Egyptians nationalist sentiment reached a high point after the 1906 Dinshaway Incident, when following an altercation between a group of British soldiers and Egyptian farmers, four of the farmers were hanged while others were condemned to public flogging. Dinshaway, a watershed in the history of Egyptian anti-colonial resistance, galvanized Egyptian opposition against the British, culminating in the founding of the first two political parties in Egypt: the secular, liberal "Umma" (the Nation, 1907) headed by Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, and the more radical, pro-Islamic "Watani" Party (National Party, 1908) headed by Mustafa Kamil. Lutfi was born to a family of farmers in
Denshawai incident of these reforms was mainly enjoyed by the upper and middle classes. Since the khedival regime, the upper classes benefited from the British occupation and its abundant success. The middle class was left to resist the British occupation. They attacked the British for not dealing with the khedival governmental corruption. Positions in the Egyptian government were filled by the British officers. Newspaper writers claimed that, if not for British racism, those positions could have been easily filled by capable, educated Egyptians. On 13 June 1906, a group of British officers upset the residents of Dinshaway by hunting pigeons for sport.