Muhammad Ali Pasha

 Muhammad Ali Pasha Al-Masoud bin Ibrahim Agha Qolli Al-Albani (Ottoman Turkish: Qulli Muhammad Ali Pasha; modern Turkish: Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Pasha; Albanian: Mehmet Ali Pasha), nicknamed Al-Aziz or Aziz of Egypt, was the founder of the Alawi dynasty and ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, and he is commonly described as "the founder of modern Egypt", a saying that he himself was the first to promote and that continued after him in an orderly and striking manner. He was able to ascend the throne of Egypt in 1805 after the country's notables pledged allegiance to him to be the ruler of it, after the people revolted against his predecessor Khurshid Pasha, and his intelligence and exploitation of the circumstances surrounding him enabled him to continue to rule Egypt for that period, to break the Ottoman custom that did not leave a ruler on Egypt for more than two years.

At the beginning of his reign, Muhammad Ali fought an internal war against the Mamluks and the English until Egypt completely subjugated him. Then he fought proxy wars on behalf of the Ottoman Empire in the Arabian Peninsula against the Wahhabis and against the Greek revolutionaries revolting against the Ottoman rule in the Morea. He also expanded his state in the south by annexing Sudan. After that, he turned to attacking the Ottoman Empire, as it fought its armies in the Levant and Anatolia, and almost fell the Ottoman Empire, had it not been for this conflict with the interests of the Western countries that stopped Muhammad Ali and forced him to give up most of the lands he annexed.

During the rule of Muhammad Ali, he was able to advance Egypt militarily, educationally, industrially, agriculturally and commercially, which made Egypt a powerful country in that period. In 1953 AD, the monarchy was abolished and the republic was declared in Egypt.

His upbringing and coming to Egypt

He was born in the city of Kola in the province of Macedonia in northern Greece in 1769, to an Albanian family. His father, "Ibrahim Agha", was the head of the guard entrusted with the road patrol in his country, and it was said that his father was a tobacco dealer. His father had seventeen children, of whom only he lived, and his father died of him when he was young, then his mother died soon after, so he became an orphan of parents when he was fourteen years old, so his uncle “Tosun” , who also died, was guaranteed by the governor of Qula and his father's friend "Shurbaji" Ismail, who included him in the military service, showed courage and good eyesight, so the ruler and his wife brought him close to a rich and beautiful woman named “Amina Hanim”, who was like the fortuneteller of happiness on him, and she bore him Ibrahim, Toson and Ismail, and from the females bore him two daughters. And when the Ottoman Empire decided to send an army to Egypt to wrest it from the hands of the French, he was the deputy head of the Albanian battalion, which consisted of three hundred soldiers. To his country, he became the commander of the battalion. According to many of his contemporaries, he was only fluent in Albanian, although he was able to speak Turkish.

After the failure of the French campaign against Egypt, and its withdrawal in 1801, under the pressure of the English attack on the Egyptian frontiers, which coincided with the Ottoman advance on the Levant, in addition to the turmoil of the situation in Europe at that time. This encouraged the Mamluks to return to the scene of events in Egypt, but they split into two groups, one on the side of the Ottoman forces returning to Egypt led by Ibrahim Bey the Great, and the other on the side of the English led by Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi. It was not long before the British withdrew from Egypt according to the Treaty of Amiens. This led to a period of chaos as a result of the conflict between the Ottomans, who wished to have real, not formal, authority over Egypt, and not to return to the state in which Egypt was ruled in the hands of the Mamluks, and the Mamluks, who saw this as a robbery of an inherent right of their rights. That conflict included a series of plots and assassinations on both sides, which claimed the lives of more than one of the Ottoman governors. During this period of chaos, Muhammad Ali used his Albanian forces to drive a wedge between the two parties, and to find a place for him on the scene of events. Muhammad Ali also showed courtship to senior Egyptian men and scholars, sitting with them and praying behind them, and showing sympathy and care for the Egyptian people’s troubles and pains, which also earned him the Egyptians’ sympathy. In March 1804, a new Ottoman governor named "Ahmed Khurshid Pasha" was appointed, who sensed the danger of Muhammad Ali and his Albanian group, who was able to benefit from the current events and the Ottoman-Mamluk conflict, and was able to evacuate the Mamluks out of Cairo, so he asked Muhammad Ali to go to Upper Egypt to fight The Mamluks, and he was sent to Constantinople, asking for it to provide him with an army of "guilds." (1) As soon as this army arrived, it wreaked havoc in Cairo, seizing money and luggage and violating honor, which aroused the anger of the people, and its leaders demanded the governor Khurshid Pasha to curb these forces, however, he failed to do so, which ignited the people's revolution that led to the removal of the governor, and the people's leaders, led by Omar Makram - Captain of Ashraf - chose Muhammad Ali to sit in his place. On July 9, 1805, in front of the de facto rule, the Ottoman Sultan Selim III issued a royal decree dismissing Khorshid Pasha from the mandate of Egypt, and the accession of Muhammad Ali to Egypt.

