But though he was ready to extend Egypt's reach into Africa, Ismaïl could not afford to be brash in disclosing his ambition. He told British diplomats that his intentions for Africa were not imperial but were of a reformist nature: to end the trade in slaves and to open new forms of trade with the East African heartland, thus civilizing peoples long excluded from international markets. But in the eyes of many British observers, particularly members of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Ismaïl's attempts at empire represented no civilizing mission, no opening of the dark continent to free trade, but instead were an extension of what seemed to them the notori- ously despotic rule of Islam. For these abolitionists, a religion that sanc- tioned the seclusion of women and the trading of slaves could never encour- age progress among other peoples.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 294