The Eyalet of Egypt operated as an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 to 1867. It originated due to the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by the Ottomans in 1517, following the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17) and the absorption of Syria into the Empire in 1516. The Ottomans administered Egypt as an eyalet of their Empire (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت مصر, romanised: Eyālet-i Mıṣr) from 1517 until 1867, with an interruption during the French occupation of 1798 to 1801.

Egypt always proved difficult for the Ottoman Sultans to control due in part to the continuing power and influence of the Mamluks, the Egyptian military caste who had ruled the country for centuries. Egypt remained semi-autonomous under the Mamluks until Napoleon Bonaparte’s French forces invaded in 1798. After Anglo-Turkish forces expelled the French in 1801, Muhammad Ali Pasha, an Albanian military commander of the Ottoman army in Egypt, seized power in 1805 and de facto established the Khedivate of Egypt.

Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty remained nominally an Ottoman province. The eyalet was practically independent and went to war twice with the Empire—in 1831–33 and 1839–41. Constantinople granted Egypt the status of an autonomous vassal state or Khedivate in 1867. Isma’il Pasha (Khedive from 1863 to 1879) and Tewfik Pasha (1879 to 1892) governed Egypt as a quasi-independent state under Ottoman suzerainty until the British occupation of 1882. Nevertheless, the Khedivate of Egypt (1867–1914) remained a de jure Ottoman province until 5 November 1914, when it was declared by the British Empire a British protectorate in reaction to the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire joining the First World War on the side of the Central Powers (October–November 1914).

History of Ottoman Egypt

Early Ottoman period

After the conquest of Egypt in 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I left the country. Grand Vizier Yunus Pasha was awarded the governorship of Egypt. However, the Sultan soon discovered that Yunus Pasha had created an extortion and bribery syndicate and gave the office to Hayır Bey, the former Mamluk governor of Aleppo. The latter contributed to the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.

Early Ottoman Egypt was historically characterised by a competition for power between the Mamluks and the representatives of the Ottoman Sultan.

The register by which a significant portion of the land was a fief of the Mamluks was left unchanged, allowing the Mamluks to return to positions of considerable influence quickly. The Mamluk emirs were retained as heads of 12 sanjaks, into which Egypt was divided. Under the next Sultan, Suleiman I, two chambers were created: the Greater Divan and the Lesser Divan. The army and the ecclesiastical authorities were represented to aid the Pasha in deliberations. Six regiments were constituted by the conqueror Selim for the protection of Egypt; Suleiman added a seventh of Circassians.

It was the Sublime Porte’s practice to change Egypt’s governor at very short intervals, after a year or less. The fourth governor, Hain Ahmed Pasha, hearing that orders for his execution had come from Constantinople, endeavoured to make himself an independent ruler and had coins struck in his name. His schemes were frustrated by two emirs he had imprisoned, who, escaping from their confinement, attacked him in his bath and attempted to kill him. However, Ahmed Pasha escaped wounded and was soon captured and executed by the Ottoman Sultan’s forces.

1527 to 1610

In 1527, the first survey of Egypt under the Ottomans was made, the official copy of the former registers having perished by fire; this new survey did not come into use until 1605. Egyptian lands were divided into four classes: the Sultan’s domain, fiefs, land for the maintenance of the army, and lands settled on religious foundations.

The constant changes in the Government seem to have caused the army to get out of control at an early period of the Ottoman occupation, and at the beginning of the 17th century, mutinies became common; in 1604, governor Maktul Hacı Ibrahim Pasha (then known as just as Ibrahim Pasha) was murdered by the soldiers, and his headset on the Bab Zuweila, earning him the epithet Maktul, “the Slain”. The reason for these mutinies was the attempt made by successive pashas to put a stop to the extortion called the tulbah, a forced payment exacted by the troops from the inhabitants of the country by the fiction of debts requiring to be discharged, which led to grievous ill-usage.

In 1609, a conflict broke out between the army and the Pasha, who had loyal regiments on his side and the Bedouins. The soldiers went so far as to choose a sultan and divide the Cairo regions between them provisionally. They were defeated by the governor Kara Mehmed Pasha, who entered Cairo in triumph on 5 February 1610, executed the ringleaders, and banished others to Yemen, earning him the nickname Kul Kıran (“Slavebreaker”). Historians speak of this event as the Ottomans’ second conquest of Egypt.[by whom?] A significant financial reform was then effected by Kara Mehmed Pasha, who readjusted the burdens imposed on the different communities of Egypt following their means.

1623 to 1656

With the troubles that beset the metropolis of the Ottoman Empire, the governors appointed thence came to be treated by the Egyptians with continually decreasing respect. In July 1623, an order came from the Porte dismissing Kara Mustafa Pasha and appointing Çeşteci Ali Pasha governor in his place. The officers met the deputy of the newly appointed governor and demanded from him the customary gratuity; when the deputy refused, they sent letters to the Porte declaring that they wished to have Kara Mustafa Pasha, and not Çeşteci Ali Pasha, as governor.

Meanwhile, Çeşteci Ali Pasha had arrived at Alexandria and was met by a Cairo deputation telling him he was not wanted. He returned a mild answer; when a rejoinder came in the same style as the first message, he had the leader of the delegation arrested and imprisoned. The garrison of Alexandria then attacked the castle and rescued the prisoner. After that, Çeşteci Ali Pasha was compelled to reembark on his ship and escape. Shortly after, a rescript arrived from Constantinople, confirming Kara Mustafa Pasha was in the governorship. Bayram Pasha succeeded Mustafa in 1626.

