The first Cairo revolt against the French, 1213 AH (1798)

Among the events of Jumada I 1213 AH in Aja'ib al-athar, al-Jabarti tells of the rising of the common people of Cairo against the French in the third month of their occupation of Egypt, and of the bombardment of the city and of al-Azhar that followed. ^{1 2} It forms part of the French campaign in Egypt.

Al-Jabarti first records the French orders to air clothes and goods in the markets for fifteen days, with a woman and two men assigned to each quarter to enter houses and check, for fear of the corruption that brings plague, and the complaint of stipend-holders and the sick of the Mansuri hospital that their allowances had stopped because the endowments' revenues had ceased. ³ He tells of a session of the Diwan in which a member asked the shaykhs how inheritances are divided; they set out the legal shares and later wrote down the method for them. ^{3 1}

On Saturday 10 Jumada I they produced in the Diwan the schedule of "assessments on houses and property": eight francs on the highest class, six on the middle, three on the lowest, exempting what rented for less than a riyal a month, and thirty or forty on caravanserais, inns, baths and shops; notices were posted and engineers appointed to grade the properties. ¹ When this became known, people's talk grew loud and they found it outrageous; some of the common people conspired, joined by some turbaned men "who did not consider the consequences", and many gathered "with no chief to direct them and no leader to lead them". ¹

On Sunday they rose, resolved on jihad, and brought out the weapons they had hidden; al-Sayyid Badr came with the people of al-Husayniyya and the toughs of the outer quarters crying "God give victory to the religion of Islam"; about a thousand or more went to the house of the qadi askar and stoned it, and a crowd gathered at al-Azhar. ¹ "Dupuy" came with a troop of horsemen through al-Ghuriyya and al-Sadiqiyya to the house of Shaykh al-Sharqawi, did not find him, went on to the qadi's house, met the crowd and turned out by Bayn al-Qasrayn, where they fell on him and beat him until they killed him, and many of his horsemen were killed. ¹ They then held the edges of the inner quarters from the gates of al-Futuh, al-Nasr and al-Barqiyya to Bab Zuwayla and Bab al-Sha'riyya, pulling down shop benches to build barricades with the stones. ¹ The outer quarters did not stir, and Old Cairo and Bulaq stayed out, being near the troops' quarters. ²

Al-Jabarti says the common people "went beyond all bounds", plundering the Jawwaniyya quarter and the houses of Syrian and Greek Christians and the neighbouring houses of Muslims, and taking goods left in trust. ²

The next day the French stood on the hills of al-Barqiyya and the Citadel with cannon, mortars and bombs; their commander had written to the shaykhs and got no answer, and after the afternoon prayer they shelled the houses and quarters, "aiming especially at al-Azhar" and nearby places where the fighters were, such as the Ghuriyya and Fahhamin markets, until the shells brought down the walls of houses. ² The shaykhs rode to the French commander to ask him to stop the firing; he reproached them for the delay, then accepted their excuse and ordered the firing stopped, and they proclaimed safe-conduct. ² The people of al-Husayniyya and the outer Utuf kept fighting until their powder ran out about three hours into the night. ⁴

Al-Jabarti relates that the French entered the city after the first sleep of the night and pulled down the barricades, then rode their horses into al-Azhar, tied them at its qibla, broke the lamps, smashed the cupboards of the students and residents and took their contents, threw books and copies of the Qur'an on the ground and trampled them, and stripped those they found there of their clothes. ⁴ On Tuesday a group of them lined up at the mosque gate, so that those who came to pray turned back; al-Jabarti writes that the sanctity of the place "was violated after it had been the noblest of places", where people used to deposit what they feared to lose, and which the French had formerly seldom even passed. ⁴

The Syrian and Greek Christians whose houses had been plundered complained to the French commander; al-Jabarti holds that the Muslims plundered them only because they were associated with the French, and that their Muslim neighbours were plundered too. ⁵ "Bartholomew" was charged with policing and arresting anyone bearing arms; his men seized people, imprisoned them and demanded the plunder back, and al-Jabarti says that many were killed and thrown into the Nile, and that in those two days and after "countless people" died. ⁵ On Wednesday the shaykhs rode to the commander-in-chief to ask for a full safe-conduct proclaimed in both languages; he gave a vague promise and demanded the names of the turbaned men who had caused the trouble. ⁵

Much of this account is written in rhymed prose, and the editor Shmuel Moreh compares in his notes the text of Aja'ib al-athar with those of Muddat al-Faransis and Mazhar al-taqdis, which add to it or differ in places. ^{1 2}