This bare-bones account is not intended to imply that Sunset Oasis should be read as an 'historical' novel but to clarify references to events with which the reader may not be familiar. The short glossary that follows includes further information on individuals and institutions as well as definitions of the few words that, to avoid awkward or lengthy equivalents, have been left untranslated in the text.
Humphrey Davies, 2009
1 Thompson, Jason. A History of Egypt from Earliest Times to the Present. Cairo American University in Cairo Press, 2008, p.249.
Glossary
Abdallah el Nadeem (1843–1896): pioneering journalist and political activist, whose magazine el Lata'if became the organ of the Urabists.
Basha: Arabised form of Pasha, a Turkish title awarded to high-ranking officers of the administration and army in the Ottoman Empire.
Circassian: member of an ethnic group originally from the Caucasus, many of whom were imported into Egypt as military slaves during the Mamluke and Ottoman eras and who came to form an elite whose dominance of the Egyptian military continued even after the country's emancipation from direct Ottoman rule.
dahabiya: a large boat with cabins used for travel on the Nile.
dhikr: literally 'remembrance', i.e., remembrance of God, and hence a ceremony in which Sufis, adherents of the mystical school of Islam, constantly repeat His name, or that of one of His attributes, often to the accompaniment of rhythmic movement, in order to produce an ecstatic sense of closeness to the Divine.
feddan: a measure of land equal to 1,038 square metres.
gallabiya: the common, floor-length, outer garment of Egyptian men and women, closed at the front but with an opening, sometimes with buttons, from the neck to the mid breast, and long sleeves.
Khedive: a title awarded by the Ottoman sultan from 1867 onwards to rulers of the Muhammad Ali dynasty. The 'young khedive' mentioned towards the end of the novel is Abbas Hilmi II (1874–1944), who succeeded his father, Tawfiq, in 1892, at the age of seventeen. Abbas Hilmi II was deposed by Britain in 1914 for refusing to accept Egypt's separation from the Ottoman Empire and thereafter the title was no longer used.
Rifa'i sheikh: a member of the Rifa'iya Sufi order. Rifa'is are reputed to possess the power to discover and expel snakes from houses.
Sheikh el Afghani: Jamal el Din el Afghani (1838–1897), a political agitator, philosopher and teacher, and a major inspiration of Ahmad Urabi. Born in Persia, Afghani was invited to Egypt by nationalist leaders in 1870 but expelled by Khedive Tawfiq in 1879.
Senoussis: members of a militant reformist Islamic order that exercised great influence over the peoples of the Sahara, and especially Cyreniaca and the western marches of Egypt, from its founding in the mid-nineteenth century. In the years leading to 1894, their leader, Muhammad al-Mahdi, ruled from Jaghboub, a town thirty miles to the west of Siwa in what is today Libya. 'Mahdi' is both a name and a title meaning 'Rightly Guided'.
Umar Basha Lutfi: governor of Alexandria at the time of the British bombardment. A Circassian and close to the royal court, Umar Basha Lutfi has been accused of instigating insecurity in the city at the urging of Khedive Tawfiq, in order to justify the intervention of the British.
Urabi: Ahmad Urabi (1841–1911): army officer and nationalist leader who led Egyptian opposition to foreign domination of the country. Defeated by the British army at Tell el Kebir in September 1882, he was initially exiled but eventually returned to the country, where he died in obscurity.
Zeitouna Mosque: one of the oldest mosques in North Africa, dating from the eighth century, and a major teaching institution.