 Take over the throne

After the people’s notables in the court house pledged allegiance to him to be governor of Egypt on May 17, 1805 AD, which was approved by the royal decree issued on July 9 of the same year, Muhammad Ali had to face the greatest danger facing him, namely the Mamluks led by Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi, who was A favorite of the English since he supported them when they drove the French out of Egypt. It was only 3 months before the Mamluks decided to attack Cairo, and they sent some chiefs of soldiers to join them when attacking the city. Muhammad Ali knew what he was planning, so he asked the chiefs of the soldiers to keep up with them and lure them to enter the city. On the day of the celebration of the fulfillment of the Nile in 1805, a thousand Mamluks attacked Cairo, to fall into the trap set by Muhammad Ali, and inflicted heavy losses on them, forcing them to withdraw. At that time, Muhammad Ali took advantage of the opportunity, and chased them until he expelled them from Giza, so they retreated to Upper Egypt, which was still in their hands.

In early 1806 AD, Muhammad Ali executed an army to fight the Mamluks in Upper Egypt, led by Hassan Pasha, commander of the Albanian division, who clashed with Muhammad Bey’s forces, the most numerous in Fayoum, and Muhammad Ali’s forces were defeated, which led to their withdrawal to the south of Giza, and then fled south to Beni Suef. In front of the forces of Muhammad Bey al-Alfi advancing towards Giza. This coincided with the advance of the forces of Ibrahim Bey the Great and Othman Bey Al-Bardisi from Assiut to occupy Minya, which had a garrison belonging to Muhammad Ali, but Hassan Pasha's forces supported the garrison and stopped the advance of the Mamluk forces to Minya.

Meanwhile, a firman was issued to isolate Muhammad Ali from the state of Egypt, and to assume the state of Thessaloniki. Muhammad showed compliance with the order and was ready to leave, but he argued that the soldiers would refuse his departure before the overdue salaries were paid. At the same time, he resorted to Omar Makram, the captain of the nobles, who had a role in his assumption of power, to intercede for him with the Sultan to stop the firman. So the scholars and nobles of Egypt sent a letter to the Sultan, mentioning the merits of Muhammad Ali and what he had in defeating the Mamluks, and asking him to keep him as ruler of Egypt. Constantinople accepted this on condition that Muhammad Ali pay 4,000 bags, (2) and send his son Ibrahim as a hostage in Constantinople until he pays this obligation.

After Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi headed to Giza, he did not attack Cairo, but rather headed to Damanhour based on a secret agreement between him and his English allies, to take it as a center for assembling his forces, besieging it, but the people of the city and its garrison stubbornly defended it. When Muhammad Ali reached the news of the siege of Damanhour, he sent part of his army to confront Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi's forces, and they reached Al-Rahmaniya in late July of 1806. Menouf. Al-Alfi returned to the siege of Damanhour, but he did not reach it. Soon, Muhammad Ali received news of the death of Othman Bey Al-Bardisi, one of the princes of the Mamluks of Upper Egypt, and then the news of the death of Al-Alfi during his withdrawal, so he was pleased with that. He quickly mobilized an army and led it to fight the Mamluks in Upper Egypt. The army of Muhammad Ali was able to defeat the Mamluks in Asyut, expel them from it, and made it the headquarters of his camp, where the news of the English campaign came to him.

Freezer campaign

As part of the Anglo-Ottoman War, England directed a campaign of 5,000 soldiers, led by Lieutenant General Frazer, to occupy Alexandria to secure a base of operations against the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean, as part of a larger strategy against the Franco-Ottoman alliance.