The Ottoman Egyptian army officers were appointed locally from the various militias and had strong ties to the Egyptian aristocracy. Thus, a Mamluk emir, Ridwan Bey, exercised de facto authority over Egypt from 1631 to 1656. In 1630, Koca Musa Pasha was the newly appointed governor when the army took it upon themselves to depose him in anger at his execution of Kits Bey, an officer who was to have commanded an Egyptian force required for service in Persia. Koca Musa Pasha was given the choice of handing over the executioners for vengeance or resigning his place; as he refused to do the former, he was compelled to do the latter.

In 1631, a rescript came from Constantinople, approving the army’s conduct and appointing Halil Pasha as Koca Musa Pasha’s successor. Not only was the governor unsupported by the Sultan against the troops, but each new governor regularly inflicted a fine upon his outgoing predecessor under the name of money due to the treasury; the outgoing governor would not be allowed to leave Egypt until he had paid it. Besides the extortions to which this practice gave occasion, the country suffered greatly in these centuries from famine and pestilence. In the spring of 1619, pestilence is said to have killed 635,000 persons and, in 1643, wholly desolated 230 villages.

Later Ottoman period

1707 to 1755

By the 18th century, the importance of the Pasha was superseded by that of the Mameluk beys; two offices, those of Shaykh al-Balad and Amir al-hajj—which Mameluks held—represented the absolute headship of the community. The process of how this came about is obscure, owing to the need for good chronicles for the Turkish period of Egyptian history. In 1707, the shaykh al-Balad, Qasim Iywaz, was the head of one of two Mameluke factions, the Qasimites and the Fiqarites, between whom the seeds of enmity were sown by the Pasha of the time, with the result that a fight took place between the factions outside Cairo, lasting eighty days.

At the end of that time, Qasim Iywaz was killed, and the office that he had held was given to his son Ismail. Ismail held this office for 16 years while the pashas were constantly being changed and succeeded in reconciling the two factions of Mamelukes.

In 1711, an event known to chroniclers as the “Great Sedition” and the “Revolution” occurred when a religious fanatic preacher publicly denounced the practice of praying at the graves of Sufi saints, sparking a religious movement that wasn’t crushed for three years until 1714. In 1724, Ismail was assassinated through the machinations of the Pasha, and Shirkas Bey—of the opposing faction—was elevated to the office of Sheikh al-Balad in his place. He was soon driven from his post by a faction called Dhu-‘l-Fiqar and fled to Upper Egypt. After a short time, he returned at the head of an army, and in the last of the ensuing battles, Shirkas Bey met his end by drowning. Dhu-‘l-Fiqar was assassinated in 1730. Othman Bey, who had served as his general in this war, filled his place.

In 1743, Othman Bey was forced to fly from Egypt by the intrigues of two adventurers, Ibrahim and Ridwan Bey, who—when their scheme had succeeded—began a massacre of Beys and others thought to be opposed to them. They proceeded to govern Egypt jointly, holding the offices of Sheikh al-Balad and Amir al-Hajj in alternate years. An attempt by one of the pashas to remove these two by a coup d’état failed, owing to the loyalty of the Beys’ armed supporters. They released Ibrahim and Ridwan from prison and compelled the Pasha to flee to Constantinople.

An attempt by a subsequent pasha, under secret orders from Constantinople, was so successful that some of the beys were killed. Ibrahim and Rilwan escaped and compelled the Pasha to resign his governorship and return to Constantinople. Ibrahim was assassinated shortly afterwards by someone who had aspired to occupy one of the vacant beyships, which had instead been conferred upon Ali—who, as Ali Bey al-Kabir, was destined to play an essential part in the history of Egypt. The murder of Ibrahim Bey took place in 1755, and his colleague Ridwan perished in the subsequent disputes.

Ali Bey, who had first distinguished himself by defending a caravan in Arabia against bandits, set himself the task of avenging the death of his former master Ibrahim. He spent eight years purchasing Mamelukes and winning other adherents, exciting the suspicions of Sheikh al-Balad Khalil Bey, who organised an attack upon him in the streets of Cairo—consequently, he fled to Upper Egypt. Here, he met one Salib Bey, who had injuries to avenge upon Khalil Bey, and the two organised a force with which they returned to Cairo and defeated Khalil.

Kalil was forced to flee to Iaifla, where, for a time, he concealed himself; eventually, he was discovered, sent to Alexandria, and finally strangled. After Ali Bey’s victory in 1760, he was made Sheikh al-Balad. He executed the murderer of his former master, Ibrahim. Still, the resentment that this act aroused among the beys caused him to leave his post and flee to Syria, where he won the friendship of the governor of Acre, Zahir al-Umar, who obtained the goodwill of the Porte and reinstatement in his post as Sheikh al-Balad.

1766 to 1798

In 1766, after the death of his supporter, the grand vizier Raghib Pasha, he was again compelled to flee from Egypt to Yemen, but in the following year, he was told that his party at Cairo was strong enough to permit his return. Resuming his office, he raised 18 of his friends to Bey—among them Ibrahim and Murad, afterwards at the head of affairs—and Muhammad Abu-al-Dhahab, who was closely connected with the rest of Ali Bey’s career. Ali Bey used very severe measures to repress the brigandage of the Bedouins of Lower Egypt. He endeavoured to disband all forces except those exclusively under his control.

