Bonaparte’s Burka

This chapter explores Napoleone di Buonaparte's fascination with Islam. It argues that the impulsion that eventually took him to Egypt was formed in the context of his early experience of Corsican nationalism, radical disappointment, and revolutionary commitment to the new France that emerged after 1789. The belief that this invasion would be welcomed by Muslims—indeed, that they would somehow greet the French as fellow believers—was the product of a revolutionary politicization of Islam that was further overheated under the Directory. Indeed, the era of the Directory was the scene of a curious religious experimentation. The chapter shows how the catastrophic decision to invade Egypt effectively brought the Revolution to an end: Buonaparte brought back the taste for arbitrary rule he had established in Egypt to his rule over France and much of Europe.