Pharaonism

Pharaonism is an ideology that rose to prominence in Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s. A version of Egyptian nationalism, it argued for the existence of an Egyptian national continuity from ancient history to the modern era, stressing the role of ancient Egypt and incorporating anti-colonial sentiment. Pharaonism's most notable advocate was Taha Hussein.

Egyptian identity since the Bronze Age Egyptian Empire evolved for the longest period under the influence of native Egyptian culture, religion and identity (see Ancient Egypt). The Egyptians came subsequently under the influence of a succession of several foreign rulers, including Persians, Greco-Macedonians, Romans and Arab Caliphates. Under these foreign rulers, the Egyptians accommodated three new religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and produced a new language, Egyptian Arabic. By the 4th century, the majority of the Egyptians had converted to Christianity and in 535 the Roman Emperor Justinian ordered the Temple of Isis at Philae closed, which marked the formal end of the ancient religion of Egypt.

During the Middle Ages, the monuments of the ancient Egyptian civilization were destroyed as remnants of a time of jahiliyyah ("pre-Islamic ignorance"). The majority of the destruction of the ruins occurred in the 13th and 14th centuries, a time of floods, famines and plagues in Egypt, leading some people to believe that Allah was punishing the Egyptians for the continued existence of these relics of a time of jahiliyyah. The most notable acts of destruction in the Middle Ages were the tearing down of a statue of the goddess Isis in 1311 in Fustat and the destruction of a temple in Memphis in 1350, which inspired much relief when it was discovered the "evil eye" (the eye of Horus) on the temple's walls did not cause the deaths of those destroying the temple as feared.

The Quran singled out the Pharaoh whose story is related in the Book of Exodus as an especially vicious tyrant opposed to Allah, and in general the Pharaohs are portrayed in Islamic tradition as depraved despots reveling in jahiliyyah. Several Muslim leaders such as the Caliph Yazid III ordered the destruction of all the pharaonic monuments. However, there is considerable evidence of popular local pride in monuments such as the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx, so much that these monuments were never destroyed out of the fear of causing riots. The monuments of Pharaonic Egypt were generally seen as possessing magical powers and were viewed as objects of respect by ordinary Egyptians, despite the fact that the Quran execrates ancient Egyptian beliefs (such as polytheism and the worship of Pharaohs) as an especially reprehensible period of jahiliyyah. As late as 1378, it was reported that nominally Muslim peasants would go burn incense at night in front of the Sphinx while uttering prayers which were said to empower the Sphinx to speak, which led a Sufi holy man to attack the Sphinx. Local legends claimed the attack on the Sphinx led to a massive sand storm at Giza, which only ended with the holy man's lynching.

In Egypt, the belief in the magical powers of the Pyramids and ancient ruins played a significant role in their preservation. Some even warned of dire consequences if they were destroyed, leading to the conclusion that leaving them untouched was the best option. These beliefs demonstrated a sense of pride and reverence for Egypt's ancient past. Additionally, in the Middle Ages, Egyptians created a story associating the Pharaoh mentioned in religious texts with Iran, aiming to salvage pride despite the condemnation in the Quran. To safeguard the ruins, they often attributed them to Islamic figures, making them quasi-Islamic sites that were protected from destruction.

Because knowledge of the hieroglyphs was lost from the 6th century until 1822 when Jean-François Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone, the memory of ancient Egypt was that of an impressive civilization which built various monuments whose precise meaning had long since been lost, limiting the extent of popular identification with it. Mohammad Ali the Great, the Albanian tobacco merchant turned Ottoman vali (governor) of Egypt and who ruled the country with an iron hand from 1805 until his death in 1849, had no interest in the ruins of ancient Egypt except as a source of gifts for foreign leaders. Likewise, Mohammad Ali had a permissive attitude towards Europeans taking ancient Egyptian relics with them, allowing much plundering of various sites such as by the Italian Giovanni Battista Belzoni while a diplomatic posting in Cairo was highly sought after owing to opportunities for looting. One of Mohammad Ali's officials, Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, persuaded him in 1836 to embark on preserving Egypt's heritage by ending the plundering of sites in Egypt and to create a museum to display Egypt's treasures instead of letting them be taken to Europe. Tahtawi later published a history of ancient Egypt in 1868, which took advantage of the discoveries of archaeologists and the deciphering of the hieroglyphs, marking the first time that the heritage of ancient Egypt was used as a symbol of national pride in modern Egypt.

Questions of identity came to the fore in the 20th century as Egyptians sought to end the British occupation of Egypt, leading to the rise of ethno-territorial secular Egyptian nationalism (also known as "Pharaonism"). Pharaonism became the dominant mode of expression by Egyptian anti-colonial activists of the pre- and inter-war periods, according to modern historian and University of Colorado professor James P. Jankowski;

"What is most significant [about Egypt in this period] is the absence of an Arab component in early Egyptian nationalism. The thrust of Egyptian political, economic, and cultural development throughout the nineteenth century worked against, rather than for, an "Arab" orientation... This situation—that of divergent political trajectories for Egyptians and Arabs—if anything increased after 1900."