In 1769, a demand came to Ali Bey for a force of 12,000 men to be employed by the Porte in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. It was suggested at Constantinople, however, that Ali would secure his independence, and the Porte sent a messenger to the Pasha with orders for Ali’s execution. Being apprised of the messenger’s despatch by his agents in Constantinople, Ali ordered that the messenger be waylaid and killed.

Ali seized and read the dispatches before an assembly of the beys, who were assured that the order for execution applied to all and urged them to fight for their lives. His proposals were received with enthusiasm by the beys whom he had created. Egypt was declared independent, and the Pasha was given 48 hours to quit the country. Zahir al-Umar, Pasha of Acre, to whom official information of the step taken by Ali Bey was sent, promised his aid and kept his word by compelling an army sent by the Pasha of Damascus against Egypt to retreat.

The Porte could not take active measures at the time for the suppression of Ali Bey, who endeavoured to consolidate his dominions by sending expeditions against marauding tribes in both north and south Egypt, reforming the finance, and improving the administration of justice. His son-in-law, Abu-al-Dhahab, was sent to subject the Hawwara, who had occupied the land between Aswan and Asyut, and a force of 20,000 men was sent to conquer Yemen. An officer named Ismail Bey was sent with 8,000 men to acquire the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and Ilasan Bey was sent to occupy Jidda.

In six months, the more significant part of the Arabian peninsula was subject to Ali Bey, and he appointed a cousin of his own as Sharif of Mecca—who bestowed on Ali by an official proclamation the titles Sultan of Egypt and Khan of the Two Seas. In 1771, under this authorisation, he struck coins in his name and ordered his name to be mentioned in public worship.

Abu-‘l-Dhahab was sent with a force of 30,000 men in the same year to conquer Syria, and agents were sent to negotiate alliances with Venice and Russia. Reinforced by Ali Bey’s ally Zahir al-Umar, Abu-‘l-Dahab quickly took the chief cities of Palestine and Syria, ending with Damascus. Still, at this point, he appears to have entered into secret negotiations with the Porte, which he undertook to restore Egypt to Ottoman suzerainty. He evacuated Syria and marched with all the forces he could collect to Upper Egypt, occupying Assiut in April 1772.

Having collected additional troops from the Bedouins, he marched on Cairo. Ali Bey sent Ismail Bey with 3,000 to check his advance, but Bastin Ismil and his troops joined Abu-‘l-Dhahab. Ali Bey intended to defend himself as long as possible in the citadel at Cairo. However, receiving information that his friend Zahir al-Umar was still willing to give him refuge, he left Cairo for Syria on 8 April 1772, one day before the entrance of Abu-‘l-Dhahab.

At Acre, Ali’s fortune seemed to be restored. A Russian vessel anchored outside the port, and, following the agreement he had made with the Russian Empire, he was supplied with stores, ammunition, and a force of 3,000 Albanians. He sent one of his officers, Ali Bey al-Tantawi, to recover the Syrian towns evacuated by Abu-‘ll-Dhahab, now in possession of the Porte. He took Jaffa and Gaza, the former of which he gave to his friend Zahir al-Umar.

On 1 February 1773, he received information from Cairo that Abu-‘l-Dhahab had made himself Sheikh al-Balad and, in that capacity, was practising unheard-of extortions, which were making Egyptians call for the return of Ali Bey. He accordingly started for Egypt at the head of an army of 8,000 men and, on 19 April, met the army of Abu-‘l-Dhahab at Salihiyya Madrasa. Ali’s forces were victorious at the first engagement. Still, when the battle was renewed two days later, he was deserted by some of his officers and prevented by illness and wounds from taking the conduct of affairs. The result was a complete defeat for his army, after which he declined to leave his tent; he was captured after a brave resistance and taken to Cairo, where he died seven days later.

After Ali Bey’s death, Egypt became once more a dependency of the Porte, governed by Abu-‘l-Dhahab as Sheikh al-Balad with the title pasha. Shortly afterwards, he received permission from the Porte to invade Syria, with the view of punishing Ali Bey’s supporter Zahir al-Umar. He left Ismail Bey and Ibrahim Bey as his deputies in Cairo. They had brought about his downfall by deserting Ali at the battle of Salihiyya. After taking many cities in Palestine, Abu-‘l-Dhahab died, the cause unknown; Murad Bey, another of the deserters at Salihiyya, brought his forces back to Egypt on 26 May 1775.

Ismail Bey became Sheikh al-Balad but was soon involved in a dispute with Ibrahim and Murad. After a time, they successfully drove Ismail out of Egypt and established a joint rule similar to that which had been tried previously (by Sheikh al-Balad and Amir al-Hajj, respectively). The two were soon involved in quarrels, which once threatened to break into open war. Still, this catastrophe was averted, and the joint rule was maintained until 1786, when the Porte sent an expedition to restore Ottoman supremacy in Egypt. Murad Bey attempted to resist but was quickly defeated. He, with Ibrahim, decided to flee to Upper Egypt and await the trend of events.

