If you ask the Egyptians there is no such rivalry, and if you ask the Turks it is only the Egyptians who envy Turkey's rising star over the Arab deserts. To me, it is real and understandable.
The rivalry may be only a folk legend, but it does exist. It exists to the point of Arabs getting angry at Turkey's increased visibility in the Middle East and to the point of forcing Turkish leaders to excessively emphasize that Turkey is not engaged in Middle Eastern issues as a rival to the existing powers, but as a complementary side.
The rivalry between Turkey and Egypt emanates from history and from identity issues largely nurtured by that history. In a nutshell, Turks and Egyptians are so similar that they fill the same space in the universe and the existence of one makes the other either unnecessary or displaced. Historically both the countries are founded on the heritage of a multitude of great kingdoms and empires. Turks had the Ottomans; Egyptians, the Mamluks. The Ottoman ages of Egypt always had the Mamluk state. Turks had the Seljuks; the Egyptians, the Ayyubids.
Both Cairo and İstanbul were capitals for caliphs. In fact, Cairo housed more than one dynasty of caliphs: the Abbasids and the Fatimids. Egypt is built on the remnants of one of the greatest civilizations of antiquity, as is Turkey. Both countries are stationed at the crossroads of different continents, cultures, religions, climatic zones and reservoirs of civilization.
When Turks speak about "our common history," they mean the Ottoman ages in Egypt. When Egyptians speak of a "common history," it is about the wars between the Turkish states founded in and around Anatolia and the Turko-Arab states founded in and around Cairo. Ottomans destroyed a magnificent Egyptian empire, the Mamluks. Though it had been on the edge of demise for some time already, the Mamluk Empire was being led by one of its best rulers when it was given the decisive blow by soldiers that came from Anatolia and the Balkans. They wouldn't have forgotten that. The Ottomans, on the other hand, were almost annihilated by the Khedive of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, in the middle of the 19th century. Turks haven't forgotten that, either.
I am not supporting all these public attachments to historical divisions between the two great countries. But recently I realized that these attachments have left their tracks in my intellectual world, too. I was in Jerusalem to give a seminar about the history of the city and after about two hours of speaking I was warned by one of the Arab listeners that I had skipped the 10 years of Egyptian rule in the city, which revolutionized the agriculture in Palestine and raised Jerusalem to the level of an international city. That was true. I usually think of myself as an emancipated person -- emancipated from the burden of the past. Think of the people walking on the streets.
This is history.
By means of identity issues, Turkey and Egypt are, to my understanding, are the Cramp Twins of the Muslim world. Don't ask me which one is Wayne and which one is Lucien! Both countries are secular with a large population of religiously observant Muslims. Both countries were the champions of modernization, technological advancement and Westernization in the first half of the 20th century. Both were unsuccessful. Both countries believed in protectionist economic development models. Both were wrong. Both countries switched alliances between East and West, though Turkey was a bit earlier than Egypt in doing so. Both countries established strong centralist governments with single-party politics, interspersed with occasional military coups. Turkey was a bit earlier than Egypt in establishing multiparty politics. Both countries, I assume, have strong deep states. Both countries have a vision of themselves as superpowers of the future. Both countries had dominantly rural-agricultural populations and both countries passed through unhealthy urbanization. Cairo is still the largest village in the world and İstanbul is the second in line. Both are changing.
But one point shouldn't be missed: They both need each other. Let Ankara understand that if the European Union cannot be a regional power without Turkey, the same is true for Turkey when it comes to speaking about Egypt. Turkey and Egypt need each other more than either one of them needs a superior role in Middle East politics.
