Mohammad Farid (or Muhammad Farîd; Arabic: محمد فريد; January 20, 1868 in Cairo – November 15, 1919 in Berlin) was an influential Egyptian political figure.[1][2] He was a nationalist leader, writer, and lawyer.
Mohammad Farid | |
|---|---|
| محمد فريد | |
 Muhammad Farîd | |
| Born | January 20, 1868 |
| Died | November 15, 1919 (aged 51) |
| Nationality | Egyptian |
| Occupation | politician |
| Political party | National Party |
Early life
editFarid was born to an Egyptian Upper class family with distant Turkish descent and strong ties to Muhammad Ali Pasha.[3][4] Farid was the son of the director of el-Da'irah el-Saniyya (Royal state domains administration) and belonged to a landowning family. He attended the Khalil Agha School, the Ecole des Freres, and the School of Administration. He worked as a lawyer for the Egyptian government and for the Parquet (office of the attorney general).
Political life
editHe was dismissed for backing Shaykh Ali Yusuf, a popular Egyptian newspaper editor who was tried for publishing secret telegrams taken from the War Ministry. Farid proceeded to open his own law office.
Farid was the main political and financial supporter of Mustafa Kamil, the founder of the Egyptian National Party, and after his premature death in 1908, was elected second president of that party. He led the party in Egypt until March 1912 and then in exile until his death.
He argued that the British must withdraw their army of occupation from Egypt and that only Egypt's monarch, the khedive, could grant a constitution to the Egyptians. He called for the spread of education and advocated social and economic reforms, especially to benefit workers. At times he sought help from the Ottoman Empire (to which the Egyptian khedivate still owed technical fealty), notably while in exile during World War I, but he also suspected the Turks of undermining Egyptian national aims.[5] Farid's occasional support for pan-Islam alienated Egyptian Copts.
Legacy
edit
Among Egyptians today, Farid is respected for his nationalism, courage, and self-sacrifice. His memoirs have been published in Arabic, and partly in English translation. He also wrote histories of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, as well as travel diaries, and numerous articles for local nationalist newspapers.
Historian Fawaz Gerges identifies Farid as exemplifying "the emergence of a politics of exile as a means to sustain the struggle against British colonialism."[6]
Notes
edit- ^ Goldschmidt, Arthur (2000). Biographical dictionary of modern Egypt. Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 53. ISBN 1-55587-229-8.
- ^ Iggers, Georg G.; Wang, Q. Edward; Mukherjee, Supriya (2008). A global history of modern historiography. Pearson Education. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-582-09606-6.
- ^ يلماز أوزتونا. تاريخ الدولة العثمانية. Kutub PDF. Archived from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2017-04-26.
- ^ Goldschmidt, Arthur (2000), "Farid, Muhammad", Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt, Lynne Rienner Publishers, p. 53, ISBN 1-55587-229-8,
Nationalist leader, writer and lawyer. Farid came from a landowning family of Turkish origin.
- ^ Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. (1992). Memoirs and Diaries of Muhammad Farid. Edwin Mellen Press. pp. 342–349. ISBN 978-0-7734-9454-1.
- ^ Gerges, Fawaz A. (2018). Making the Arab world: Nasser, Qutb, and the clash that shaped the Middle East. Princeton, New Jersey. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-4008-9007-1. OCLC 1022845920.
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References
edit- Muhammad Farid: The Memoirs and Diaries of Muhammad Farid, an Egyptian Nationalist Leader (1868-1919). Edited, annotated, and translated by Arthur Goldschmidt Jr (San Francisco: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).
- Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000). pp. 53–54.
- Ehud R. Toledano. 2015 "Muhammad Farid between Nationalism and the Egyptian-Ottoman Diaspora" in Anthony Gorman and Sossie Kasparian, eds.Diasporas of the Modern Middle East: Contextualizing Community Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
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