On 1 August, the Turkish commander Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha entered Cairo. After violent measures had been taken to restore order, Ismail Bey was again made Sheikh al-Balad, and a new pasha was installed as governor. In January 1791, a terrible plague raged in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, to which Ismail Bey and most of his family fell victim. Owing to the need for competent rulers, Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey were sent for and resumed their dual Government. They were still in office in 1798 when Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt.

French occupation

The ostensible object of the French expedition to Egypt was to reinstate the authority of the Sublime Porte and suppress the Mamluks; in the proclamation, printed with the Arabic types brought from the Propaganda press and issued shortly after the taking of Alexandria, Bonaparte declared that he revered God, the prophet Muhammad, and the Qur’an far more than the Mamluks revered them, and argued that all men were equal except so far as they were distinguished by their intellectual and moral excellences—of which the Mamluks had no outstanding share. In the future, all posts in Egypt were to be open to all classes of the inhabitants; the conduct of affairs was to be committed to the men of talent, virtue, and learning; and to prove that the French were sincere Muslims, the overthrow of the papal authority in Rome was suggested.

That there might be no doubt of the friendly feeling of the French toward the Porte. Villages and towns that capitulated to the invaders were required to hoist the Porte and the French Republic flags. In the thanksgiving prescribed to the Egyptians for their deliverance from the Mamluks, prayer was to be offered for both the Sultan and the French army. It does not appear that the proclamation convinced many Egyptians of the truth of these professions.

After the Battle of Embabeh (also commonly known as the Battle of the Pyramids), at which the forces of both Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey were dispersed, the populace readily plundered the houses of the beys. A deputation was sent from al-Azhar to Bonaparte to ascertain his intentions; these proved to be a repetition of the terms of his proclamation, and—though the combination of loyalty to the French with allegiance to the Sultan was unintelligible—a good understanding was at first established between the invaders and the Egyptians.

A municipal council was established in Cairo, consisting of persons taken from the ranks of the sheikhs, the Mamluks, and the French. Soon after, delegates from Alexandria and other vital towns were added. This council did little more than register the decrees of the French commander, who continued to exercise dictatorial power.

Battle of the Nile

The destruction of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile and the failure of the French forces sent to Upper Egypt (where they reached the first cataract) to obtain possession of the person of Murad Bey shook the faith of the Egyptians in their invincibility. Due to a series of unwelcome innovations, the relations between conquerors and conquered grew more strained daily, until at last—on the occasion of introducing a house tax on 22 October 1798—an insurrection broke out in Cairo. The headquarters of the insurrection was at the University of Azhar. On this occasion, the French general Dupuy, lieutenant-governor of Cairo, was killed. The prompt measures of Bonaparte, aided by the arrival of General Jean Baptiste Kléber from Alexandria, quickly suppressed this rise. Still, the stabling of French cavalry in the mosque of Azhar gave great and permanent offence.

As a consequence of this affair, the deliberative council was suppressed, but on 25 December, a fresh proclamation was issued reconstituting the two divans that the Turks had created; the unique divan was to consist of 14 persons chosen by lot out of 60 government nominees and was to meet daily. The general divan was to consist of functionaries and meet on emergencies.

In consequence of dispatches that reached Bonaparte on 3 January 1799, announcing the intention of the Porte to invade the country with the object of recovering it by force, Bonaparte resolved on his Syrian expedition and appointed governors for Cairo, Alexandria, and Upper Egypt, to govern during his absence.

The defeat of the Turkish army

Bonaparte returned from that ill-fated expedition at the beginning of June. Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey had taken advantage of this opportunity to collect their forces and attempt a joint attack on Cairo, but Bonaparte arrived to defeat it. In the last week of July, he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Turkish army that had landed at Aboukir, aided by the British fleet commanded by Sir Sidney Smith.

Shortly after his victory, Bonaparte left Egypt, having appointed Kléber to govern in his absence—which he informed the sheikhs of Cairo would not last more than three months. Kléber regarded the condition of the French invaders as extremely dangerous and wrote to tell the French Republic the facts. The Porte sent a double expedition shortly after Bonaparte departed for the recovery of Egypt: one force was dispatched by sea to Damietta. At the same time, another under Yousuf Pasha took the land route from Damascus by al-Arish. The first force had some success, in consequence of which the Turks agreed to a convention on 24 January 1800, by which the French were to quit Egypt. The Turkish troops advanced to Bilbeis, where the sheikhs received them from Cairo; the Mamluks also returned from their hiding places to Cairo.

Before the preparations for the departure of the French were completed, orders came to Smith from the British Government forbidding the carrying-out of the convention unless the French army were treated as prisoners of war. When these orders were communicated to Kléber, he cancelled the orders previously given to the troops and put the country in a state of defence. With most of the army, his departure to attack the Turks at Mataria led to riots in Cairo.

The national party could not gain possession of the citadel, and Kléber, having defeated the Turks, was soon able to return to the capital. On 14 April, he bombarded Bulaq and proceeded to bombard Cairo itself, which was taken the following night. Order was soon restored, and a fine of 12 million francs was imposed upon the rioters. Murad Bey sought an interview with Kléber and obtained the Government of Upper Egypt. Murad Bey died shortly afterwards and was succeeded by Osman Bey al-Bardisi.

