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From El-Mahakem records
The National archives has a huge amount of documents which truly express the social, legal and economic historical dimensions of Egypt in the renaissance era, the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries.
By the beginning of 19th century, Egypt started a complete education reform that marks the Egyptian history and causes a struggle between traditional conservative thoughts and the developing and enlighten ones that was emerging. At that time, civil education was new in Egypt, then became widespread at the expense of the Islamic education led by Al azher. Furthermore there was a need of civil legislations to parallel and supplement the already existing shar”iyya courts which apply only Islamic legislation, which couldn’t stand for the needs of the rapid development that was taking place in that time. Therefore, political councils appeared, which were considered to be the beginning of the civil legal authorities in Egypt.
The requirements for information about the Egyptian community, introduced Egypt to the information era, where the census statistics started at 1848. This census is considered to be one of the oldest and the most comprehensive census in the world. At that time the Egyptian decision relied on the analysis of these statistics and made benefit from them in order to construct an industrial society and to develop its armed forces.
At Khedive Ismail era( 1863-1879), enormous economic reforms emerged which causes a remarkable social changes of the middle class, it created new professions and attracts people from urban areas toward the capital and major cities..
The religious enlightenment age started by the efforts of very distinguish men like Al-Avaghny,and El Sheikh Mohamed Abdo. Their viewpoints showed liberates the society from many old fashion ideas and had a significant influence in the development of the Egyptian society. In this very active social environment, started the modern Egyptian national movement which had so many aspects which has not yet been studied.
Moreover, the documents stored in the National Archives shows clearly that there was a social conflict that lasted for many years until it was settled by the Egyptian enlightenment and flourishing movement.
The idea of this section, is to present real life stories shading light on the social, economic and legal life of the Egyptian society in this very important period of its history. I hope that it would inspire writers, Journalists, and all who are interested on writing about the history of Egypt to read ,and access our document collections. I would certainly hope that this section inspires our long forgotten historical drama shows.
Rifaat Hilal
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