Egyptian Regional Policy in the Wake of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936: Arab Alliance or Islamic Caliphate?

Abstract

The conclusion of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance of 26 August 1936, which formally terminated the British occupation of Egypt and provided for Egyptian entry into the League of Nations, was received by many Egyptians with the expectation that the regularisation of the Anglo-Egyptian relationship would allow Egypt to play a greater role in the world around it. To Emile Zaydan, the editor of the cultural journal al-Hilal, the treaty opened ‘new horizons’ for Egypt and the opportunity to consolidate its ties with other Arab, Muslim, and Eastern peoples.¹ The intellectual Taha Husayn saw the treaty as the start of a ‘new era’ of greater international responsibilities for Egypt, including the obligation to spread the benefits of its own precocious modernisation to its more backward Arab neighbours.² The Liberal leader Muhammad Husayn Haykal viewed the implications of the treaty as meaning that Egypt would now be able to develop a definite ‘Arab or Islamic or Eastern policy’, something it had not been free to do prior to the conclusion of the treaty.³ The purpose of this study is to examine the degree to which this anticipation of Egypt developing a more forward regional policy was realised in the years immediately before the Second World War.