1870s–1952: (Egyptian Nationalism — The Oldest Modern Nationalism on the Continent, the Wafd’s Rejection of the 1922 Declaration, Parliamentary Battles with …

1870s–1952: (Egyptian Nationalism — The Oldest Modern Nationalism on the Continent, the Wafd’s Rejection of the 1922 Declaration, Parliamentary Battles with King Fuad, the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, the Muslim Brotherhood Replacing the Wafd as the Vehicle of Popular Protest During the War, and Nasser’s 1952 Coup Removing the Corrupt Monarchy of Faruq): Egyptian nationalism in its modern sense dates to the 1870s and 1880s — modernizers envisioned a nation-state along European lines, while others fused territorial identity with Islamic revivalism. Egypt also possessed an organic national identity celebrating the territory’s antiquity and cultural coherence, into which early twentieth-century activists tapped. The leading nationalist party by the 1920s was the Wafd, which rejected the 1922 British declaration granting sovereignty because London reserved control over defense, foreign relations, and Sudan. The Wafd also challenged liberal constitutionalism and the monarchy — under Sa’ad Zaghlul it sought alliances against King Fuad, and when the king suspended constitutional government after the Wafd won the 1929 election, further political conflict erupted. Only with Fuad’s death in 1936 and the succession of Faruq was parliament restored, and an Anglo-Egyptian treaty that year reduced British influence though the issues of Suez and Sudan remained. During the war, the Wafd’s credibility was undermined through association with parliamentary ineffectualness, and the Muslim Brotherhood became the major vehicle for popular protest. Socioeconomic hardship fueled nationalism in the postwar years, and in 1952 a military coup under Colonel Abdel Nasser, with Brotherhood support, removed the deeply unpopular and corrupt monarchy of Faruq and set in motion social, economic, and political reforms. Egyptian nationalism came of age in the 1950s, though confrontations with the British over Sudan and Suez were still pending.