The promulgation of the 1929 Egyptian Nationality Law was the culmination of a long search for a legal answer to the question of who was an Egyptian. Several decrees between 1892 and 1902 tried to deal with this issue for administrative purposes, but it was only after the severing of Egypt from the Ottoman Empire in 1914, and the subsequent emergence of the Egyptian nation-state, that the question became acute. Several draft laws were prepared, beginning in 1914, but the nationality law was only fina…