How Commerce Became Legal

When Egypt’s markets opened to private capital in the 1840s, a new infrastructure of commercial laws and institutions emerged. Egypt became the site of profound legal experimentation, and the resulting commercial sphere reflected the political contestations among the governors of Egypt, European consulates, Ottoman rulers, and a growing number of private entrepreneurs, both foreign and local. Omar Cheta considers how modern laws redefined the commercial sphere, shaping a mode of market governance that would persist for decades to come. He highlights the demarcation of a new law-defined commercial realm separate from the land regime and from civil or family-centered exchanges, and reconstructs these changes through both legal codes and state orders, as well as individual merchant voices preserved in court documents.

Praise for How Commerce Became Legal

“A remarkable study of market governance where the government is dispersed, diffuse, and at odds with itself. Omar Cheta masterfully weaves together rich and detailed character studies with perceptive structural analysis of how Egyptian commerce was brought under the rule of many laws.” —Johan Mathew, Rutgers University

“How Commerce Became Legal sheds significant new light on the history of Egypt. Omar Cheta excavates the hitherto lost world of commercial regulation and adjudication in the Khedival period.” —Kenneth Cuno, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

“This book makes a unique contribution to the economic historiography of Khedival Egypt. Omar Cheta deftly narrates both Egypt’s incorporation into the world market and the lives of local merchants, offering important insight into business strategies and merchants’ mastery of new means of transport and communications.” —Pascale Ghazaleh, The American University in Cairo

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