Centre, 1922), p. 145.
272 Michael Laffan

meet prominent French figures. Nonetheless Goldschmidt observes that '[E]xcept for
the Turcophile [Pierre] Loti, most of these politically conservative literati supported
Mustafa more because they disliked England than out of love for Egyptian national-
ism'.16
Kamil continued to hope for French aid for Egypt; but the Fashoda incident—
France's last failure to make territorial gains in the Sudan in 1898—undermined that
hope, and the Anglo-French Accord smashed it. However, this was no great surprise.
Kamil had observed its approach from as early as 1900, noting the abandonment of the
Boers in South Africa with dismay: 'What a lesson for us who counted on Europe!'17
If anything KamiPs years in Europe gradually led to feelings of disappointment and a
sense that Europeans were fundamentally anti-Eastern despite their high sounding
sympathies for the advancement of 'the East'.
Some resonance of Kamil's disappointment is also to be found in an article written
by Ahmad Hilmi in al-Liwa' on 7 June 1904 entitled 'France and Japan'. In it Hilmi
cast both nations as the clear betters of Russia and England, but went on to emphasise
the comparative progress of Japan in its struggle with Russia and the fact that France
had lost its enthusiasm for the ideals so boldly proclaimed in the Revolution of 1789.
Hilmi catalogued the French defeats at the hands of the British—as at Abu Qir (1798)
and Fashoda—all capped off by the Accord. What Kamil and his party needed in the
first months of 1904, when his promised land seemed devoid of hope, was a miracle.18
What regenerated that hope was a war fought over the Korean peninsula between an
old power—Russia—and a new power—Japan—rising in the East. For Kamil it was
Japan that was the clear champion of world freedom.

Kamil's Easterner and Islam

For all his disappointment Kamil was influenced by European thinking in important
ways; and one of those was his assimilation of the idea of a greater East. Here we may
pause to consider who Kamil's Easterner was. It would seem that his entire world-view
was essentially a hybrid Franco-Egyptian one. How did he thus define the Easterner
(al-sharqi), who was so often the subject of his discourse? Where did Egypt fit in his
vision of the East?
Following the many disappointments of 1904, Kamil became disillusioned with
Europe and Europeans whom he now felt to be fundamentally anti-Oriental.19 Kamil
certainly made this point in The Rising Sun:
If the Europeans had been genuine in their propaganda and speech that they
wanted to civilise all human kind and that they did not enter countries except
to take their people into their hands to mobilise them on the path to
civilisation, then they would have been pleased in their anticipation of the
progress of the yellow race and its development and reckoned Japan the

16 Goldschmidt, 'The Egyptian Nationalist Party', pp. 314-315. On Loti's location within the general field
of the imagining of a mysterious and 'picturesque' Islamic Orient see Edward Said, Orientalism: Western
Conceptions of the Orient (London, Penguin, 1995), pp. 99, 252.
17 George M. Haddad, 'Mustafa Kamil: A Self Image from his Correspondence with Juliette Adam',
Muslim World, 63 (1973), p. 135.
18 In that year also Deloncle replaced Kamil as the Khedive's emissary to Europe.
19 Jack A. Crabbs, The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: A Study in National Transformation
(Cairo, American University in Cairo Press, 1984), p. 153.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 273

greatest of civilised factors. However the truth and reality is that rivalry
remains the general rule in mankind. It is ordained that everyone works for the
disappointment and disadvantage of his opponent. The Europeans do not
wish for the advancement of the Orientals and the Orientals do not desire the
permanence of European sovereignty.20
We are also able to trace Kamil's imagining of the East in the pages of al-Liwa'. In
general his journal devoted significant attention to the countries of the East, from
Morocco to Java, but seldom in any other context than to illustrate the effects of
colonial machinations on the various peoples of the world. Here the magnifying glass
is focused even more closely on the significant Muslim populations of the region, in
India and especially in Java, where the journal had a special correspondent. The image
was clear; Western coloniser and Eastern colonised were engaged in an ancient struggle
for the possession of the future.
It seems that it was through Juliette Adam that Kamil gained much of his material
on Japan—and indeed on other examples of patriotism around the world. On 28 March
1904 he wrote to her, relating how he was expending his efforts writing an Arabic work
on the Japanese and their progress, 'so as to explain to the people how to rise, and to
encourage them by the current striving of the Japanese'.21 Furthermore, he asked Adam
to send him summary information on books and articles dealing with the Japanese and
their patriotism. A mere three months later he wrote to her explaining that he had
completed his work and that he had determined the cause of Japan's rise.
I have just finished the first volume of my book on Japan. The chief reason
which has pushed me to do it is to profit by the current of great sympathy that my
compatriots have for the Japanese to tell them that those people are so strong
only because they are patriotic. I believe that it will have a ringing effect. I have
never tired myself so much as these last days.22
Kamil had indeed tired himself in the production of The Rising Sun, and the implica-
tions of his analysis probably hurt him as much as the physical exhaustion that he had
expended in its execution. This he related in his introduction:
How shall an Egyptian write about a nation [Japan] which was [numbered]
among the dead when his own people were in the first rank of the living,
amazing the world, filling the Easterner with pride and frightening the enemy
with their armies and fleets? Yet, how can he make comparisons between them
and us? We came to see that comparison as a source of shame whilst they
began to see it as a disgrace. And we have been calling to the East to imitate
us and now how they scoff at us! It is no wonder that the Egyptian becomes
confused when he wants to compare two nations: one of which is an ally of
England whilst the other is preyed upon by its fangs. The first striking Russia
and struggling with the greatest of empires; the second incomplete, stricken by
woe, distress and discord—with despondency lodged in the hearts of many of
its people. It is thus that it falls to me as the author to compare between them.

