An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (Reprinted from the 1860 Fifth Edition)

658 Pages·2003·45.494 MB·English

by  Lane, Edward William

An Account of the
Manners
C t
and us oms
of the
Modern Egyptians
Edward William Lane
An Account of the
Manners
C
and ustoms
of the
Modern Egyptians
The Definitive 1 860 Edition
Introduced by
Jason Thompson
The American University in Cairo Press
Cairo New York
Copyright © 2003 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharie Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com
Reprinted from the Fifth Edition of l 860
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys
tem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 19212/02
ISBN 977 424 784 l
Printed in Egypt
v
Edward William Lane and
Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
As these words are being written, Edward William Lane's An Account of
the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians has been continuous
ly in print for almost exactly 166 years. It is one of the classics of Middle
East studies. Its influence is difficult to overstate, for besides being a source
for almost every aspect of nineteenth-century Egyptian society, Modem
Egyptians is also widely used for contemporary, medieval, and even
ancient Egypt, as well as for the entire Middle East. It has influenced major
writers and visual artists such as Gustave Flaubert and J.F. Lewis.
Generations of travelers and general readers have perused its pages. And
far from being dismissed as a work of cultural imperialism, Modem
Egyptians is as highly regarded by Egyptian intellectuals as by their
Western colleagues. Seldom has a work about the Middle East exerted so
much authority or excited such wide admiration.
The thought of attaching any text of mine to Lane's master work seemed
impossibly presumptuous at first. Modern Egyptians clearly stands well on
its own merits. Yet the very longevity of a book so firmly rooted in another
time-it was published in the year before Victoria became queen-makes
a brief historical perspective about its inception and development useful.
But the pressing need is to explain why, since the book is not out of print,
this particular edition should be published now. For although it has indeed
remained continuously in print since its first publication in 1836, Lane
would not have approved of the editions of Modern Egyptians that have
been availableduring the last c_entu[y. The edition h~ would have waoh~d
his readers to have, the definitive edition, is the fifth revised edition of
1860, which is here reproduced in full.
The 1860 edition of Modern Egyptians was the culmination of four
decades of study, travel, writing, and reconsideration. Some time around
1821, when Lane, then about 20 years of age, was working as an
engraver's apprentice in London, he became enthralled by Egypt.1 The ini
tial stimulus for this is not recorded, but it coincided with the wave of
Egyptomania that resulted from Giovanni Battista Belzoni's best-selling
book about his travels in Egypt and his sensational exhibit about the tomb
of Seti I, which he had recently discovered. Like most people of that day,
Lane's interest was probably first drawn to ancient Egypt, but it eventually
transposed to the Arabic language and modern Egyptian society, although
_his fascination with the ancient land never entirely vanished from his imag-
Vl E.W. Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
ination and should be understood as a constant subtext to his writings
about modern Egypt. For several years he maintained a course of self
directed study so rigorous that his health nearly gave way. He read every
thing he could find about Egypt, both ancient and modern, and learned a
substantial amount of Arabic, colloquial Egyptian as well as the classical
language. Someday, he resolved, he would travel to Egypt and write an
illustrated book about it. Recalling his motivations, he later wrote:
A zealous attachment to the study of oriental literature, and a particular
desire to render myself familiar with the language of the Arabs, and with
their manners and customs, induced me to visit Egypt. But these were not
my only motives. I had long entertained a wish to examine the antiqui
ties of that most interesting country: and as I felt, even before I com
menced my travels, that there was a proba~ility of my publishing the
observations that I might rnake; I purposed to execute a series of sketch
es of all the most remarkable objects that I might see; well convinced that
a drawing, in many cases, is worth many pages of description: and to
ensure the utmost accuracy in these, I determined to make use of the
Camera Lucida.2
Lane's resolution became reality in September 1825 when he arrived in
Egypt for the first time. Likening his feelings to "an Egyptian bridegroom
about to lift up the veil of his bride," he plunged into Egyptian society,
adopting the native lifestyle that enabled him to make his close observa
tions of Egyptian society. As he explained in Modern Egyptians, "I have·
associated, almost exclusively, with Muslims, of various ranks in society: I
have lived as they live, conforming with their general habits ..." 3 In his
earlier work, Description of Egypt, Lane described his Egyptian lifestyle
more fully:
I resided at Musr [Cairo], at different times, a little more than (lj"ear,0.11~
a quarter. As my pursuits required that fsltould not-be remarked :in pub
lic as a European, I separated myself as much as possible from the
Franks, and lived in a part of. the town (near the Ba'b el-Hhaclee' d)
. somewhat .remote from :the. Frank quarters; Speaking the ,langu9ge,9f.the
country, and conformJng _with the mqnners qf my Moos'Um ne.ighpa,urs,
0
renouncing knives and forks ,(which, till I sowJhe reaJly delic;:at~imqqe, of
eating with the fingers, as pra_dised iri -the East, I was rather averse frgrn
doing}; and -abstaining. from wine, arid swine's flesh (both, indeed,Joath
some to me), I was treated with respect and affabiJity by a.II the natives
with whom had any i_nterco1,1rse,.4
J
' ' ~ .. <
· · The"·other ha.If of:lqne's .-first trip to Egypt:was mostly-spent-on the ·Nile.,
E.W. Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians VII
which he twice ascended as far as the Second Cataract, near Wadi Haifa.
