Arab Chronicles as a source for studying Bonaparte’s Expedition to Egypt

Abstract

Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt (1798-1801) has become a milestone in relations between Europe and the Middle East of the modern era and has left behind a vast body of written sources in different languages - French, Arabic, English, Ottoman and so on. The vast majority is in French. The official documents (orders, proclamations, reports) and personal papers (diaries, memoirs, letters) reflect the conquerors’ view of the expedition.1 The Arabic sources are much fewer in comparison, but they are important because they show the point of view of the other side. The French invasion of Egypt was described in several Arab chronicles of the end of the XVIIIth/beginning of the XIXth centuries, the most significant of which being the works of the Egyptian, Abd ar-Rahman al-Jabarti, and the Syrian, Niqula al-Turk.