20 Mustafa K a m i l , al-Shams al-mushriqa ( C a i r o , M a t b a ' a t al-Liwa', 1 9 0 4 ) , p . 2 2 .

21 M a r k a z w a t h a ' i q wa ta'rikh M i s r al-mu'asira, Awraq Mustafa Kamil: al-murasalat ( C a i r o , al-Hay'a
al-Misriya a l - ' a m m a li'1-kuttab, 1982), p . 192.
22 'Ali F a h m i K a m i l , Rasa'il Misriya Firinsiya ( C a i r o , M a d r a s a t Mustafa K a m i l , 1 9 0 9 ) , p . 146. T h e letters
cited h e r e are from the English pages of this bilingual edition; m y emphasis.
274 Michael Laffan

Then I must compare between the rising and the falling, the advanced and the
backward, the lord and the vassal, the conqueror and the vanquished, the
rising sun and the sun which has already set!23
The Rising Sun was only the first part of an ongoing fascination with Japan that was
eventually to cause friction between himself and Adam and ostensibly to a break with
Loti. His whole attitude to Japan and Russia, and to France's replacement by Japan, is
laid out in a letter written to Adam from San Stefano on 9 June 1905 (two days after
the article by Ahmad Hilmi):
I am extremely sorry to learn that Loti has changed towards me ... If I have
spoken of my enthusiasm for Japan before him, it is that I cannot hide my
opinion and my sentiments;... You are astonished that I am for the Japanese;
all my people agree with me. Pray examine the thing from the Egyptian and
Mussulman point of view. Of the two combatants, Japan has done no harm to
Egypt nor to Islam; on the other hand Russia has done to Egypt, at the time
of its greatness under Mehmet Ali, the greatest evil in burning its fleet, in
concert with England, always treacherous, and France, always deceived. And
in giving to Mehmet Ali the most serious opposition, she has done to Islam
and the Mussulman peoples the blackest of evils. She is enemy No. 1 [sic]. In
the second place, it is not the alliance of England with Japan which ruins the
independence of my country but the entente of treacherous England with
France.24
Why then should I be anti-Japanese? I, who adore the patriots [sic] and find
amongst the Japanese the finest example of patriotism? The Japanese people
is not the sole Oriental people which has put Europe in its proper place.25
How should I not love them? I understand very well your grief and chagrin,
you who have prepared the Russian alliance for other ends. But I would have
shared this grief and chagrin if France had remained for us France.26

Earlier Comparisons of Egypt and Japan

Aside from the general need for a symbol of progress and his sense of abandonment by
France (and the Khedive), are there any more specific circumstances that would have
spurred Kamil on to write about Japan?
It is tempting to ascribe the initial link to an encounter in Ceylon between the exiled
Ahmad 'Urabi and a former Japanese general on 3 April 1886. Apparently 'Urabi made
quite an impression on General Tani Tateki, who returned to Japan more convinced
than ever of the need to modernise and reform in the race with the West. Yet from
'Urabi's 'stirring tale' Tani also began to worry about the nature of his country's
wholesale Westernisation. There were clear warnings to be garnered from over-eager
industrialisation beyond the financial means of the nation. These intimations were
realised during his visit later that month to Egypt, where he noted 'the people has
become enslaved to the British. All of this came about because Sa'id Pasha [r. 1854-63]

23 K a m i l , al-Shams al-muskriqa, p p . 8 - 9 .
24 England and Japan had already formed a military alliance in 1902.
25 I am uncertain what other Asian victory Kamil is referring to here although it may be the victories of
his idol Muhammad 'Ali in Syria.
26 'Ali Fahmi Kamil, Rasa'il Misriya Firinsiya, pp. 198-206.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 275

was envious of the civilization of Europe and incurred a greater foreign debt than the
strength of his country allowed'. Tani came to fear that '[i]t was fully possible that
Japan would follow in the footsteps of Egypt as a result of adopting Europeanization',
and gave some thought to how, in those circumstances, Japan's independence could be
secured. Modernisation was imperative, yet a nation must retain its culture and
economic independence; Egypt was a clear example for the Japanese of the path not to
take.27
However, we must remember that Kamil would have been only 10 at this time. When
the eager law student first wrote to 'Urabi in Ceylon in the mid 1890s, although he may
perhaps have mentioned the visit undertaken many years beforehand, it would most
likely have been in relation to purely Egyptian concerns.28 Relations between Kamil and
'Urabi later cooled, and Kamil—along with most of Egyptian society—became a critic
of his former idol after his return from exile in 1901.
Kamil had also been deeply affected by an article written by a Russian who had
studied with students from both Japan and Egypt in Paris in 1877. The article
compared the Japanese to the Egyptians, and though the unnamed author himself had
preferred the company of the informal and unambitious Egyptians, he praised the
Japanese as the future lords of the East.29 Here too perhaps is an inkling of the kind of
material Kamil used in The Rising Sun which, unfortunately, contains few direct
references to his sources. This can be contrasted with Kamil's article in al-Liwa'
entitled 'The Japanese in Their Country' (24 July 1904) which is directly attributed to
the observations of a 'Monsieur Charles Laurant', as reported in a French paper.
However, before exploring the content of The Rising Sun, the overall sentiment for
Japan at the time in relation to Kamil's own ideas on nations and nationalism needs
brief attention.

