More problematic is the insufficient attention given in Toledano's account of the people at these uneasy peripheries, these borders separating the two groups one from the other. Scribes, guards, lower-ranking government bureaucrats, non-commissioned officers, nurses and servants: these are examples of people who stood at the peripheries of these two groups and facilitated the communication and the interaction between their respective members.

XREF: Connects to the earlier claim about Egypt's elite belonging to the Ottoman world rather than to Egypt — both concern boundary-crossing figures who complicate the two-group binary. Builds on: "Ottoman-era Egypt was a vibrant society embedded in empire."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 108