AHMED ARABI [URABI] Visiting card with engraved text (38 x 64 mm) some surface wear, overall good.
This is the visiting card of the Egyptian nationalist and prominent army leader Ahmad Arabi (or Urabi; 1841-1911), known for his participation in the 1879 uprising that precipitated a revolt against the Anglo-French government of Tewfik Pasha (1852-1892). The Egyptian army civil service was run mostly by non-Egyptians, and 'normal' Egyptian people had almost no chance to rise through the ranks, with Urabi as the exception. As minister of war he declared the Khedive a traitor, British troops intervened and bombed Alexandria, a stronghold of the uprising in 1882. 'Urabi Pasha was captured, court-martialled, and sentenced to death, but, with British intervention, the sentence was changed to exile in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He was permitted to return to Egypt in 1901. Although Urabi died an unpopular figure in relative obscurity, his image was revitalised in the 1950s by Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose rise to power bore similarities to Urabi's' (Encyclopaedia Britannica, online).
mounted together with: Ahmed Arabi the Egyptian". Vanity Fair. 1883.
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