Much of The Rising Sun is concerned with the Meiji Restoration with the Meiji Emperor cast a hero who had modernized Japan by ending the Tokugawa bankfu, which an Egyptian audience understood as a call for the Khedive Abbas Hilimi to modernize Egypt by ending the British occupation.[13] The message was made explicit when Kamil compared the late Tokugawa bankfu, unable to stand up to foreign powers who pushed Japan around, with the present state of Islamic world, likewise unable to stand up to foreigners, and expressed the hope that both Abdul Hamid II and Abbas Hilimi II would be able to emulate the Meiji Emperor.[13]