Japan, Turkey and the West: 1904

Meiji Japan was not only the idol of Egyptian literati. It had succeeded in firing
the imagination of peoples from the East Indies to Turkey. In his short story The
Chatterbox Hairdresser, the Egyptian writer Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti (1876-1924)
wrote of a hairdresser so obsessed with a discussion of the Japanese progress in its war
with Russia that he inadvertently cut his customer's hair to resemble a map of Japan!30
Meanwhile in the Dutch East Indies a missionary working in Sumatra noted that
'people otherwise ignorant of politics often began to ask questions about the state of
things in Japan'.31
Having daily access to reports of Japan and its successes in the war with Russia,
Kamil felt compelled to draw any lesson he could from its example for his people.
Throughout 1904 his broadsheet al-Liwa' focused extensively on the war in straight

27 M o t o y a m a Yukihiko, Proliferating Talent: Essays on Politics, Thought and Education in the Meiji Era
(Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1997), pp. 220f.
28 M a h m u d al-Khafif, Ahmad ' Urabi: al-za 'im al-muftara 'alaihi (Cairo, al-Markaz al-'arabi li'1-buhuth wa
'l-nashr, 1981), p . 547.
29 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p . 15.
30 Personal communication from Renee Worringer, currently preparing a dissertation on the impact of
Meiji Japan on the Ottoman empire, M a r c h 1999.
31 Gottfried Simon, The Progress and Arrest of Islam in Sumatra (London, Marshall Brothers, 1912), p . 3 9 .
276 Michael Laffan

reportage reworked from Western papers. As these were filled with photographs, maps,
and artists' impressions of the conflict, al-Liwa' also took to displaying photographs of
Meiji leaders. For Kamil, and indeed many of his contemporaries, here was an Eastern
nation showing the way forward through the acquisition of Western technology and
naturally a suitable degree of nationalistic, and indeed imperialistic, fervour. An
example of this passion may be seen in his article 'General Feeling Towards the
Russo-Japanese War' (9 May 1904) where he outlined some of the themes of his
forthcoming book.
More important though are the articles which related the exemplary patriotism of
the Japanese people, from the Emperor down to the meanest peasant. Examples which
Kamil and his fellow writers presented in al-Liwa' include the activities of female
students preparing Red Cross parcels (under the rather misleading title 'Women in
Japan', 28 April) and a list of the financial contributions to the war effort by leading
Japanese ('The Patriotism of the Japanese', 26 April).
Kamil had anticipated Japan's ultimate victory over Russia, the traditional enemy of
the Ottoman Empire, and when it came it was especially sweet for him and other
Muslims, as '[Russia's] hand was the first moved by the Cross to divide the Ottoman
state and strip her most important lands from her'.32 Indeed Kamil had already
produced a work cataloguing the depredations of Russia on the Ottoman Empire
(al-Mas'ala al-sharqiya [The Eastern Question], 1898). Had Japan been fighting another
colonial power less antagonistic to Islam or one not ruling over substantial Muslim
minorities, then its appeal would indeed have been reduced in the Muslim World.
Rather than simply seeing a conflict between an Eastern nation and another coloniser,
Muslims could feel a direct link with the conflict.
This is not to suggest that Japan had eclipsed Turkey as the focus for the
pan-Islamists. Articles on the Ottoman empire, its fleet (such as 'The Islamic Fleet',
6 October 1904) and Abdülhamid continued to make the front page of al-Liwa'—
though the emphasis implied was that Turkey's continued success as the paragon of
the Muslim World could only be maintained through military and social reforms.
Japan and Turkey were also the subject of an article published in the United States
('The Japanese and the Turks') subsequently paraphrased by al-Liwa' on 8 October.
Here Kamil outlined the three pillars of Japanese unity: a single language (lugha),
a single race (jins), and unity of religion (din). Whilst by comparison, Kamil's
paper conceded that there was no people prouder than the Turks, its three pillars were
weak and hence 'those people under the crescent are mutually hostile, whilst those
under the rising sun are united'. The only way forward for Turkey was thus to
concentrate on what it did have—vigour (shahamd)—something which Kamil struggled
to instil in the Egyptian people. The Russo-Japanese war was to be a source of pride for
all Egyptians, and a Japanese victory 'a glory for every Easterner' (al-Liwa', 4 Septem-
ber 1904).
Western-educated activists like Kamil, and other Ottoman enthusiasts, saw Japan as
the natural ally of Turkey in the struggle against Western colonialism—but not Western-
isation, which was seen as the key to their success.

32 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p. 19.

 Mustafa and the Mikado 277

Pan-Islam, Nationalism and Colonialism

Throughout his life the Francophile Kamil was committed to the preservation of the
Caliphate and Turkish suzerainty.33 Although he was an avowed supporter of the
Ottoman Caliphate and the ideals of pan-Islam, he overrode such principles where the
independence of a nation was at issue. This is not to say that Kamil favoured the
substitution of British occupation by a Turkish one. Rather he used the ambiguity of
Egypt's status—being both under British occupation and Turkish suzerainty—as a lever
in his campaigns for Egyptian independence.
Japan's relationship with Egypt's oppressor, Great Britain, therefore also presented a
problem as the two nations had been united by a military alliance since 1902. Yet
Kamil in his writings for al-Liwa' emphasised the differing nature—in his mind—of
their colonialisms. He likened the Japanese more to his French idols with their mission
civilisatrice, claiming that the Japanese did not take over a colony other than to lead it
on to a higher state. Indeed in the same article he even proposed—as did Japanese such
as Suganuma Teifu,34 and later Takekoshi Yosaburô35—that the Dutch East Indies be
annexed by Japan {al-Liwa', 6 November 1904).
Nationalists and colonialists often speak the same language. One particular area
where this is evident is in Kamil's stand on greater Egypt. Whilst he actively criticised
European colonisers, and even Muhammad 'Ali's incursions in Syria,36 he remained
committed to an Egypt which included the Sudan.37 He and many other nationalists,
such as Lutfi al-Sayyid, felt bitter about being deprived of the Sudan and called for
Nilotic unity. Kamil also complained that the British would teach the Sudanese to hate
their Egyptian brothers, and emphasised the historical links between the two countries.
Yet this stand is somewhat less than fraternal; Kamil stated that the Sudan was a part
of Egypt 'by right of conquest', and promoted it as a territory to be legitimately
exploited by Egypt.38 Such a paradox is also advanced in The Rising Sun, where Kamil
emphasises Russia's evil, 'enriched by every colonialism', and at the same time be-
moans Japan's being cheated of the territorial spoils of the Sino-Japanese War of
1894-1895.39 Indeed he ended The Rising Sun with the observation that Japan was 'the
nation most deserving of sovereignty over the Far East'.40
The Japanese government also felt that for Japan to take its place as a great power it
must acquire a strong extra-territorial force in the manner of the Europeans to take on
colonies of its own. There is evidence that the Meiji government even modelled its
administration in Korea on that of Lord Cromer in Egypt.41 What Kamil sought was an

