History

Napoleon tried everything to curry favour with the Egyptians, including proposing the mass conversion of his army to Islam. In his memoirs, he recounts having Islamic scholars investigate whether there was any leeway on the issues of wine and circumcision. They were unexpectedly accommodating.

You can read the full memoir on page 482 of the original text (in French): https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6279475h/    

As for the artwork, it is an 1857 Jean-Léon Gérôme piece titled “Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert”. It was auctioned last June for an estimated price of £750,000 - £1,000,000.

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If we are to believe Napoleon, he had an ongoing dialogue with the scholars about Islam for a period of a few weeks. Nothing came of it ultimately, though we do know that he sported regional attire on at least one occasion and that he committed several ‘suras’ of the Quran to memory.

If I remember correctly I think they went super far down this conversion route (obviously they didn’t actually do it), and did lots of Islamic things. I think one which sticks in my mind is Napoleonic propaganda in very badly written Arabic because they found it really hard to learn