Umar Makram

Al-Sayyid Umar Makram, about 1755 to 1822, was, in the words of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the charismatic leader of the common people in Cairo between 1791 and 1809. ¹ The article on him is by D. Crecelius and names al-Jabarti's chronicle among its sources. ¹

He mediated the return to power in 1791 of the banished amirs Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey, with whom he kept a long and friendly relationship, and became naqib al-ashraf of Egypt in November 1793. ¹ His political influence reached its peak in the disordered years between the arrival of the French in 1798 and his banishment in 1809. ¹

He helped organise popular resistance to the French, fled Cairo twice, in 1798 and 1800, and returned triumphantly with the Ottoman governor in 1801. ¹ He was reappointed naqib al-ashraf in April 1802. ¹

The article credits him with a major role in organising armed resistance by the citizens against the Ottoman governor Khurshid Ahmad Pasha, in offering the governorship to Muhammad Ali in 1805, in rallying the people behind the new governor when the central government tried to move him the next year, and in leading resistance to the British in 1807. ¹ The article on Egypt describes the event of 13 May 1805: the ulama declared Khurshid deposed, and Umar Makram and Abd Allah al-Sharqawi, the shaykh of al-Azhar who had presided over the diwan under the French, invested Muhammad Ali with viceregal powers. ² It adds that some scholars see this as in the tradition of the ulama intervening against unjust rulers, while national-minded Egyptians value it as an act of popular sovereignty. ² He was also one of Muhammad Ali's main intermediaries with the dissident Mamluk amirs and an agent in assigning and collecting taxes and loans. ¹

As his popularity grew among the common people, whom he tried to protect from the excesses of the period, he opposed some of Muhammad Ali's demands for higher taxes, and in a dispute in 1809 refused to attend the governor in the citadel. ¹ The article says Muhammad Ali saw him as a political threat and courted the scholars of al-Azhar, who were, in its words, jealous of Umar Makram's popularity, influence and wealth, and who connived with the governor to dismiss and banish him. ¹ He was expelled to Damietta in August 1809 and moved to Tanta in April 1812. ¹ The article says his dismissal ended the influence the ulama had exerted on Muhammad Ali. ¹ He was allowed to return to Cairo in January 1819 before going on pilgrimage, was banished to Tanta again in April 1822, and died there that year. ¹

The article on Cairo notes that the mosque of Umar Makram in Midan al-Tahrir is one of the outstanding new mosques, where most official funeral prayers are usually held. ³ The article's bibliography includes a 1967 study of him as a hero of popular resistance. ¹