It was probably through French influence that Muhammad Ali...

It was probably through French influence that Muhammad Ali declared his independence from the Ottoman Empire and for the first time raised the question of Arab unity. Western missionaries, too, were very active. Between 1863 and 1879, no less than seventy seven French, American, Italian and German schools were opened in Egypt.

Following all these efforts at colonization, a westernized intellectual class rose as the banner-bearer of Egyptian nationality, insisting upon the following of Western civilization. Defa'at-al-Tahtavi (1801-1873) was the first of these men. He stayed in Paris for five years and having been indoctrinated with French ideas, he returned to Egypt to propound…