He filled his notebooks, many of which are still extant, with his observa
tions and made frequent use of his camera lucida, a device that enabled
him to trace outlines of the objects being drawn with careful attention to
detail, scale, and proportion. Later, it was with the camera lucida that Lane
initially captured most of the images that illustrate Modern Egyptians.
Although Lane did indeed associate "almost exclusively" with native
people, he was also part of the informal group of British orientalists and
Egyptologists that assembled in Egypt during the 1820s and 1830s, a
group that included Sir Gardner Wilkinson (whose Manners and Customs
of the Ancient Egyptians was published the year after Lane's Manners and
Customs of the Modern Egyptians), Robert Hay, James Burton, Joseph
Bonomi, Henry Salt, and others. Aided by the enigmatic Osman Effendi (a
Scot whose original name was Donald Thomson), they too mostly assumed
Eastern lifestyle and took a deep interest in their host country.5 Because of
the unprecedented order imposed by the authoritarian regime of the
pasha, Muhammad Ali, they were able to travel throughout Egypt and
Nubia in relative comfort and safety, gaining an intimate knowledge of the
land, which they frequently shared among themselves. It was an exciting
moment in the Western encounter with Egypt, one that can never be repli
cated, for Lane and his British colleagues observed Egypt when they could
enjoy the advantages of increased Western contact with it but before the
implications of that contact and the forces of development and modern
ization transformed it. Although the book that directly emerged from Lane's
first trip to Egypt was not Modern Egyptians, the experiences of that trip
were crucial to it, as its subtitle suggests: "written in Egypt during the years
1833, -34, and -35, partly from notes made 'during a former visit to that
country in the years 1825-, -26, -27, and -28."
When Lane returned to England in 1828, he set to work on his first
book, entitled Description of Egypt.6 It is a remarkable book, part trave
logue,parthistory, part ~geography, anq_mlj~b mar~. The urban g~ggra-.
phy of Cairo receives careful attention, as do the antiquities of Egypt, to
which approximately half of the book is devoted. It also initially contained
an extensive section entitled "Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians." Description of Egypt has some faultS: the various parts do not
a·lways lie easily together, the detail of the description can be almost over
whelming in places, and Lane had not in general hit his stride as a writer.
But itcompares fovorably with other books of its day .and wou;ld have been
a m·ajor event in .the history of travel and exploration i'f1 Egypt, had it been
published in atimely .fashion. ·
In early 1831, after he had completed approximately one-third of the
book, Lane submitted it to the eminent London publishing firm of John
Murray When-John A4urrdy ·II met with lane in ;his famous draw;ing~room
VIII E.W. Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
on Albemarle Street, he expressed his admiration for the work. He had,
however, received expert advice to the effect that the section on the mod
ern Egyptians ought to be removed. It contained important material, the
adviser said, but it did not fit; it should be developed into a separate book.
Lane strongly opposed this suggestion and acquiesced to it only with reluc
tance. That issue settled, Murray agreed to publish the book and instruct
ed Lane to complete the text and illustrations.
Inspired by the acceptance, Lane set to work. With characteristic speed
and energy he completed the text, nearly 300,000 words, and finished its
more than 160 illustrations within an astonishingly short period of time. But
when he took the complete manuscript to John Murray's,· nothing was.
done. Popular fascination with the Reform Bill of l 832 had brought the
publishing industry nearly to a standstill. Only political books were selling
well. Description of Egypt had to wait. One delay turned into another.
Lane, eager to see his work in print, became despondent. Remembering
the happy days in Egypt, he longed to return there again, but lacked the
money. He admitted to friends that he was more depressed than he had
ever been in his life. He would have been even more depressed had he
known that Description of Egypt would never be published, at least not dur
ing his lifetime.7 But that did not become apparent until later, several years
after the publication of Modern Egyptians.
