The story
In 1805 Muhammad Ali, an Albanian officer in the Ottoman army, is named governor (wali) of Egypt by the sultan after the people of Cairo petition for him. He rules until 1848, tightens his grip by massacring the Mamluk elite at the Cairo Citadel in 1811, and builds the strongest army in the Ottoman world. His descendants rule Egypt until the revolution of 1952.
Egypt had been an Ottoman province since 1517, run by Mamluk households. Napoleon's invasion of 1798 broke their power, and when the French left in 1801, Ottoman, British and Mamluk forces fought for control. Muhammad Ali, who arrived with an Ottoman expedition, outmaneuvered all of them. Seeing that European armies and states had surpassed the Ottoman model, he copied what worked: conscript peasants into a European-trained army, hire foreign advisers, and tax the land through the state.
He took over the land, brought in long-staple cotton from the 1820s and built canals, factories, schools, a medical school and a printing press at Bulaq. His army under his son Ibrahim Pasha conquered Sudan, fought the Wahhabis in Arabia, and invaded Syria in 1831, marching close to Istanbul. Britain and other powers forced him back in 1840, and in 1841 he got hereditary rule over Egypt in return. The new cotton economy tied Egypt to European markets and debt, and under his successors this led to the Suez Canal, bankruptcy and British occupation in 1882.
Why it mattered
- He founded the dynasty that ruled Egypt until the 1952 revolution.
- He created a centralized, conscript-based state that later served as the model for modernizing Middle Eastern governments.
- Cotton exports tied Egypt to Europe, which helped bring on the debt that preceded British occupation.
- His Syrian campaign showed how weak the Ottoman state was and drew European powers into the 'Eastern Question'.
Sources
- Muhammad Ali Britannica Kids
- Muhammad 'Ali Pasha EBSCO Research Starters
Community notes
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