33 In recognition of his activities, Abdülhamid h a d p r o m o t e d h i m to the ranks of Mutemayiz in 1900 a n d

Pasha in 1904.
34 Andaya, ' F r o m R u m to T o k y o ' , p . 1 3 3 .
35 Nagazumi Akira, 'An Indonesian's View of Japan: Wahidin a n d t h e Russo-Japanese W a r ' , in F . H . H .
King (Ed.), The Development of Japanese Studies in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the Fourth Leverhulme
Conference ( H o n g Kong, University of H o n g K o n g , Centre of Asian Studies, 1969), p . 7 7 .
36 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p . 1 6 1 .
37 Goldschmidt, ' T h e Egyptian Nationalist Party', p . 3 3 1 .
38 C. Wendell, The Evolution of the Egyptian National Image: From its Origins to Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid
(Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972), pp. 261-267.
39 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p. 20.
40 Ibid., p. 221.
41 S. Lone, 'General Katsura Taro and the Japanese Empire in East Asia, 1874-1913', unpublished PhD
thesis (Canberra, Australian National University, 1989), p. 26.
278 Michael Lqffan

equal relationship with the West. Any nation that could have the form of alliance
that Japan had with a Western power must necessarily be regarded as a peer of that
power.

The Rising Sun and Patriotism

The Rising Sun was first publicised in al-Liwa on 19 June 1904, in an article entitled 'Us
and Them'. It gave the full text of Kamil's introduction together with a summary of the
book's contents. Subsequent issues repeated the summary and included
advertising for the book. Following Kamil's introductory exhortation to take on the
example of the Japanese, the chapters of The Rising Sun covered, with the following
order and titles: 'The Japanese Islands'; 'Something of History'; 'The Recent Coup'
[the Meiji Restoration]; 'The Mikado'; 'His Aides', being further subdivided with
chapters on Itö, Inoue, Itagaki and Ökubo; 'The Constitution'; 'The Parliament and its
Parties'; 'Public Administration and the Courts'; 'Finance'; 'Education'; 'The Press';
and lastly 'The Army and Navy'. The book was 222 pages long, contained 12 pictures
and was available from the journal's offices in Cairo and Alexandria for 15 piastres
a copy.
It is unclear from later biographies of Kamil how popular The Rising Sun was.
However two factors suggest that it received significant attention among both the
emerging secular classes and the party of Muslim reformers. First, al-Liwa' was widely
read, easily outselling its intellectual contemporaries. Indeed Salama Musa (1887-
1958) recalled that it was read by 'all the young men'.42 Second, The Rising Sun was
selected for translation by a Malay journal known to concentrate on religious works
available in Cairo. Together they indicate a particularly wide circulation that crossed
the bounds of religious reformism and nationalist secularism.43
Though one Malay author has called The Rising Sun 'a history of the Japanese
people',44 it is more specifically a description of Meiji Japan, its statesmen and
institutions, incorporating biographies of prominent statesmen of the day, and heaping
praise on the Meiji emperor. It gave cursory attention to geography and history but
most importantly it called on the Egyptian people to follow Japan's example and attain
'what it expects of a noble life, glory and independence'.45 Kamil exhorted his people
to emulate the spirit of Japan's patriotism. He believed that patriotism (zvataniya) was
the irresistible force that could empower any nation to achieve any feat. For indeed,
'these amazing feats that the Mikado and his men are enacting in quick time are only
the result of that living feeling: patriotism'.46
For Kamil this spirit of wataniya was independent of Islam and yet bolstered by it:
'I see religion and patriotism as inseparable twins. For the man whose heart is possessed
by religion loves his homeland deeply'.47 Although it was often couched in terms more
readily assimilated by Muslim Egyptian readers, The Rising Sun appealed for a broad
Eastern unity in the face of European colonisation, rather than specific Islamic unity.

42 P. J. Vatikiotis, The Modern History of Egypt (New York, Frederick A Praeger, 1969), p . 226.
43 M . F . Laffan, 'Watan and Negeri: Mustafa Kamil's Rising Sun in the Malay World', Indonesia Circle,
69 (1996), p p . 156-175.
44 Zainal Abidin b . A h m a d (Za'ba), ' M o d e r n Developments in Malay literature', in R. O . Winstedt (Ed.),
A History of Malay Literature, Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 17:3 (1939), p . 148.
45 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p . 7.
46 Ibid., p . 18.
47 al-Rafi'i, Mustafa Kamil, pp. 146-147.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 279