The campaign landed its soldiers in Al-Ajami Beach on March 17, 1807, then the forces advanced to occupy Alexandria, which was handed over by the city's governor, "Amin Agha" (3) to the British forces without resistance, and they entered it on March 21. There, the news of the death of their millenarian ally reached them, so Fraser sent to the caliphs of al-Alfi in command of the Mamluks to bring him their forces to Alexandria. At the same time, Muhammad Ali wrote to them to pacify them, but they feared that they would be accused of treason, so they decided to join Muhammad Ali's forces, even if they intended to delay until the results of the campaign became clear, to decide with whom to join. Fraser decided to occupy Rashid and Rahmaniya, to cut off the path of reinforcements that might come to the city via the Nile.

On March 31, Fraser sent 1,500 soldiers led by Major General "Patrick Weshop" to occupy Rashid. Those who survived withdrew to Abu Qir and Alexandria, after the British lost about 185 dead and 300 wounded, in addition to a number of prisoners. The garrison sent the captives and the heads of the dead to Cairo, which was met with great celebration in Cairo.

Because of the importance of the city, on April 3, Fraser sent another army of 2,500 soldiers, led by Lieutenant-General William Stewart, to resume the advance on the city. On April 7, he laid siege to and struck it with cannons. On April 12, Muhammad Ali returned from Upper Egypt, saw the news and decided to send an army of 4,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry, led by his deputy, "Tabuz Oglu", to fight the English. The city held out for 13 days, until the Egyptian army arrived on 20 April, forcing Stewart to withdraw. He also sent a messenger to Captain MacLeod, commander of the force that occupied Hammad, ordering him to withdraw, but he was unable to reach. The next day, the force of 733 soldiers was surrounded in Hammad. After fierce resistance, the force was killed or captured. Stewart returned to Alexandria with the rest of his forces, having lost more than 900 of his men dead, wounded, and captured.

Muhammad Ali's forces continued their advance towards Alexandria, and besieged it. On September 14, 1807, a peace treaty was concluded after negotiations between the two parties, stipulating the cessation of hostilities within 10 days, and the release of the English prisoners, provided that the English forces evacuate the city, which left for Sicily on September 25. Thus, Muhammad Ali got rid of one of the biggest dangers that almost toppled his rule in his infancy.

Getting rid of popular leadership

Despite the assistance provided by the popular leadership, led by Captain Omar Makram, to Muhammad Ali, he began by calling him a governor, and then interceding for him with the Sultan to keep him as governor of Egypt. Despite the promises and approach that Muhammad Ali followed at the beginning of his reign with the popular leaders, with his promise to rule with justice and his contentment that they would have control over him, this did not last. As soon as the situation began to stabilize internally, with the disposal of Al-Alfi and the failure of the Fraser campaign and the defeat of the Mamluks and their expulsion to southern Upper Egypt, Muhammad Ali found that he would not give his hand in ruling, until he removed the popular leaders. This coincided with the division of Al-Azhar scholars over the issue of who should supervise the Al-Azhar endowments between supporters of Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sharqawi and supporters of Sheikh "Mohammed Al-Amir".

In the month of June of 1809, Muhammad Ali imposed new taxes on the people, so the people rage and resorted to Omar Makram, who stood next to the people and vowed to move the people to a massive revolution, and the informers transferred the matter to Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali took advantage of the attempt of a number of sheikhs and scholars to get close to him and the jealousy of some notables of Omar Makram’s stature among the people, such as Sheikh Muhammad al-Mahdi and Sheikh Muhammad al-Dawakhli, so Muhammad Ali wooed them with money to sign Omar Makram. Muhammad Ali had prepared an account to send to the Ottoman Empire, which included the aspects of exchange, and proves that he spent certain amounts collected from the country based on old orders and wanted to prove the sincerity of his message, so he asked the Egyptian leaders to sign that account as a testimony from them to the truth of what he came However, Omar Makram refused to sign and questioned its contents.

