There is some evidence to suggest that prostitution in big cities in Egypt and Syria was on the rise during the first half of the nineteenth century. This occurred not so much because of any sudden appearance of vice, as represented in a person such as al-‘almeh Kuchuk Hanim116 on her divan, or because of a sudden increase in the number of khawals117 dancing in the streets in their female dresses. Nor is it, as Clot Bey opined, because of the high rise in the rate of divorce or the “voluptuous temperament of Egyptian women.” Rather, it was caused by the unprecedented social mobility, with thousands of men moving around from camp to camp and from city to city and also with thousands of women left behind by their husbands, fathers and brothers. “Numbers of young wives thus abandoned are compelled by starvation, or to prevent their children from perishing to join the almé [i.e. prostitution], all whose profligate habits they must soon acquire.”

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1165