Kamil's Homeland: Historical Continuity and Traditional Cultural Homo-

geneity
It was a very Egyptian nationalism that was expressed by Kamil in his use of the terms
watan and wataniya. The historical watan of Egypt was first defined by al-Tahtawi, who
emphasised the fraternity of Muslims of the same watan over their brotherhood in
Islam.48 Kamil's position can be seen as the consequence of an education system
pioneered by the likes of al-Tahtawi. Yet unlike al-Tahtawi's conception, Kamil's watan
was more than an Arabo-Islamic Egypt. It was the watan of the Pharaohs whose
temples and tombs had been so earnestly studied by European archaeologists since the
arrival of Napoleon in Egypt in 1798, of the ancient culture so highly esteemed in the
West and now «appropriated by Egyptian nationalists.
Kamil concentrated on a vision of Egypt that was a geographically and historically
discrete entity. Egypt could be readily imagined in terms of both Nilotic culture and a
continuous history stretching back to the days of the Pharaohs whose glory was
reinstated by Muhammad 'Ali's conquest of the Sudan in the 1810s. And Egypt had
the proof of its lineage scattered everywhere throughout the country in the form of
pyramids, temples and steles. The religion of Islam, meanwhile, was just another means
of reiterating Egypto-Sudanese unity. Kamil's party emphasised unity of language, race
and faith, but of these, race and language were primary, religion secondary.
Religion and physical territory aside, it would seem that Kamil subscribed to Ernest
Renan's (1823-92) theories on nationalism which claimed that a nation was not
classified by its religion but by the people's will to live togedier (Je désir d'être ensemble).49
Renan also placed great store in defining a nation by its history and Kamil followed just
such a line in The Rising Sun for '[W] hat ever dark days you have seen, there is the
promise of a long and bright future if you work and unite and learn that the nation is
cohesive in its past, present and future'.50
Like Lutfi al-Sayyid and Ahmad 'Urabl, Kamil was fiercely proud of his fallah
(peasant) blood and was an Egyptian first and an Ottoman subject second. He also
believed that Egyptians were to be reoriented to see their primary loyalty to the watan
and people. It was this spirit of national pride Kamil saw 'creeping' among the Japanese
which needed to be absorbed by the Egyptians.
... the spirit of change and national pride crept among all [the Japanese], after
which the individual who had believed that his village was the whole country
began to realise that the entire kingdom was a country for everyone; and diat
no matter how remote its parts or isolated its regions, any foreign intervention
in the meanest of its villages would disturb its peace and likewise hurt them.51
Here Kamil's view of what the ideal watan should be is projected on to the Japanese
watan and its inhabitants.
In The Rising Sun Kamil presented Japan as a major archipelago placed in a crucial
position between Asia and the New World, for he did not subscribe to the view that
Japan was a small nation which has seemingly performed beyond all expectations. For

48 Hourani, Arabic Thought, p . 7 9 .

49 O n 11 March 1882, Renan outlined his theories in a lecture at the Sorbonne entitled 'What is a Nation?'
See Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic Races and Other Studies, trans. William G. Hutchinson (London,
T h e Scott Library, 1896), p p . 6 1 - 8 3 .
50 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p . 5.
51 Ibid., p p . 5 9 - 6 0 .
280 Michael Lqffan

Kamil, Japan's performance was mirrored in its size and wealth of natural resources.
Likewise for Kamil, the geographic fragmentation of Japan's territory was no obstacle
to its cultural unity because its populace was perceived as being ethnically homogenous.
Egypt too should thus unite and recognise the essential unity of its people, who were
yet to subscribe to the pan-Arabism of later nationalists such as Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir.
Japan's indigenous religion played a minor role for Kamil in terms of its content as
a faith; rather it was a symbol of unity to be manipulated by the state. He therefore
presented Shinto itself as little more than a cult of respect for elders and pious
forebears, who were all, naturally, Japanese patriots to the core. Kamil also explained
in his chapter on education how the Japanese love of their nation was rooted in respect
for their elders—who were to be seen as the exemplars of the greatest of peoples. This
traditional strength he in turn saw asserted in the long tradition of Japanese education
claiming that the Japanese 'are brought up to be energetic and chivalrous, scornful of
death and loving of the homeland—being satisfied only in its service and the elevation
of its concerns'.52
Kamil's Muslim opponents often criticised his nationalism as verging on irreligion.
On the other hand, his description of Shinto as something which 'does not go beyond
the glorification of the forefathers of the Mikado and the pious forebears and the
emulation of their righteous deeds' would have ruffled few Muslim feathers—as he used
the term 'glorification' (tamjid) as opposed to 'worship' ('ibada).53 For Kamil, Shinto as
the official unifying religion of Japan, was equated with Meiji nationalism. It was yet
another crime of the bakufu that under its rule the Japanese had not only seen their ruler
deprived of his natural power but their faith 'which glorified the Mikado's forefathers
and ancestors and respected the sacred Japanese origin, was scorned by the daimyo and
was replaced by Buddhism and Confucianism to kill indigenous sentiments and wipe
out patriotic affection in the soul'.54
As far as Kamil was concerned, (State) Shinto was centred on the idealisation of an
Emperor whose divinity was, for the common Japanese, unquestionable. This assertion
of human divinity related by Kamil was abrogated in The Rising Sun by Kamil's
assertion that the Europeanised Meiji tennô did not actually believe in his own divinity
and had only chosen to assent to such for national unity.55 Kamil's position on religion
in general was flexible, and if he presented it as a tool for national unity Muslim
audiences; before mixed assemblies of Copts and Europeans he emphasised the secular
nature of his ideas. Indeed Kamil's privileging of indigenous Shinto over Buddhism, the
'foreign' creed, would have troubled the Coptic Egyptian reader, with Kamil's implicit
approval of the 16th century expulsion of Christians—and hence foreign influence—
from Japan by Hideyoshi and his successors.56 As Kamil saw it, the rulers of Japan had
been quick to recognise the Christian West as the single greatest threat to the nation,
which therefore needed a strong hand to guide it. This did not mean that Kamil
advocated the expulsion of the Christian British from Egypt by military force, but rather

52 Ibid., p. 176. One reviewer of this article has suggested that such an image seems to conform to the
self-presentation of the Japanese by men like Nitobe Inazô (1862-1933) with his emphasis on bushido
as a means of national self-identification. Given that I have not conducted my own research in this direction
it remains, for the moment, an interesting speculation.
53 Ibid., p . 3 6 .
54 Ibid., p . 5 1 .
55 Ibid., p p . 7 6 , 8 1 .
56 Ibid., pp. 44-45.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 281

underlined his despair at the failures of past generations and their leaders who had
allowed the once proud state of Muhammad 'Ali to fall, corrupted, into the hands of
foreign oppressors. What Egypt needed more than ever in 1904 was a strong leadership
of its own, and not that installed by London's decree.

