Zamalek: The Changing Life of a Cairo Elite, 1850–1945 by Chafika Soliman Hamamsy

Between the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805–48) and the end of the Second World War, a dramatic transformation of the Egyptian sociopolitical scene took place, particularly within the confines of the ruling class. During that period, and owing in large measure to Muhammad Ali’s reforms, a new class system emerged, with its revised gradations from lower to upper strata. The central concern of this book is the change that took place in upper-class Egyptian society, from a staunch conservatism toward more westernized, liberal norms in the hundred years spanning the turn of the nineteenth century.The district of Zamalek, on the Nile island of Gezira, became, for a variety of reasons, the preferred neighborhood for a fast growing, rapidly evolving upper middle class, and by the mid-1920s it had become the abode of an elite group whose way of life was manifestly more westernized than that of its predecessors. Zamalek was the focal point of social change, and its elite role models actively