This presentation contributes to research on the origins of Arab nationalism. Based on articles, poems, and plays I present a number of instances when loyalty was expressed in Arabic for the nineteenth-century rulers in Egypt. What is the significance of these discursive examples in the development of non-religious Arab patriotism? Was the Egyptian khedivate considered the first would-be Arab national kingdom? Were the rulers included in hubb al-watan ("the love of the homeland")? I attempt to describe this relation between homeland and rulers, expressed in cultural products, with a concept what I call ‘monarchical patriotism’ in Arabic. I argue that this political emotion was a significant trend in the often conflicting imaginations about the nation in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Arab lands. As a result, it contributed to the naturalization of the Turkish-speaking Egyptian ruling dynasty and prefigured the loyal discourses in twentieth-century Arab monarchies.