Modernity and Leadership: Cromer as Shogun

Kamil was an impassioned patriot who used his literary talents not so much to inform
as inspire. As I have mentioned, his 'long and detailed study'57 was based entirely on
secondary sources as recommended to him by Juliette Adam which enabled him to
discuss everything from literature to railways.
Images of progress, such as railways and the telegraph, are implicitly a part of the
discourse of modernity, and in this context the Suez Canal provided a neat link for
Kamil between his Egypt and Japan. He saw its opening in 1869 as one of the catalysts
for Japan's rapid ascension. At the same time it was also the beginning of Egypt's
plunge from power, being a last and squandered opportunity to utilise its strategic
geographical position to its own advantage.58 It was now up to Japan to bridge the gap
between East and West and in so doing perhaps drag at its heels the once powerful
Egyptian nation.
Kamil drew comparisons between the Tokugawa bakufu and the much degraded
state of the universal caliphate. What Japan had achieved under the Meiji Emperor
could thus be applied by the Khedive and Abdiilhamid to revitalise Egypt and the entire
Islamic world.
According to Kamil's narrative, in 1868 Mutsuhito accepted the throne for which his
father the Emperor Kömei had harboured no great aspirations, and implemented his
own national programmes through the force of his own will. For Kamil, Japan was a
nation that had 'armed itself with the civilisation of the West'.59 The crucial element,
as Kamil saw it, was the restoration of the Emperor to central power, which had
brought about the fall of the military government and was the basis of patriotism among
the people. The pan-Islamic parallel to this would be the renaissance of the Caliphate,
yet the glories of that great Islamic institution had long passed with the Mongol
invasions of Asia Minor and the sack of Baghdad in 1258. While the Ottoman empire
had started to promulgate claims to that ancient office since the 1870s, Egypt had its
own imperial house in the line of the illustrious Muhammad 'AH. Throughout his
career—and despite an often stormy relationship—Kamil publicly supported the Khe-
dive and presented him as the logical rallying point for the affections of the Egyptian
nation. Although the current Khedive, 'Abbas Hilmi, was less than exemplary, in
Kamil's eyes he was simply a pawn of Egypt's Shogun, its civilian administrator Lord
Cromer.60 A perceptive Egyptian may well have read into The Rising Sun a hope for the
ultimate restoration of the Khedive and the expulsion of the English bakuful
Egypt's shogun, Lord Cromer, regarded 'Orientals' as innately incapable in compari-

57 Ibid., p. 2.
58 Ibid., p. 10. Kamil viewed Khedival Egypt as a major military and civilisational power, and this
retrospective halcyon image was also to prove seductive to later Egyptian nationalist historians. See Crabbs,
The Writing of History.
59 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p. 4.
60 Evelyn Baring (later the Earl of Cromer) (1841-1917), the 'vice-viceroy of India' (Richmond, 1972,
p. 132), first arrived in Egypt in 1877 as the English administrator of the Anglo-French Commission of
the Public Debt. In 1883 he returned to take up his post as Egypt's civilian administrator. Throughout
his tenure he exercised an absolute rule and earned a reputation for imperious efficiency and inflexibility.
282 Michael Laffan

son with Europeans.61 However he did concede that self-rule was the ultimate aim
of European government. The lesser races were, at least theoretically, to be brought
into the modern age through European tuition. Cromer, too, was struck by the
example of Japan and the adaptability of its culture. It was an Oriental nation that
broke the mould and exemplified the harmonising of Eastern culture and Western
science.62
Although Kamil saw himself as Cromer's natural adversary, Cromer saw Kamil as a
mere creature of the Khedive and seldom saw fit to mention him by name in official
dispatches, referring instead to 'the incapable nationalist demagogue'.63 However, it
would seem highly probable that Cromer had Kamil in mind when he wrote the
following:

I had to explain to the young Gallicised Egyptian that the principles of an ultra
Republican Government were not applicable in their entirety to the existing
phase of Egyptian society, and that, when we speak of the rights of man, some
distinction has necessarily to be made in practice between a European sprout-
ing nonsense through the medium of a fifth-rate newspaper in his own
country, and man in the person of a ragged Egyptian fellah [peasant],
possessed of a sole garment, and who is unable to read a newspaper in any
language whatsoever.64

Cromer's rule would continue effectively unchallenged until the furore over the
Dinshaway incident forced his resignation in March 1907. Although previously
unmentioned in dispatches, Cromer hinted at his adversarial relationship with Kamil
in his letter of resignation: 'If I were younger I should rather enjoy fighting the
Khedive, Mustafa Kamil and their English allies, and moreover, I think I should beat
them'.65
Kamil, with some justification, felt that he had played the principal role in the
unseating of his adversary and was to pass his judgement over the Cromer years in
al-Liwa' on 12 April 1907. Cromer had, according to Kamil, usurped Khedival
authority; conquered the Sudan at Egypt's expense and yet deprived her of the spoils;
attacked Islam; deprived Egyptians of the right to education; denigrated Egyptian
nationalism; and belittled Egyptian right to self-determination. Education, colonialism,
and independence were Egypt's birthright and their restoration would henceforth place
her back among the leading nations of the world.
As I have suggested above, an Egyptian reader of The Rising Sun might have
identified Cromer as a Shogun despite a later and more direct comparison of Tokugawa
Japan widi the days of the Mamluks.66 Kamil reinforced the importance of national
pride embodied in the ruler, and mirrored Egypt's circumstances in his portrayal of
pre-Meiji Japan.67 Again the Shoguns—like Cromer—had denied effective power to the

