Page 20 - Issue 63

Vol.1 Issue 63 January 2024Vol.1 Issue 63, May 2024 ELITE

The Citadel Massacre... anniversary of the

birth of modern Egypt

AbuBakr Mamoon - Second Year - Political Sciences - English Section
On March 1st, 1811, Amin Bey, the And who had taken oaths from him at the

Mamluk, was invited to a lavish dinner by beginning of his reign, by dismissing some of
the new ruler of Egypt, who was proud of the leaders from positions of influence and

his consecutive victories. The celebration ensuring the obedience of others to the
was to honor the sending of a military Pasha's orders.

campaign led by his son to suppress the
revolt against the Ottoman Sultan in the On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea,

Arabian Peninsula. Amin Bey gladly there was a book in the royal library written
accepted the invitation, accompanied by his three hundred years ago, which the King of
Mamluk comrades who flocked to the Florence did not pay much attention to, by
an unlucky writer named Niccolò
Citadel in droves. But he did not know that
he would enter the Citadel with four Machiavelli. In it, he states that "the new
conqueror should, at the very beginning,
hundred and seventy Mamluks and leave it
alone and expelled, crossing the country in commit whatever cruelty he intends to
commit so that he does not need to resort to
search of a hiding place that the prince's it again and again." He considers the
sword would not reach. He had nothing in
legitimacy of ignoring the rules of religion
his mind but the images of his companions, and morality for the prince who is founding a
lying dead, after the soldiers of the ruler, to
new state and gives the prince advice in this
whom they had given allegiance and regard.

obedience, attacked them and took their
lives in return.

This massacre was one of Muhammad Ali
Pasha's steps to establish his sole rule of the

country, after he had made sure to fragment
20 the popular front that had brought him to

power.