Assassination

On 14 June, Kléber was assassinated by Suleiman al-Halabi and was said to have been incited to the deed by a Janissary refugee at Jerusalem, who had brought letters to the sheikhs of the Azhar. Although they gave him no support, the French executed three of the sheikhs as accessories before the fact. The assassin himself was tortured and impaled despite the promise of a pardon if he named his associates.

The command of the army then devolved on General J.F. (Baron de) Menou, a man who had professed Islam and who endeavoured to conciliate the Muslim population by various measures—such as excluding all Christians (except for one Frenchman) from the divan replacing Copts who were in government service with Muslims and subjecting French residents to taxes. Whatever these measures might have gained popularity was counteracted by his declaration of a French protectorate over Egypt, which was to be a French colony.

In the first weeks of March 1801, the English under Sir Ralph Abercromby affected a landing at Abu Qir and proceeded to investigate Alexandria, where Menou attacked them; the French were repulsed, but the English commander was mortally wounded in action. On the 25th, fresh Turkish reinforcements arrived with the fleet of the Kapudan Pasha Hüseyin. A combined English and Turkish force was sent to take Rashid. On 30 May, General A. D. Belliard, the French commander in Cairo, was assailed on two sides by British troops under General John Hely Hutchinson and Turks under Yusuf Pasha; after negotiations, Belliard agreed to evacuate Cairo and to sail with his 13,734 troops to France.

On 30 August, Menou was compelled to accept similar conditions and his force of 10,000 left Alexandria for Europe in September. This was the termination of the French occupation of Egypt. The chief permanent monument of the occupation was the Description de l’Egypte, compiled by the French savants who accompanied the expedition.

Egypt under Muhammad Ali

Soon after the French evacuated Egypt, the country became the scene of more severe troubles, a consequence of the Ottomans’ attempts to destroy the power of the Mamluks. In defiance of promises to the British Government, orders were transmitted from Constantinople to Hüseyin Pasha to trap and put to death the principal beys.

According to the Egyptian contemporary historian al-Jabarti, they were invited to entertainment on board the Turkish flagship and then attacked; however, Sir Robert Wilson and M.F. Mengin stated that they were fired upon in open boats in Abu Qir Bay. They offered resistance but were overpowered; some were killed, and others were made prisoners. Among the prisoners was Osman Bey al-Bardisi, who was severely wounded. The British General Hutchinson, informed of this betrayal, immediately took threatening measures against the Turks, causing them to surrender the killed, wounded, and imprisoned Egyptians to him. At the same time, Yusuf Pasha arrested all the beys in Cairo, but the British soon compelled him to release them.

Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha was Egypt’s first Ottoman governor after the French expulsion. However, the form of Government was not the same as before the French invasion, for the Mamluks were not reinstated. The Pasha, and through him the Sultan, repeatedly tried to ensnare them or beguile them into submission. These efforts failing, Husrev took the field, and a Turkish detachment 7,000 strong was dispatched against the Mamluks to Damanhur—whence they had descended from Upper Egypt—and was defeated by a small force under either al-Alfi or his lieutenant al-Bardisi. Their ammunition and guns fell into the hands of the Mamluks. This led to a long civil war between the Albanians, Mamluks, and Ottomans.

Campaign against the Saudis (1811–1818)

Acknowledging the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan and at his command, Muhammad Ali dispatched an army of 20,000 men (including 2,000 horses) under the control of his son Tusun, a youth of sixteen, against the Saudis in the Ottoman–Saudi War. By the end of 1811, Tusun had received reinforcements and captured Medina after a prolonged siege. He next took Jeddah and Mecca, defeating the Saudis beyond the latter and capturing their general.

After the death of the Saudi leader Saud, Muhammad Ali concluded a treaty with Saud’s son and successor, Abdullah I, in 1815.

Tusun returned to Egypt on hearing of the military revolt at Cairo but died in 1816 at the early age of twenty. Muhammad Ali, dissatisfied with the treaty concluded with the Saudis and the non-fulfilment of its clauses, determined to send another army to Arabia. Under his eldest son Ibrahim Pasha, this expedition left in the autumn of 1816 and captured the Saudi capital of Diriyah in 1818.

Reforms (1808–1823)

During Muhammad Ali’s absence in Arabia, his representative at Cairo had completed the confiscation, begun in 1808, of almost all the lands belonging to private individuals, who were forced to accept inadequate pensions instead. By this revolutionary method of land nationalisation, Muhammad Ali became the proprietor of nearly all the soil of Egypt. The Pasha also attempted to reorganise his troops on European lines, which led to a formidable mutiny in Cairo. Presents reduced the revolt to the chiefs of the insurgents, and Muhammad Ali ordered that the sufferers of the disturbances should receive compensation from the treasury. Because of this mutiny, the Nizam Gedid (New System) project was abandoned for a time.

While Ibrahim was engaged in the second Arabian campaign, the Pasha focused on strengthening the Egyptian economy. He created state monopolies over the chief products of the country. He set up several factories and began digging. In 1819, he built a new canal to Alexandria called the Mahmudiya (after the reigning Sultan of Turkey). The old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity of a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. The conclusion in 1838 of a commercial treaty with Turkey, negotiated by Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Darling), struck a death blow to the system of monopolies. However, the application of the treaty to Egypt was delayed for some years.

Another notable fact in the country’s economic progress was the development of cotton cultivation in the Delta in 1822. The cotton grown previously had been brought from Sudan by Maho Bey. Muhammad Ali could extract considerable revenues within a few years by organising the new industry.

Efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. Muhammad Ali showed much favour to European merchants, on whom he depended for selling his exports. Under his influence, the port of Alexandria again rose to importance. It was also under Muhammad Ali’s encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed.

Sultan Mahmud II was also planning reforms borrowed from the West. Muhammad Ali, who had had plenty of opportunities to observe the superiority of European methods of warfare, was determined to anticipate the Sultan in creating a fleet and an army on European lines.

Before the Greek War of Independence outbreak in 1821, he had already expended much time and energy in organising a fleet and training under the supervision of French instructors, native officers and artificers.

By 1823, he had succeeded in reorganising his army on European lines, the turbulent Turkish and Albanian elements being replaced by Sudanese and fellahin. The effectiveness of the new force was demonstrated in the suppression of an 1823 revolt of the Albanians in Cairo by six disciplined Sudanese regiments, after which Mehemet Ali was no more troubled with military mutinies.

Economy

Egypt, under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century, had the fifth most productive cotton industry in the world regarding the number of spindles per capita. The initiative was initially driven by machinery that relied on traditional energy sources, such as animal power, water wheels, and windmills, which were also the principal energy sources in Western Europe up until around 1870. While steam power had been experimented with in Ottoman Egypt by engineer Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma’ruf in 1551, when he invented a steam jack driven by a rudimentary steam turbine, it was under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century that steam engines were introduced to Egyptian industrial manufacturing.

While there was a lack of coal deposits in Egypt, prospectors searched for coal deposits there. They manufactured boilers, such as ironworks, textiles, paper, and hulls, in Egyptian industries. Coal was imported from overseas at prices similar to what imported coal cost in France until the 1830s when Egypt gained access to coal sources in Lebanon, which had a yearly coal output of 4,000 tons. Compared to Western Europe, Egypt also had superior agriculture and an efficient transport network through the Nile. Economic historian Jean Batou argues that the necessary economic conditions for rapid industrialisation existed in Egypt during the 1820s–1830s and for adopting oil as a potential energy source for its steam engines later in the 19th century.

Invasion of Libya and Sudan (1820)

In 1820, Muhammad Ali ordered the conquest of eastern Libya. Ali’s intentions for Sudan were to extend his rule southward, capture the valuable caravan trade bound for the Red Sea, disperse Mamluks who had fled south and secure the rich gold mines he believed existed in Sennar. He also saw in the campaign a means of getting rid of his disaffected troops and obtaining a sufficient number of captives to form the nucleus of the new army.

The forces destined for this service were led by Ismail Kamil Pasha, the youngest son of Muhammad Ali. They consisted of between 4,000 and 5,000 men, Turks and Arabs. They left Cairo in July 1820. Nubia did not put up much of a fight. The Shaigiya tribe immediately beyond the province of Dongola were defeated, the remnant of the Mamluks dispersed, and Sennar was destroyed.

Expansion into Somalia (1821)

Although nominally part of the Ottoman Empire since 1554, between 1821 and 1841, Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt, came to control Yemen and the Sahil, with Zeila included. After the Egyptians withdrew from the Yemeni seaboard in 1841, Haj Ali Shermerki, a successful and ambitious Somali merchant, purchased executive rights over Zeila from them. Shermerki’s governorship instantiated the city as he manoeuvred to monopolise as much regional trade as possible, with his sights set as far as Harar and the Ogaden.

In 1845, Shermerki deployed a few matchlock men to wrest control of neighbouring Berbera from that town’s then-feuding Somali authorities. This alarmed the Harari Emir of Harar, who, having already been at loggerheads with Shermerki over fiscal matters, was concerned about the ramifications of these movements on his city’s commerce. Consequently, the Emir urged Berbera’s leaders to reconcile and mount a resistance against Shermerki’s troops. Shermerki was later succeeded as Governor of Zeila by Abu Bakr Pasha, a local Afar statesman.

In 1874–75, the Egyptians obtained a firman from the Ottomans by which they secured claims over the city. At the same time, the Egyptians received British recognition of their nominal jurisdiction as far east as Cape Guardafui. When the Egyptian garrison in Harar was evacuated in 1885, Zeila became caught up in the competition between the Tadjoura-based French and the British for control of the strategic Gulf of Aden littoral. I.M. Lewis mentions that “by the end of 1885, Britain was preparing to resist an expected French landing at Zeila.” However, the two powers decided to turn to negotiations instead.

Ahmad Revolt (1824)

In 1824, a native rebellion broke out in Upper Egypt headed by Ahmed, an inhabitant of al-Salimiyyah, a village situated a few miles above Thebes. He proclaimed himself a prophet and was soon followed by 20,000 and 30,000 insurgents, primarily peasants but some deserters from the Nizam Gedid, for that force was yet in a half-organised state. Muhammad Ali crushed the insurrection, and about one-fourth of Ahmad’s followers perished, but he escaped. The subsequent years saw an imposition of order across Egypt, and Ali’s new, highly trained, disciplined forces spread across the nation.

Greek campaign (1824–1828)

Ali’s foresight in reforming his military forces was rewarded by the Sultan’s invitation to help him subdue the Greek insurgents, offering the pashaliks of the Morea and Syria as a reward. In the autumn of 1824, a fleet of 60 Egyptian warships with 17,000 disciplined troops concentrated in Suda Bay. In the following March, Ibrahim, as commander-in-chief, landed in the Morea.

