Muṣṭafā Kāmil

Muṣṭafā Kāmil (born Aug. 14, 1874, Cairo, Egypt—died Feb. 10, 1908, Cairo) was a lawyer, journalist, and Egyptian nationalist who was a founder of the National Party.

Muṣṭafā Kāmil, the son of an army officer, studied law in Cairo and in Toulouse, France, obtaining a law degree in 1894. Muṣṭafā Kāmil strongly opposed the British occupation of Egypt and, with the encouragement of the khedive ʿAbbās II, helped establish a secret society that laid the foundation for what would later be the National Party (Arabic: Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭanī). In 1900 he founded the daily Al-Liwāʾ (“The Standard”) to put forth the group’s views. Realizing that independence would be difficult to obtain, he looked to France, which he saw as the symbol of European liberalism, to help Egypt counter British power. When France and Great Britain signed the Entente Cordiale in 1904, Muṣṭafā Kāmil turned to the Ottoman sultan to aid Egypt in its struggle.

Although, nominally, Egypt was a province of the Ottoman Empire, Muṣṭafā Kāmil did not want a resumption of direct Ottoman rule. Nevertheless, he saw Ottoman solidarity as an aid in the conflict with the British. He believed that the strength of the Egyptians themselves could be channeled into a patriotic spirit—a feeling of love for the land and traditions of Egypt, in which he included the Sudan. He joined in formally founding the National Party as a political vehicle for these policies in October 1907, but he died a few months later.