Accommodating Egyptian Sovereignty in Siwa

This chapter takes us to Siwa—the westernmost oasis in Egypt, which acquired an almost mythic status as Egypt’s final frontier during the nineteenth century. The chapter zooms in on the Siwan political scene in the 1890s, when the Egyptian state intensified its efforts to unify its ruling authority across its various territorial domains. In contrast to the normative accounts of state centralization and local resistance, the chapter explores how a variety of local, nonstate actors—the Sanusiyya, foremost among them—played a crucial mediating role in the Egyptian government’s effort to exercise sovereignty over Siwa in this critical decade. The chapter illustrates this dynamic by focusing on the local negotiations of power between state and nonstate actors in Siwa that resulted in the formalization of the traditional Siwan elite’s customary authority.