The census registers of nineteenth-century Egypt: A new source for social historians

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Volumn 24, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 193-216

  Cuno, Kenneth M ^a   Reimer, Michael J ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

^b AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO   (Egypt)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CENSUS; DOCUMENTARY SOURCE; SOCIAL HISTORY;

EGYPT;

EID: 0031418469     PISSN: 13530194     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13530199708705646     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Justin McCarthy, 'Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Population', Middle Eastern Studies, 12 (October 1976), pp. 1-39; Daniel Panzac, 'The Population of Egypt in the Nineteenth Century', Asian and African Studies, 21 (1987), pp. 11-32.
2. Justin McCarthy, 'Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Population', Middle Eastern Studies, 12 (October 1976), pp. 1-39; Daniel Panzac, 'The Population of Egypt in the Nineteenth Century', Asian and African Studies, 21 (1987), pp. 11-32.
3. While preferring the European estimates to those of the Egyptian government, Helen Rivlin presents an overview of the former in The Agricultural Policy of Muhammad Ali in Egypt (Cambridge, MA, 1961), pp. 278-280. Gabriel Baer may have been the first historian to argue that the accepted population figures for the early nineteenth century were too low, something 'which [was] pointed out by demographers' more than half a century earlier (see his 'The Beginnings of Urbanization', in Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt [Chicago, 1969], pp. 133-134). However, his attempt to reconstruct the growth of urban population in nineteenth-century Egypt (Table 2, pp. 134-135) contains numerous errors in the size of localities, which are compounded into much larger errors in estimating aggregate population.
4. While preferring the European estimates to those of the Egyptian government, Helen Rivlin presents an overview of the former in The Agricultural Policy of Muhammad Ali in Egypt (Cambridge, MA, 1961), pp. 278-280. Gabriel Baer may have been the first historian to argue that the accepted population figures for the early nineteenth century were too low, something 'which [was] pointed out by demographers' more than half a century earlier (see his 'The Beginnings of Urbanization', in Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt [Chicago, 1969], pp. 133-134). However, his attempt to reconstruct the growth of urban population in nineteenth-century Egypt (Table 2, pp. 134-135) contains numerous errors in the size of localities, which are compounded into much larger errors in estimating aggregate population.
5. They are used, for example, in Michael J. Reimer, Colonial Bridgehead: Government and Society in Alexandria, 1807-1882 (Boulder, 1997); and in Kenneth M. Cuno, 'A Tale of Two Villages: Family, Property, and Economic Activity in Rural Egypt in the 1840s', in Alan Bowman and Eugene Rogan (eds), Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times (Oxford, forthcoming). Currently, Ali Barakat, of the Department of History at Helwan University, is using the census records for a study of government authority and the village. A major, long-term project to study and analyse the census of 1848 is underway under the direction of Ghislaine Alleaume and Phlippe Fargues of the Centre d'Etudes et de Documentation Economique, Juridique et Sociale in Cairo, and upon the publication of their results our understanding of the nineteenth-century society should be substantially enhanced. The results of the first stage of the project, an analysis of the data from Cairo, are expected to be published in 1997 or 1998.
6. They are used, for example, in Michael J. Reimer, Colonial Bridgehead: Government and Society in Alexandria, 1807-1882 (Boulder, 1997); and in Kenneth M. Cuno, 'A Tale of Two Villages: Family, Property, and Economic Activity in Rural Egypt in the 1840s', in Alan Bowman and Eugene Rogan (eds), Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times (Oxford, forthcoming). Currently, Ali Barakat, of the Department of History at Helwan University, is using the census records for a study of government authority and the village. A major, long-term project to study and analyse the census of 1848 is underway under the direction of Ghislaine Alleaume and Phlippe Fargues of the Centre d'Etudes et de Documentation Economique, Juridique et Sociale in Cairo, and upon the publication of their results our understanding of the nineteenth-century society should be substantially enhanced. The results of the first stage of the project, an analysis of the data from Cairo, are expected to be published in 1997 or 1998.
7. Kemal Karpat, 'The Ottoman Demography in the Nineteenth Century: Sources, Concepts, Methods', in Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont et Paul Dumont (eds), Economie et Sociétés dans l'Empire Ottoman (Fin du XVIIIe-Debut du XXe Siècle) (Paris, 1983), p. 214; see also Omer Lutfi Barkan, 'Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys', in M. A. Cook (ed.) Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day (London, 1970), pp. 163-171.
8. Kemal Karpat, 'The Ottoman Demography in the Nineteenth Century: Sources, Concepts, Methods', in Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont et Paul Dumont (eds), Economie et Sociétés dans l'Empire Ottoman (Fin du XVIIIe-Debut du XXe Siècle) (Paris, 1983), p. 214; see also Omer Lutfi Barkan, 'Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys', in M. A. Cook (ed.) Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day (London, 1970), pp. 163-171.
