Watching President Obama's address to the Muslim world on the occasion of Ramadan encourages one to believe in a day, hopefully not too far into the future, when Islam and its practices will be understood and accepted along with other religions in America. His reference to the concern of Muslims over the spread of swine flu during the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca in a couple of months brought to mind the efforts of the French to contain the outbreak of plague in Egypt during Bonaparte's occupation in 1798-1801. The French imposed severe measures that saved lives but were at first viewed with suspicion by Egyptians: isolating the sick from his family, burning his beddding and clothes, banning funerals and mourning. And, for fear of the epidemic spreading during the Haj, the pilgrimage caravans from Egypt were banned entirely. Hardest of all, perhaps, was the cancelling of the Feast of the Sacrifice, one of the five pillars of Islamic practice, and quarantining the sheep traditionally marked for slaughter.
President Obama alluded in his address to the concern about a shortage of swine flu vaccine for the potential three million Muslim pilgrims. The French in Egypt too had to grapple with limited resources. Only Europeans and Syrian Christians were treated at the three hospitals set up by the French in Cairo, and no pharmacist could dispense the drugs used against the plague to Egyptians except by special prescription from a European physician.
But the most draconian of all measures taken by the French was the warning that any Egyptian prostitute caught soliciting the troops would be executed; in spite of that deterrent, thirty prostitutes were drowned in the Nile in a single day for defying the order!
History repeats itself, as I found out in my research for The Naqib's Daughter- but thankfully, there are limits to the parallels!