This issue of rank for Fawzï arose at a particularly sensitive time in Egyptian politics: Egyptian officers like Ibrahïm Fawzï had grown more des- perate and frustrated at the refusal of ethnic Circassian administrators to promote them. The military grades that were equated with the social ranks of pasha and bey were intended almost exclusively for Circassians, and Egyptians claiming these titles met with arrogance and condescension, as Fawzï related when he returned to the War Ministry in 1879:

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 517