There is no indication that Lane initially intended to do anything with the
modern Egyptians section that had been excised from Description of
Egypt.B But during the summer of 1833 he copied it into four notebooks,
three of which are still extant, preserved in the Griffith Institute of the
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. In ~he margin of one, he added:
This brief account of the manners & customs of the Modern Egyptians
was written for insertion in a work on Egypt & its Antiquities; but the nar
row limits within which I was confined prevented my doing justice to this
subject. It is composed fr2111 _r1otes whichJmc:td~ io Coiro in Jbe years
1825~ -26, -27& -28.9 - . .
He submitted the notebooks to the Society for· the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, a remarkable nineteenth-century association· whose stated
objective was "imparting useful information to all c'lasses of .the communi
ty, particularly to such as are u.nable to avail themselves of experienced
teacliers, or may prefer learning by themselves."·10. In-· pradice,. the
S.D.U:K. ·supported the publication· of meritorious works by acfing'as inter
mediary between author and publishet, in this case ·Charles Knight, and
assuming the financial risk of the venture. When Lord Brougham,· an espe
cially active member of the Society saw lane's manuscript, he exclaimed,
"'I wonder if that man lnows what his . forte is?-Descriptibn." 11 The
E.W. Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians IX
Society's careful consideration process moved quickly, resulting in an offer
of £400 for the entire work. Lane accepted, with the stipulation that he
needed to return to Egypt and gather more material. A prepublication
advance enabled him to do so. That return trip may have been Lane's pri
mary motive all along.
Lane arrived in Cairo the day after Christmas, 1833. He already knew
his way around Cairo, indeed had a house awaiting him. He also knew
exactly what he was looking for. In his original pages, he had begun the
chapter about the Muslim Egyptians by apologizing for necessary con
ciseness since it was but one part of the larger work, Description of Egypt,
although "the manners & customs of the inhabitants of Musr," he wrote,
"afford such abundant matter for consideration, that I might (to use an ori
ental phrase) 'blacken many quires of paper' with the description of
them."12 Now he had room to blacken as many quires qs he wanted. But
the original framework of his rnodern Egyptians seC:tion, with some ·reor
ganization,_ held firm, allowing him to fit new material into it with speed
and precision. Also, he was an experienced writer now with a completed,
if still unpublished, book-length work behind him. On 26 December 1834,
one year after reaching Cairo, he began writing out the fair copy of the
finished text of Modern Egyptians. He would have returned to England
then, but a fierce outbreak of bubonic plague prompted him to flee in the
opposite direction, and he spent several months living in a tomb-house at
Thebes until the danger subsided.
Soon after Lane returned to London in October 1 835, he was busy with
submitting the manuscript, correcting proofs, and preparing the book's
128 illustrations (increased to 131 in the 1860 edition). The S.D.U.K. was,
in general, quite pleased with the result, but it requested removal of some
passages, to which Lane readily agreed. These appear to have been those
containing references to such matters as female circumcision, first inter
cou.rse after marriage, and certain ablutions and intimate details of per
sonal hygiene. Also, for reasons that are not entirely. clear, Lane removed
a chapter -about the Turkish elife ofE gypt. Similar chapters abol.Jl the Copts
and Jews were transformed into supplements, and Lane's notes show that
he initially intended to do the same with the chapter about the Turks, but
at some. point he obviously changed his mind ond excised it entirely.13
Correction ·of textual proofs and · preparation of . the index were,
inevitably, tediou~. tasks, but by. far the most difficult job at this phase of
production was preparation of the illustrations. Working from his camera
lucida ca.rds and freehand sketches, Lane drew. them onto wood blocks
with brush and India ink. A woodcutter then trimmed away the uninked
areas of the blocks, leaving -them ready to print. The illustrations are an
of
integral pqrt the book. As Lane explained, "With regard. to the engrav
ings which accompany this work( I should mention that.they ·are from draw-
X E.W. Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
ings which I have made, not to embellish the pages, but merely to explain
the text."14 It is therefore all the more to be regretted that many of Lane's
illustrations should have been arbitrarily excluded from editions of Modern
Egyptians that were published after his death. Despite his implied dis
claimer of artistry, many of Lane's illustrations display a degree of skill,
charm, and even humor. His early training as a metal engraver served him
well, and he came from an artistic family, for his great-uncle was the
painter Thomas Gainsborough and his brother, Richard J. Lane, was an
artist of great ability. For a fuller appreciation of Lane as an artist, one
should look at his delicate sepia work in Description of Egypt as well as
the illustrations in Modern Egyptians.
