In his writings, all that linked the numer- ous tribes of the Sudan were his description of these un-Islamic customs, making the Muslim northerners as ignorant of religion as the pagan south- ern tribes, rendering the entire Sudan as needful of Egyptian control. If fathers do not protect their daughters, if family honor bears no significance, then, according to Fawzï, Sudanese women amount to little more than pros- titutes or slaves. Thus, the Sudanese would never know exactly who they were without Egyptian cultural intervention. Here, Fawzï reveals his pro- found sympathy to British definitions of a nation and to the prevailing arguments for the cohesion that imperialism could offer weaker societies.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 602