ABSTRACT
Most historians of Egypt are fond of asserting that Egypt has always been a homogeneous nation. This was so, on the surface at least, from the time that Menes united the Two Kingdoms in 3400 B.C. down to the Persian invasion. Arab Muslim rule was relatively brief, spanning barely two hundred years. By A.D. 860, Turks and other non-Arabs assumed the governor's office. Thus, by the time a large number of Egyptians had embraced Islam, their rulers were once again not simply aliens but leaders of castes of warriors, usurpers, satraps, and members of slave dynasties. The military policy of the nineteenth-century despots was innovative in that it superimposed a foreign caste of soldier-courtiers in the country. Its members also became large landowners and, in several cases, administrators. By 1880, European-influenced Egyptians had achieved numerical preponderance in the two major institutions of the power base, namely, the army and the state administration.