But what of the artistry of the text? Lane himself dismissed the notion that
any existed. "What I have principally aimed at, in this work, is correct
ness; and I do not scruple to assert that I am not conscious of having
endeavoured fo render interesting any matter that I have related by the
slightest sacrifice of truth. "15 He later expressed his ideals for writing to his
great-nephew, who remembered:
Lane had a vehement hatred of "fine writing," and often expressed his
dislike to those authors who are credited with the habit of sacrificing the
truth of their statements to the fall of the sentence: He always maintained
that the first thing was to find the right word to express your meaning, and
then to let the sentence fall as it pleased. It is possible that in his earliest
work he carried this principle a little too far; and in his most finished pro
duction, the notes to "The Thousand and One Nights," considerable care
may be detected in the composition. But in every thing he wrote, the
prominent characteristic was perfect clearness ... "16
Lane certainly achieved clarity, but that does not preclude-and in fact it
positively requires-skill in style and form, of which there is plenty· in
Modern Egyptians.
The pr-:i.inary subjec::t upor1which lane's considerable talent is brougnf to ·
bear is. Egyptian society, and especially that of Cairo,· during the early
nineteenth century, with particular attention to certain aspects of.its mate
rial culture. The overall effect of Modern Egyptians, compounded by a
number of underlying but binding themes, is comprehensiveness in scope
and fineness of detail. 1o some extent at least, the comprehensiveness,
which can seem all-inclusive, is illusory, for many .important subjects are
not admitted to consideration, as is the impression ofuniformlyfine detail.
lane; the former engraver, knew, whether conscious·ly or unconsciously; the
overall ·effect of a few sharp lines, strategically placed.
Yet .Modern Egyptians .is much more than a verbal trompe /'oeil, for its
effective. structure presents an extraordinary>amount of '·information. The
E.W. Lane and Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians XI
reader, then and now, who mastered its pages obtained a broad, highly
integrated understanding of the manifold aspects of Egyptian life. The
detail provided an immediacy that has continually appealed to readers
who can vicariously experience the sensation of sitting down to an
Egyptian dinner, lying on an Egyptian bed, or wearing Eastern clothing.
The sequence and postures of prayer are so well described that readers
can replicate them, the experience intensified by Lane's inclusion of the lit
tle touches that make things seem poignantly real. The value of the detail
is repeatedly proved by scholars who constantly mine it for information.
It should be borne in mind that one of the most important determinants
of the form and content of Modern Egyptians was Description of Egypt. For
Lane still confidently expected to publish the latter work; indeed, it may
well have been the one he cared about more. Modern Egyptians should
not be mistaken for a refinement of Description of Egypt; the two works are
quite distinct, and Lane was careful fo keep them so. They contain virtual
ly no repetition of subject matter, text, or illustrations, apart from a couple
of pictorial details that were taken from Description of Egypt to illustrate
clothing. One reviewer noted with surprise that unlike most books about
Egypt, which were mixtures of things both ancient and modern, the focus
in Modern Egyptians was exclusively on contemporary Egypt. "So closely,
indeed, has he stuck to his subject," the reviewer wrote, "that we verily
believe the words obelisk, pyramid, tomb, temple, never once occur
throughout the two volumes;-not a mummy even once crosses his path."17
Actually, quite a few mummies had crossed Lane's path, but he kept them
confined to his Description of Egypt.
Edward William Lane's An Account of the Manners and Customs of the
Modern Egyptians was published early in December 1836. It was an
instant success. The first printing was sold out within two weeks, and a sec
ond (which Charles Knight already had prepared in anticipation of good
sales) was immediately on offer, to be followed by many others, right
down to the present day. Reviewers were enthusiastic. When Stanley Lane
Poole described it as ~"the· most perfecfpictLl~re ~of a people's life tnat l1as
ever been written," his filial piety only slightly exaggerated the opinion of
generations of scholars, travelers, and general readers. 18 Only during the
past twenty or ·thirty years ha.s Modern Egyptians been sub;ected to any
significant criticism and this reassessment should, as it develops, make the
1
book even more useful rather than undermining it.
Even as Lane was completing Modern Egyptians, Charles Knight per
suaded him to embark on another maj·or project that was to occupy him
for several years: the translation and annotation of the Arabic classic, The
Thousand and One Nights, better :known as the Arabian Nights. But Lane's
primary interest in this labor was noUo present this ·important literary work
to the· Eng·lish-speaking public in a better form than was currently ava;il-