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"This revisionist study reevaluates the origins and foundation myths of the Faqaris and Qasimis, two rival factions that divided Egyptian society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Egypt was the largest province in the Ottoman Empire. In answer to the enduring mystery surrounding the factions' origins, Jane Hathaway places their emergence within the generalized crisis that the Ottoman Empire - like much of the rest of the world - suffered during the early modern period, while uncovering a symbiosis between Ottoman Egypt and Yemen that was critical to their formation."--Jacket.