How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #4
Long before the court reached its verdict the British Administration, as the papers reported, ordered the erection of gallows outside Dinshwai. The villagers—men, women, and children—were to be compelled, the Administration had decided, to watch the punishment and execution. When the verdict came in, amid the tears and screams of the villagers, four men were hanged, and seventeen others savagely and repeatedly whipped before being taken off to serve sentences, some of penal servitude for life. (44)
The Dinshwai (or Dinshaway) Incident occurred when Egyptian villagers and British officers got into a fight over pigeon hunting and a barn fire. When a British officer is killed in the scuffle, the colonial government rounds up the village's men and conducts a "trial." Really, the colonial government wants an opportunity to assert its power at any cost, executing men without due justice and forcing the villagers to watch. The message is clear: don't step over the line. There will be no consideration for the humanity of Egyptian subjects.
Quote #5
In all our subjects we were within a few marks of each other, she ahead in one subject, I in another. Mr. Price told Jean how sorry he was to see me ahead of her in anything: after all, he said, she was a Christian and I only a Muslim. Of course she reported his comments, telling me also of her disgust at them. (145)
Despite Ahmed's love of Egypt as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, her story is full of moments when she comes up against prejudice from local and non-local people. In this case, it's from her teacher at The English School, who wants to throw support to Christian students to prove the superiority of his religion. In addition to racial prejudice, Ahmed will continue to meet people who feel that religious belief—and specifically, her religious beliefs—and intelligence are mutually exclusive.
Quote #6
[...] I was beginning to be aware, that society as a whole could and should try to change and improve conditions for everyone. Ideas about social justice and about a society of equality and opportunity and prosperity for all Egyptians were being proclaimed by the new revolutionary government, and they were ideas that appealed to me, whatever the family adults were saying. (160)
Ahmed reflects on a summer of discontent in her family that played out against a backdrop of political upheaval in her country. Her new, English sis-in-law responds badly to the indifference she sees to extreme poverty in Egypt, and Ahmed realizes that while everyone gives charity individually, social policy to address it doesn't really exist. Ahmed, who's a teenager at this time, feels like the new revolutionary government might be the answer—but she doesn't yet understand all the consequences of the changeover.