CHAPTER VI BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT

the ills they were suffering began from that time to be popularized at Cairo. Sheykhs Jemal-ed-din and his school had always maintained that the growing absolutism of Mohammedan princes in modern times was contrary to the spirit of Islam which in its essence was a Republic where every Moslem had the right of free speech in its assemblies, and where the authority of the ruler rested on his conformity to the law and on popular approval. Ismaïl was condemned by the Azhar reformers on the double ground of his being a breaker of the law and a political tyrant. In the spring of 1879 it had been much discussed among them in private how, and by what means, he could be deposed or even, if there were no other way, removed by assassination. It was the consciousness of his double peril, both at home and from Europe, and of the opinions held at the Azhar that determined him to appear as a Constitutionalist. Constitutionalism, it must, moreover, be remembered, was much in the air just then not only in Egypt, but at Constantinople, where an assembly had met convoked by decree of the Sultan only five years before. Little, therefore, as Ismaïl was trusted by the Reformers, his new move was one of which they could not but approve, and it was taken up and expounded by such printed organs of opinion as had furtively begun to be established at Cairo under their direction. Apart from the Azhar, there were not a few of the high officials who at this time were Constitutionalists, notably Sherif Pasha, Ali Pasha Mubarak and Mahmud Bey Sami el Barodi. Nor was this all. The Khedive's heir apparent and eventual successor, Mohammed Tewfik, had come under Jemal-ed-din's potent influence, and through him was in close communication with the Reformers, and had given them repeated pledges that if ever he came to the Khedivial throne he would govern on strictly constitutional lines. Ismaïl's latest Ministry, which lasted three months, included Tewfik and Sherif,