9. Andre Raymond, 'The Population of Aleppo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries according to Ottoman Census Documents', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 16 (1984), p. 447.
10. Stanford Shaw, 'The Ottoman Census System and Population, 1831-1914', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9 (August 1978), pp. 325-338; Kemal Karpat, 'Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82-93', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9 (May, 1978), pp. 237-274.
11. Stanford Shaw, 'The Ottoman Census System and Population, 1831-1914', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9 (August 1978), pp. 325-338; Kemal Karpat, 'Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82-93', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9 (May, 1978), pp. 237-274.
12. Shaw, 'Ottoman Census System', p. 325.
13. Karpat, 'Ottoman Population Records', pp. 244-245.
14. Shaw, 'Ottoman Census System', pp. 325-330; quote, p. 327.
15. Justin McCarthy, 'Age, Family, and Migration in Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Provinces of the Ottoman Empire', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10 (August 1979), p. 310.
16. Maria N. Todorova, Balkan Family Structure and the European Pattern: Demographic Developments in Ottoman Bulgaria (Washington, 1993), pp. 16-17.
17. We are at present unable to comment on the extent of European, and particularly French, involvement in or influence upon Ottoman and Egyptian census-taking in the early nineteenth century. At any rate French census methods seem to have evolved at about the same pace as Ottoman and Egyptian methods: the 1831 census of France was the first in which lists of names were compiled, and that of 1836 the first in which the actual (as opposed to legal) residence was recorded. In the 1851 census, data on age, nationality, occupation, religion and infirmities were collected for the first time (see Wesley D. Camp, Marriage and the Family in France since the Revolution [New York, 1961], pp. 30-31).
18. Jacques Fresco, 'Histoire et Organisation de la Statistique Officielle de l'Egypte', L'Egypte Contemporaine, 31 (1940), p. 344.
19. Kenneth M. Cuno, The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society, and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 123, 131-132, 134.
20. Quoted in Panzac, 'Population of Egypt', p. 14.
21. A.-B. Clot, Aperçu Général sur l'Egypte (2 vols; Paris, 1840), Vol. I, p. 166.
22. Karpat, 'The Ottoman Demography', p. 209 n.3.
23. Personal communication from Khaled Fahmy.
24. Cuno, The Pasha's Peasants, p. 124.
25. Personal communication from Mine Ener.
26. On the occupations recorded see below.
27. P. M. Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516-1922 (Ithaca, 1966), p. 187.
28. PRO, FO 142/15, Murray to Palmerston, Cairo, 17 May 1847.
29. F. Amici Bey, Essai de statistique générale de l'Egypte. Années 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877 (2 vols; Cairo, 1879), Vol. I, pp. 4, 7 n. 1; Amin Sami Pasha, Taqwim al-Nil (3 vols; Cairo, 1915-36), Vol. II, p. 585.
30. F. Amici Bey, Essai de statistique générale de l'Egypte. Années 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877 (2 vols; Cairo, 1879), Vol. I, pp. 4, 7 n. 1; Amin Sami Pasha, Taqwim al-Nil (3 vols; Cairo, 1915-36), Vol. II, p. 585.
31. Mustafa Abu Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus fi misr am 1262h (1846m) (dirasa watha iqiyya)', Alam al-Kutub, 7 (1986), p. 317.
32. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, p. 585; see also the reference below to Dar al-Watha iq, Diwan al-Dakhiliyya/ Sadir al-Aqalim al-Bahriyya.
33. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, pp. 535-536, 585; Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 322 n. 37, citing the original order which he located in the National Archives.
34. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, pp. 535-536, 585; Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 322 n. 37, citing the original order which he located in the National Archives.
35. PRO, FO 142/16, Murray to Palmerston, Cairo, 1 June 1848. Murray stated that Ibrahim Pasha's chief aim in conducting the census was to build up the army, the provincial governors being required to conscript a certain percentage of the adult male population.
36. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, pp. 537, 585; also Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 323 n. 46.
37. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, pp. 537, 585; also Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 323 n. 46.
38. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, pp. 541, 585.
39. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, p 585; also Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 323 n. 48.
40. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, p 585; also Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 323 n. 48.
41. Dar al-Watha iq, Mahafiz Muhafazat al-Iskandariyya, Box 10, Document No. 8.
42. The register containing the summary data is Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus misr al-mahrusa, 1264, L-1-84, No. 40. The dates appear on p. 154. The population totals for Cairo from the three censuses were: First Census: 257,635; Second Census: 271,527; Third Census: 253,541. It may be pure coincidence, but the last figure is almost exactly the same as the calculation of Cairo's population made by Jomard some fifty years earlier.
