The reaction to the imposition of quarantines was no different. Seeing this as another abrupt intervention in their lives, soldiers attempted to evade the quarantines by all means. After spending nearly two years in Syria and being excited about going back home, soldiers disembarking at Damietta were asked to stay on board their ships for the duration of the quarantine. When they staged a minor mutiny in which the captain of the ship as well as the sentries were beaten by the soldiers, a battalion had to be sent from Cairo to assist the quarantine officials to restore order in the port.

XREF: Builds on earlier highlights about soldiers' resistance to state control (desertion, self-maiming, mutiny), showing quarantine as another site of the same coercion-resistance dynamic. Builds on: "Soldiers' denial defeated medical efforts to quarantine the diseased."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1159