61 The Earl of Cromer (Evelyn Baring), Abbas II (London, Macmillan, 1915), p. 62.
62 The Earl of Cromer (Evelyn Baring), Modem Egypt (two vols) (London, Macmillan, 1908), p. 538.
63 C r o m e r , Abbas II, p . xv.
64 C r o m e r , Modern Egypt, p . 3 2 3 .
65 Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid M a r s o t , Egypt and Cromer: A Study in Anglo-Egyptian Relations ( L o n d o n , J o h n
M u r r a y , 1 9 6 8 ) , p . 179.
66 T h e T u r c o - C i r c a s s i a n 'slave' dynasties t h a t h a d r u l e d Egypt for t h e centuries leading u p t o t h e reign
of M u h a m m a d 'Ali: K a m i l , al-Shams al-mushriqa, p . 6 2 .
67 K a m i l , al-Shams al-mushriqa, pp. 50-51.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 283

people's natural leader, and had exercised a shadow government which deprived them
of any sense of national worth and unity.
It seems then that Kamil placed great faith in the character of the leader of a nation
and felt the nation's progress to be necessarily tied to his conduct. This was despite his
often proclaimed inclination towards the ideals of a constitution and representative
government. Kamil always saw himself as a natural leader, as when he naively presented
a portrait of himself at the head of the Egyptian people to the French Chamber of
Deputies in 1895, and he was indeed the first Egyptian political figure in history to
claim the title of leader (al-za'im).6S Essentially he idealised absolute (but benevolent
and enlightened!) dictatorship through consensus.
Above all else Kamil was profuse in his praise of the Meiji Emperor, to whom he
always referred—following European practice—as the Mikado, and emphasised the
benevolent nature of his government supported by a mobilised and adoring people. As
he saw it, Meiji rule was benevolent dictatorship at work:
On the one hand [despotism] has destroyed and cursed Egypt whilst on the
other it has raised Japan in a renaissance, the like of which history has never
seen nor the nations heard the telling of. And God has granted this happy
nation a man who does not consider it the right of the sovereign and king to
have the power to crush and exterminate, but rather he sees that right
appropriately and realises that it is a source of goodness and happiness. The
whole nation has put its trust in him and agreed unanimously to adore him
and to submit to his direction and worthy desires so as to gain from him for
the general good, the continuing revival, and a freedom which nourishes
growing hearts and is guaranteed by the constitution.69

Did Kamil ever seriously regard himself as a natural leader of the Egyptian people?
Would he have been able to attain the affection of the people as had the Japanese
emperor? The later tragedy of Dinshaway and Kamil's political ascendancy after 1906
may have even inspired him to compare himself to that ruler and dream of Egypt's
potential under his benevolent gaze. Could Egypt once again become the model for the
East?
Despite Kamil's emphasis on the zvatan he was prepared to employ pan-Islamic
imagery as the essential binding force for the anti-colonialist structure of Asia. The
colonised world was either Muslim, or an ally of Islam by default. Thus Indian and
Javanese support for Japan implicitly sided them with the Ottoman Empire and Japan's
progress was even made to bode well for the Muslims of China.

An Ideal Society
After the important business of nationalism, anti-colonialism, and the inculcation of a
patriotic affection in the masses was outlined by Kamil, there remained his presentation
of Japan as an idealised society. Kamil concentrated on a rosy picture of Japanese
life—particularly concerning the existence of its constitution, which Egypt did not have,
and the rights and freedoms he declared were held by every Japanese. Indeed he asked
'How can one not favour the people among whom the speaker can say what he wishes

68 B e r n a r d Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago, University of C h i c a g o Press, 1986), p . 6 0 .

69 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, pp. 11-12.
284 Michael Laffan

to say, and the writer writes what he wishes to write, and the lowest among them sees
himself as a brother to the greatest before the law?'70
Meiji Japan by no means enjoyed complete freedom of speech. Nonetheless, in his
brief history of the Japanese press, Kamil remarked how it was then free to print all
manner of personal information not befitting newspapers, which he viewed as agents for
national change, not titillation.71 Kamil also attributed the rise in newspaper subscrip-
tions in Japan to the increased national confidence following victory over China in
1895, and heightened by the strenuous efforts of the many Japanese editors who
worked not for financial gain but for the national good. Such selflessness, he inferred,
had been recognised by the Japanese who forced the administration to revoke draconian
press laws in 1887 and grant the press 'absolute freedom'.72
Meanwhile in his chapter on administration and the courts, Kamil the legalist
presented juridical equality as the crowning glory of the Japanese renaissance which
symbolised Japan's entry 'into the family of advanced and civilized states'.73 In terms of
daily life this entailed the equality of all citizens before modern Meiji law, which he
claimed had been drafted with reference to the French code. On the international front,
he highlighted how Japan had successfully abrogated the unequal treaties forced upon
their Tokugawa predecessors, including the rights of foreign nationals on Japanese
soil.74 Egypt, by comparison, not only remained subject to indirect rule by Britain, but
under the terms of the so-called Capitulations (al-imtiyazat), maintained a separate
system of courts for Europeans and their proteges.75 And if Japan had found a way to
evolve from isolation and blind obedience to the brutal rule of the bakufu under an
enlightened despotism, wherein all knew and obeyed out of devotion,76 then once again
it clearly set a model for Egypt to emulate.
Such devotion, argued Kamil, was most prominently demonstrated by the now
defunct samurai class (tabaqat al-samurat). For Kamil they were the unquestioned
heroes of the Meiji revolution. It was their love for the Emperor, devotion to the watan,
and understanding of the foreign danger that had impelled them to take charge of their
nation and set it on a course for modernity and independence—even if it meant
depriving themselves of the station and privileges they had once enjoyed.77 Here a
parallel might be drawn with Egypt, where a professional army had been formed by the
Khedives to replace the Mamluk irregulars. With these forces now under English
officers, there seemed little hope of a similar 'revolution', particularly after 'Urabi's
failure of 1882. Rather Kamil's account of the Japanese martial classes being drawn
voluntarily into a modern bureaucracy should be read as a comment on the need for all

