Mutamaṣṣirūn (Arabic: متمصرون; singular: Mutamaṣṣir, متمصر; literally "Egyptianized")[1] refers to Europeans residing and/or naturalized in Egypt, primarily during the 19th and 20th centuries. The community mainly consisted of Greeks, Italians, Jews, Armenians and Maltese people.
The Mutamassirun community was first established in Egypt in the early 19th century, following the French campaign and Muhammad Ali's seizure of power. From the early 20th century they became an important component of Egyptian society, and despite their diversity were usually viewed as a homogeneous group by Egyptian nationalists.[2] The populations that carried British or French nationality (e.g. Greeks, Italians and Jews) were expelled in the 1950s in retaliation for the Suez Crisis.
Around 6,000–60,000 ethnic Greeks and 3,000 ethnic Italians, descendants of their Mutamassirun ancestors, remain in Egypt today but changed their nationality to Egyptian.[citation needed]
See also
editBibliography
edit- Gorman, Anthony (2003). "The Mutamassirun". Historians, State and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780415297530.
References
edit- ^ Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, https://archive.org/stream/Arabic-englsihDictionary_part3#page/n203/mode/1up/search/mutamassir p. 1070]
- ^ Gorman 2003, p. 174: "The establishment of foreign resident communities in Egypt in the early nineteenth century was the result of a complex series of economic, political and social preconditions. While relatively small in numbers, from the early twentieth century onwards resident foreigners came to occupy a significant place in Egyptian society. Routinely characterized in nationalist discourse as a homogeneous collective, there were important differences between and within these different communities. One important distinction was between the nationals of Western colonial powers and other resident foreigners."