What is interesting in this case is that it shows that in spite of the explicit regulations of the Pasha that the registers of the bureaucracy be kept clean, with no scribbling or scrawling, the chief scribe of the army saw clearly that he was facing a situation that dictated his violation of this order. What he was faced with was a scribe of a rival army which was defeated, and crushed, but still claimed to be victorious. Mehmed Munib’s witnessing of the act of recording the list of POWs, what for him was tantamount to an act of official surrender, had to be unambiguous, clear in its recognition of the defeat that Ibrahim had inflicted on the Ottomans, even if this implied referring to the Ottoman army by using a title that was different from its official one.

XREF: Builds on loc 958 about Victorious naming being revoked; this shows how the scribe deliberately crafted writing to enforce a political reality over official military title. DEFINE: Shows that bureaucratic record-keeping was a site of political contestation where cleanliness rules gave way to political necessity. Builds on: "Victorious naming could be revoked and replaced by crushed."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 960