The history of the events that led up to the battle of Navarino. His naval superiority wrested from the Greeks the command of a great deal of the sea, on which the fate of the insurrection ultimately depended, while on land, the Greek irregular bands, having largely soundly beaten the Porte’s troops, had finally met a worthy foe in Ibrahim’s disciplined troops. The withdrawal of the Egyptians from the Morea was ultimately due to the action of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington. Early in August 1828, he appeared before Alexandria and induced the Pasha to sign a convention undertaking to recall Ibrahim and his army.

War with the Sultan (1831–1841)

Ali went to war against the Sultan on the pretext of chastising the ex-mamluk Abdullah Pasha of Acre for refusing to send back Egyptian fugitives from the effects of Muhammad Ali’s reforms. The actual reason was Sultan Mahmud’s refusal to hand over Syria according to the agreement. For ten years from this date, the relations between the Sultan and Pasha remained at the forefront of the questions that agitated the diplomatic world. It was not only the very existence of the Ottoman Empire that seemed to be at stake, but Egypt itself had become more than ever an object of attention, to British politicians especially, and in the issue of the struggle were involved the interests of the British Empire in the two routes to India by the Isthmus of Suez and the valley of the Euphrates.

Ibrahim, who once more commanded in his father’s name, launched another brilliant campaign, beginning with the storming of Acre on 27 May 1832 and culminating in the rout and capture of Reshid Pasha at Konya on 21 December. Soon after, however, he was blocked by Russia’s intervention. As the result of endless discussions between the representatives of the powers, the Porte and the Pasha, the Convention of Kütahya was signed on 14 May 1833, by which the Sultan agreed to bestow on Muhammad Ali the pashaliks of Syria, Damascus, Aleppo and Itcheli, together with the district of Adana.

Muhammad Ali now ruled over a virtually independent empire, subject only to a moderate tribute, stretching from Sudan to the Taurus Mountains. However, the unsound foundations of his authority were not long in revealing themselves. Scarcely a year after the signing of the Convention of Kutaya, the application by Ibrahim of Egyptian methods of Government, notably of the monopolies and conscription, had driven Syrian Druze and Sunni Arabs. They had welcomed him as a deliverer into revolt. Muhammad Ali suppressed the unrest in person, and the Syrians were terrorised. Still, their discontent encouraged Sultan Mahmud to hope for revenge, and the anxious efforts of the European powers only staved off a renewal of the conflict.

In the spring of 1839, the Sultan ordered his army, concentrated under Reshid in the border district of Bir on the Euphrates, to advance over the Syrian frontier. Seeing his flank menaced, Ibrahim attacked it at Nezib on 24 June. Once more, however, the Ottomans were utterly routed. Six days later, before the news reached Constantinople, Mahmud died.

With the defeat of the Ottomans and the conquest of Syria, Muhammad Ali had reached the height of his power, controlling Egypt, Sudan, and Syria. He saw the Ottoman armies collapse or fall into disorganisation after their defeat in Syria, and it looked like the Middle East and Anatolia were him for the taking.

With the Ottoman Empire at the feet of Muhammad Ali, the European powers were greatly alarmed and now put into action a plan that had been prepared to meet a foreseen contingency. Their intervention during the Oriental Crisis of 1840 was prompt, and they made short work of Muhammad Ali’s army. However, the Western Powers had no intention of removing Ali and the block he placed on Ottoman Power. Thus, though the peace treaty was harsh, it left the Muhammad Ali dynasty in power.

End of Muhammad Ali’s rule

The Government of the Pashalik of Egypt was hereditary in Muhammad Ali’s family in 1841.

Various restrictions were laid upon Muhammad Ali, emphasising his position as a vassal. He was forbidden to maintain a fleet, and his army was not to exceed 18,000 men. The Pasha was no longer a figure in European politics but continued to occupy himself with his improvements in Egypt. The long wars combined a cattle murrain in 1842 and a destructive Nile flood. In 1843, there was a plague of locusts that depopulated whole villages.

In 1844–45, the country’s condition improved due to the financial reforms the Pasha executed. Muhammad Ali, who had been granted the honorary rank of grand vizier in 1842, paid a visit to Istanbul in 1846, where he reconciled to his old enemy Khosrev Pasha, whom he had not seen since he spared his life at Cairo in 1803. In 1847, Muhammad Ali laid the stone of the great bridge across the Nile at the beginning of the Delta. Towards the end of 1847, the aged Pasha’s previously sharp mind began to give way, and by the following June, he was no longer capable of administering the Government. In September 1848, Ibrahim was acknowledged by the Porte as ruler of the Pashalik, but he died in November.

Muhammad Ali’s successors

On Ibrahim’s death in November 1848, the Government of Egypt fell to his nephew Abbas I, the son of Tusun Abbasad. Abbas put an end to the system of commercial monopolies, and during his reign, the railway from Alexandria to Cairo was begun at the instigation of the British Government. Opposed to European ways, Abbas lived in excellent seclusion. After fewer than six years, he was murdered in July 1854 by two of his enslaved.

His uncle, Said Pasha, succeeded him; he was Muhammad Ali’s favourite son. The latter lacked the strength of mind or physical health needed to execute the beneficent projects he conceived. He had a genuine regard for the welfare of the fellahin, and a land law of 1858 secured an acknowledgement of freehold against the crown.