70 Ibid., p . 2 0 .
71 Ibid., p p . 1 9 6 - 2 0 3 .
72 Ibid., p p . 2 0 1 - 2 0 2 .
73 Ibid., p p . 155-156.
74 Ibid., p p . 150-160.
75 T e r m e d the 'Capitulations' by Westerners, t h e imtiyazat ('privileges') granted by t h e T u r k i s h sultans
allowed full access a n d protection t o foreign merchants residing in O t t o m a n territory. W h e n Japan was
forced to accept t h e unequal trade treaties the O t t o m a n Empire investigated t h e possibility of securing
such from Japan. T h i s last point was noted by Selim Deringil in a working paper ('Ottoman-Japanese
Relations in t h e Late Nineteenth Century') presented to t h e 50th annual meeting of t h e Association for
Asian Studies, Washington, 2 6 - 2 9 April 1998. Indeed it was only a few years before Kamil p e n n e d The
Rising Sun that Japan h a d been able to negotiate o u t of four decades of entrenched inequalities.
76 See Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p p . 1 5 5 - 1 5 6 .
77 Ibid., p p . 4 6 ff.
 Mustafa and the Mikado 285

Egyptians to take the management of their country into their own hands as the days of
swords and chivalry were at an end.
Finally, I might remark on the racial overtones in Kamil's work wherein he included
a legend about the Ainu portraying them as the descendants of a Japanese princess and
a large dog! Kamil went on to explain that this legend was a device used by the Japanese
to assert their own racial superiority.78 Continuing with the Ainu, Kamil also demon-
strated his absorption of social Darwinism and the ideal of the 'noble savage' describing
them as 'strong, truthful and very stubborn, but lazy',79 for in his mind perfection could
only be attained through the application of effort:80
[For] whosoever says that 'anyone born a despicable coward will die as such'
and that 'education will not reform him nor change his morals', is in error. For
the progeny of the blacks change to become white after many years if the white
blood comes to outweigh theirs. The nation which teaches dignity, self respect
and moral excellence will attain, with the passing of time, these qualities which
will become enduring.81
Now 'blackened' Egypt could once more become 'white', and indeed much of the
Francophile Egyptian elite identified with 'white' Europe and not the 'black' continent
on which they resided. The prevalent concept of racial superiority is implicit in Kamil's
evaluation of victory over a 'white' nation being infinitely more praiseworthy than that
over a 'yellow' nation.82 Here was the first victory of any non-European nation against
a Western power. Articles in al-Liwa' relating to another coloniser—Holland—describe
the climate of fear pervading the East Indies, and forecast the impending demise of the
Dutch (e.g. 2 June and 4 September 1904). Such predictions were not to be borne out
until 1942, with the annexation of the Dutch East Indies by a very different Japanese
empire.

Conclusion
1904 was a year that brought many of Mustafa Kamil's difficulties to a head. His party
was struggling for financial support, he had again lost the financial backing of the
Khedive, and France's rapprochement with Great Britain dispelled all illusions of
European aid for his country. Such difficulties seem to have caused him to consider a
more pan-Eastern focus in his rhetoric in line with a world divided between coloniser
and colonised. The battles between the imperial states of Russia and Japan thus came
to assume a greater symbolic value for the still youthful idealist. For Kamil Japan was
the ultimate example of an Eastern nation able to assert itself over a Western power
through patriotism. Moreover this patriotism had empowered the Japanese as equals to
the Europeans in all domains—including the pursuit of colonial territory.

78 Ibid., p . 3 2 .
79 Ibid., p . 3 3 .
80 Here Kamil was most likely influenced by Samuel Smiles' Self Help, quotations from which were
displayed on the walls of the school h e and his brother 'Ali Fahmi Kamil had revived in 1899 (Mitchell,
Colonising Egypt, p . 109). O n the impact of Smiles' work on Meiji Japan see Earl Kinmonth, 'Nakamura
Keiu and Samuel Smiles: A Victorian Confucian and a Confucian Victorian', American Historical Review
85 (1980), p p . 5 3 5 - 5 5 6 .
81 Kamil, al-Shams al-mushriqa, p . 13.
82 Ibid., p p . 6 - 7 .
286 Michael Lqffan

Thus he wrote to inform Egyptians of what Japan had achieved and what Egypt or
any other Eastern nation could achieve; he revealed to his readers that his objective was:
... to transmit to you news of this yellow nation, to facilitate an understanding
for both the academic and the general reader. Indeed the subject deserves
heavy tomes. Yet I believe that what I have completed is sufficient and suspect
that the history of Japan is the most outstanding—in regard to the nations of
the East—for profitable study.83
Through a proper study of Japan, its patriots and above all its emperor, Egyptians were
to be made aware of the primary importance of patriotism, effort, and pride in
themselves. They would then hopefully emulate the example of the Japanese and free
themselves of foreign domination once and for all. Japan would remain the symbol of
Asian advancement for Muslims in the Indies, India and Egypt, until the 'Muslim'
victories of Atatürk in 1922,84 a status due no doubt to the enduring impact of Kamil's
book in both Arabic and Malay.

Acknowledgements
I would like here to express my thanks to Jos van Lent, Ann Kumar and Ian Proudfoot
for their time and constructive criticism and to Dr John Caiger for his advice and
encouragement. I am also indebted to both the editor of Japanese Studies and its two
anonymous referees for their patience and for pointing out several errors and points of
confusion (due to my unfamiliarity with Japanese history) and for suggesting useful
strategies to attend to them.

83 Ibid., p. 5.
84 Lewis, The Political Language of Islam, p. 30.