Introduction

Abstract

In December 1931, the ship carrying Mahatma Gandhi from London passed through the Suez Canal. The ship remained docked in Port Said only for one day and the Indian leader was “discouraged” even from disembarking. Both the British and the Egyptian governments were well aware that Egyptian nationalists were as anxious to celebrate Gandhi’s presence as the “Indian expatriates” who requested permission to host him. Nonetheless, the Egyptian populace reacted to the presence of the Indian hero with many delegations of welcome, articles and letters in the press, and even a poem by the “prince of poets” of Egypt.¹ Almost every Egyptian who had visited with Gandhi wrote about it, either at the time or in memoirs, with awe bordering on worship. After a few late-night hours meeting visitors and sending messages, Gandhi left, never to return to Egypt. Nonetheless, he was the subject of no less than four books by the leading intellectuals of the era in that decade. His death occasioned intense mourning throughout Egypt and another poet wrote that the Nile itself wept for him.