The Pasha was much under French influence, and in 1854, it was induced to grant the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps a concession for the construction of the Suez Canal.

In January 1863, Said Pasha died and was succeeded by his nephew Ismail, a son of Ibrahim Pasha.

The reign of Ismail, from 1863 to 1879, was hailed as a new era in modern Egypt. He attempted vast reform schemes, but these, coupled with his extravagance, led to bankruptcy. The later part of his reign is historically essential for leading to European intervention in and occupation of Egypt.

Axes’ Rebellion

The rebellion started with a minimal victory for them in the beginning, successfully seizing all of Upper Egypt under their control and getting the mountain bandits on their side who repeatedly raided foreign Nile ships, killing all the foreigners in it and taking its goods, the rebels also sent cows and mules all over the farms of the Egyptian aristocrats that were pro-European to eat their crops.

When the Egyptian Khedive heard that, he sent a battalion of troops on boats to Upper Egypt through the Nile to quell the rebellion. On the other flank, the rebels heard about that; Ahmad ordered them to collect as many rocks as possible and wait on the two banks of the river. When the boats arrived carrying Egyptian troops, they were met by stones thrown at them from all sides, destroying several ships and killing over 200 soldiers while those who survived managed to escape. When the Khedive heard about the crushing defeat, he prepared a much larger force armed with heavy artillery and supported by cavalry led by the Turkish general, Fadil Pasha, going through a lengthy and exhausting campaign against the rebels that used guerrilla warfare tactics.

However, the Egyptian government forces defeated the rebels in several battles and recaptured Upper Egypt. Shortly afterwards, an Egyptian general, Ismail ‘Abu Jabal’ Pasha, went on an execution process of tens of thousands of surrendered insurgents, which was really bloody and quite unfair that the Khedive of Egypt himself (who started the campaign against insurgents ordered him to end the executions immediately. In addition to the executions, Abu Jabal bombarded each village he raided with artillery, causing civilian casualties and demolishing three villages.

In 1866, Ismail was granted by the Sultan, and a firman was obtained to increase the tribute from £376,000 to £720,000. The following year, another firman bestowed upon him the title of Khedive in place of Wali, marking the end of Egypt as an Ottoman province.

Ismail ruled the Khedivate of Egypt until his deposition in 1879. His rule is closely connected to the building of the Suez Canal. On his accession, he refused to ratify the concessions to the Canal company made by Said, and the question was referred in 1864 to the arbitration of Napoleon III. The latter awarded £3,800,000 to the company as compensation for their losses. When the canal finally opened, Ismail held a festival of unprecedented scope, inviting dignitaries worldwide.

These developments and the costly war against Yohannes IV of Ethiopia left Egypt in deep debt to the European powers. The Khedive incurred a national debt of over one hundred million pounds sterling (as opposed to three million when he became viceroy), whose fundamental idea of liquidating his borrowings was to borrow at increased interest. When he could raise no more loans, he sold his Suez Canal shares (in 1875) to the British Government for only £3,976,582; this was immediately followed by the beginning of the foreign intervention. In December 1875, Stephen Cave was sent out by the British Government to inquire into Egypt’s finances. In April 1876, his report was published, advising that foreign Powers needed to interfere to restore credit because of the waste and extravagance. The result was the establishment of the Caisse de la Dette.

This control of the country was unacceptable to many Egyptians, who united behind a disaffected Colonel Ahmed Urabi. The Urabi Revolt consumed Egypt. With the country mainly in the hands of Urabi, the British and French governments pressured the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II to depose Ismail Pasha, which was done on 26 June 1879. The more pliable Tewfik Pasha, Ismail’s son, was made his successor. A large military demonstration in September 1881 forced the Khedive Tewfiq to dismiss his Prime Minister.

In April 1882, France and Great Britain sent warships to Alexandria to bolster the Khedive amidst a turbulent climate. Tawfiq moved to Alexandria for fear of his safety as army officers led by Ahmed Urabi began to take control of the Government. By June, Egypt was in the hands of nationalists opposed European domination. A British naval bombardment of Alexandria had little effect on the opposition, which led to a British expeditionary force landing at both ends of the Suez Canal in August 1882. In September, the British defeated the Egyptian Army at Tel El Kebir and took control of the country, putting Tawfiq back in control. The Khedivate of Egypt remained under British military occupation until the British protectorate of Egypt was established in 1914.

Administrative divisions

After conquering Egypt, the Ottomans retained the divisions created by the Mamluks, which were structured into 13 sub-provinces comprising 24 qirats. Unlike other Ottoman provinces, the term sanjak did not carry territorial connotations, as the timar system was not applied there. The rank of sanjak-bey, standard in the Empire, was not used in Egypt.

The thirteen sub-provinces were:

Minufiyya
Qalyub
Gharbiyya
Mansura
Sharqiyya
Beheira
Giza
Fayyum
Atfih
Ushmunayn
Manfalut
al-Bahnasa
Jirja

Additionally, there was a short-lived sub-province named Hatt-ı Üstuva, meaning the Equator in Ottoman Turkish, which was established as a vilayet and existed from 1872 to 1882, covering the areas of today’s southern South Sudan and Northern Uganda, including cities like Lado and Wadelai.