43. British Museum ms. Add. 37450. Hekekyan papers, Vol. III, p. 247, 28 January 1847.
44. Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus nahiyat Awish al-Hajar, Jumada I, 1263, no. 7478; Daftar ta dad nufus nahiyat Awish al-Hajar, Ramadan 1263, No. 7477. It is worth noting that the population of this village, which was large but not unusually so, came to nearly five or six times the number that Jomard considered average.
45. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, p. 585; also Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 323 n. 49.
46. Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, p. 585; also Sha isha, 'Ta dad al-nufus', pp. 317, 323 n. 49.
47. The Times, 22 April 1848.
48. Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus nahiyat Ikhtab, 1264, No. 7412.
49. Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus nahiyat Salamun al-Qummash, 1264, No. 7776.
50. Dar al-Watha iq, Diwan al-Dakhiliyya/Sadir al-Aqalim al-Bahriyya, register No. 416, pp. 5-6, No. 266, 15 Rajab 1296; pp. 114-115, No. 302, 16 Ramadan 1296.
51. Amid, Essai de statistique, Vol. I, p. 5. A similar effort to keep a running account of population by registering births and deaths was undertaken in the central Ottoman Empire (Karpat, Ottoman Population, pp. 28-29).
52. Amid, Essai de statistique, Vol. I, p. 5. A similar effort to keep a running account of population by registering births and deaths was undertaken in the central Ottoman Empire (Karpat, Ottoman Population, pp. 28-29).
53. McCarthy, 'Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Population', pp. 19-24.
54. On domestic architecture in Ottoman Egypt, the outstanding work is Nelly Hanna, Habiter au Caire: La Maison Moyenne et Ses Habitants aux XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles (Cairo, 1991).
55. Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad al-nufus bi-1-iskandariyya, 1264, L-1-84, No. 14.
56. Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus misr al-mahrusa, 1264, L-1-84, No. 40.
57. On the term dhawat see F. Robert Hunter, Egypt Under the Khedives 1805-1879: From Household Government to Modern Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh, 1994), p. 80ff.
58. Presumably, these are given in the registers of the neighbourhoods where the notables lived; however, our efforts to cross-reference these to neighbourhood listings have not been entirely successful.
59. An example of this process is seen in, e.g., the thumn of al-Khalifa. A prominent Maghribi merchant and property-owner residing there, one Sa id ibn Sha ban, was issued a certificate (yataharrar lahu tadhkira) from the prefecture. The date of his registration is given in the census for the neighbourhood: 25 Safar 1264/1 February 1848 (Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus misr al-mahrusa, 1264, L-1-84, No. 8, p. 14).
60. In place of an occupation he is described as shukali ('quarrelsome') which may indicate that he caused difficulties for the census-takers.
61. For a discussion of these terms and their relationship see Cuno, The Pasha's Peasants, pp. 89-92, 169.
62. Jacques Berque, Histoire sociale d'un village égyptien au XXe siècle (Paris, 1957), pp. 20-25; Hamid Ammar, Growing Up in an Egyptian Village: Silwa, Province of Aswan (London, 1954), pp. 44-48.
63. Jacques Berque, Histoire sociale d'un village égyptien au XXe siècle (Paris, 1957), pp. 20-25; Hamid Ammar, Growing Up in an Egyptian Village: Silwa, Province of Aswan (London, 1954), pp. 44-48.
64. For a discussion of the Arabic terminology associated with the household in Egypt see Kenneth M. Cuno, 'Joint Family Households and Rural Notables in 19th-century Egypt', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27 (November, 1995), p. 489.
65. Cuno, 'A Tale of Two Villages'.
66. Dar al-Watha iq, Daftar ta dad nufus nahiyat Sandub, 1264, No. 5345.
67. Rivlin, Agricultural Policy, p. 278.
68. T. H. Hollingsworth, Historical Demography (London, 1969), p. 76.
69. Personal communication from Khaled Fahmy.
70. A useful source for the administrative history and names of provinces, towns, and villages is Muhammad Ramzi, Al-Qamus al-jughrafi li-l-diyar al-misriyya min ahd qudama al-misriyyin ila sanat 1945 (3 vols; Cairo, 1953-68; reprinted in 1994).
71. The Arabic text translated here is itself a translation and abbreviation of an order originally in Ottoman Turkish (Sami, Taqwim al-Nil, Vol. II, pp. 535-536).
72. The jifliks were priviledged estates granted to members of the ruling family. The uhdas were a type of tax farm. See Cuno, The Pasha's Peasants, pp. 161-163 and 157-160, respectively.
73. An interesting distinction was made here between the headmen and shaykhs of the villages comprised in the royal estates (jifliks) and the tax-farm assignments (uhdas), and those of the freehold villages.
74. As opposed to the religious law.
75. Dar al-Watha iq, Mahafiz Muhafazat al-Iskandariyya, Box 10, Document No. 8. The order is in Arabic, though it too is most likely translated from an Ottoman Turkish original.
76. Lit. 'crafts' (hiraf).
77. Muhammad Ali's council of civil affairs, in Cairo and Alexandria. See Hunter, Egypt under the Khedives, p. 19.
78. I.e., native speakers of Turkish and Arabic, respectively.
79. It would be worthwhile searching for the Ottoman Turkish original of this and similar orders, so as to compare the terminology employed for houses, house owners, households, and so on.