Ahmed Orabi: The leader

CAIRO – 31 March 2022: On this day, Egyptian leader Ahmed Orabi was born, in the year 1841.

He is the leader of the Orabi revolution against Khedive Tawfiq and reached the position of “overseer of jihadism”,  now known as the Ministry of Defense.

Orabi was the first Egyptian ever of rural origin to hold this position, in addition to the position of Amiralay, now known as brigadier general.

The British fleet exiled the leader of the Orabi Revolt, Ahmed Orabi and his colleagues to Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, on December 28, 1882.

They settled in Colombo for 7 years, following the British occupation of Egypt and the end of the Orabi Revolution.

After that, Ahmed Orabi and Mahmoud Sami Al-Baroudi were transferred to the city of Kandy under the pretext of differences between the comrades of the revolution. After years of exile, Ahmed Orabi returned to Egypt in 1901 due to the severity of his illness.

Orabi and his companions are protagonists of a story of resistance and struggle against the British occupation of Egypt that lasted for several years before Orabi and his companions were betrayed and defeated in the Battle of the Great Hill [El-Tell El-Kebir], which ended with the British occupation, which perched on the chest of the homeland for many decades.

Then, Orabi and his companions were brought to trial on December 3, 1882, and was sentenced to death, before the sentence was reduced immediately after that to life-long exile to Serendib.

Ahmed Orabi wrote his memoirs in three large notebooks, in which he reviewed all the events of his revolution. The first part of his memoirs was printed under the title: "Memoirs of the Leader Ahmed Orabi: Unveiling the Secrets of the Egyptian Renaissance Famous for the Orabi Revolution."

The memoirs were investigated and studied by Abdel Moneim Ibrahim Al-Jami, a professor of modern and contemporary history, and  were printed in three volumes at the National Library and Documentation House in 2005.

It was stated by Ahmed Orabi in his memoirs that the main motive for writing it was that he wanted to clarify the exact truth of what happened in the Orabi Revolution.

The exiles, including Orabi, lived a very difficult life in exile. Orabi says in his memoirs that the money and property of all the exiles were confiscated, and the government allocated an amount of L.E30 to each of them per month, which was not sufficient for their needs.

The exiles also suffered from several diseases due to the different nature of the climate, which led to the deterioration of their health, evident in their suffering from many health problems, as well as the decline in their morale on the island of Ceylon, to which they were exiled.

After his return to Egypt, Ahmed Orabi died in Cairo on September 21, 1911.