As was said above, the first attempt at conscripting the Egyptian fellahin stemmed from the desire to relieve the Turkish soldiers in Mehmed Ali's pay from serving in the remote and hot lands of the Sudan. The 4,000 peasants who were gathered from villages in Upper Egypt to replace them were to be conscripted for only three years at the end of which they would each be given a stamped certificate and allowed to return to their villages and resume their normal, civilian lives. The conscripts would also be exempted from the head tax (firda) and other financial liabilities that the fellah population was subjected to.

XREF: Builds on loc 446, which established conscription was limited-term, not mass mobilization; this highlight substantiates that claim with the actual policy details. Builds on: "Early conscription was limited term, not total mass mobilization."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 466