So he sent summoning Omar Makram to meet him, but Omar Makram refused, saying, "If it is necessary, then meet with him in Sadat's house." Muhammad Ali found this an insult to him, so he gathered a group of scholars and leaders, and announced the dismissal of Omar Makram from the Syndicate of supervision and the appointment of Sheikh Sadat, explaining the reason that he entered in the supervision book some Copts and Jews in exchange for some money, and that he was complicit with the Mamluks when they attacked Cairo on the day of the Nile’s fulfillment In 1805, then ordered his exile from Cairo to Damietta. With the exile of Omar Makram, the real popular leadership disappeared from the political arena, and was replaced by a group of sheikhs whom Muhammad Ali was able to control either with money or deductions, whom Al-Jabarti called "the sheikhs of time."

castle massacre

Although Muhammad Ali was able to defeat the Mamluks, and expelled them to the south of Upper Egypt. However, he remained suspicious of their danger, so he resorted to an alternative strategy, which is to pretend reconciliation and woo them by lavishing money, positions, and deductions on them, in order to lure them back to Cairo. This was the bait that was swallowed by the bulk of the Mamluks, who responded to the call, preferring a life of luxury over the harsh life pursued by Muhammad Ali. However, some of the leaders of the Mamluks, such as Ibrahim Bey the Great and Othman Bey Hasan and their men, were not satisfied with this offer, and preferred to remain in Upper Egypt.

In December 1807, Muhammad Ali received a royal order from the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa IV, to disarm a campaign to fight the Wahhabis who had taken control of the Hejaz, thus losing the Ottomans control of the Two Holy Mosques, and thus threatening the religious authority of the Ottomans. However, Muhammad Ali continued to argue the instability of the internal situation in Egypt, due to his continuous wars with the Mamluks. But after pretending to reconcile with the Mamluks, Muhammad Ali had nothing left to prevent him from disarming that campaign, so Muhammad Ali decided to abstract a campaign led by his son Ahmed Toson to fight the Wahhabis. The disarmament of that campaign and the departure of a large part of Muhammad Ali's forces was a great danger to the stability of his situation in Egypt. The presence of the Mamluks near Cairo might encourage them to take advantage of the opportunity to pounce on Muhammad Ali and his forces. Therefore, Muhammad Ali resorted to trickery, and Muhammad Ali announced a celebration in the castle on the occasion of dressing his son, Tousun, the leadership of the campaign against the Wahhabis, and set for him the first of March, 1811, and sent inviting notables, scholars and Mamluks to attend the celebration. The Mamluks accepted the invitation, and as soon as the celebration ended, Muhammad Ali invited them to walk in his son's procession. Arrangements were made to make their place in the middle of the caravans, and as soon as the Mamluks reached a steep rocky road that leads to Bab al-Azab, from which the campaign was scheduled to exit, the door was closed and their horses piled up due to the slope. All the 470 Mamluks who attended were the victims of that massacre known as the Citadel massacre. Only one Mamluk named "Amin Bey" (4) who was able to jump over the castle wall survived the massacre. After that, the soldiers rushed to attack the houses of the Mamluks, and finish off those who remained of them, and looted and looted their homes. Rather, the looting and looting extended to the neighboring houses, and these actions did not stop until Muhammad Ali and his senior men and children descended the next day, and the number of those killed in those events was estimated at about 1000 owned.

Muhammad Ali was subjected to many criticisms from Western historians for his treachery with the Mamluks in that massacre, (5) while some, such as Muhammad Farid, considered it one of Muhammad Ali’s good deeds by which he saved Egypt from the evil of the Mamluks. With Muhammad Ali rid of most of the Mamluks, the Mamluks who remained in Upper Egypt withdrew to Dongola, and thus Muhammad Ali had complete control of Egypt.

The Ottoman Wahhabi War

The inability of the Ottoman Empire, since the early nineteenth century, to quell the revolutions that took place in its face, so it sought help from its allies to quell them, and among these revolutions that afflicted the state: the Greek revolution and the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula. (6) The Wahhabi mission achieved success in Najd, It was embraced by the Prince of Diriyah, Muhammad bin Saud bin Muhammad Al Muqrin, and it bypassed it to some parts of the Hijaz, Yemen, Asir, and the outskirts of Iraq and the Levant. It is important in the development of modern Islamic thought, as it is the first Salafi reform movement in the modern era, and it is also the first of the reformist movements that appeared in the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire felt the danger of that movement, and realized that its success would lead to the separation of the Hijaz and its exit from its hand, and thus the exit of the Two Holy Mosques, which would make it lose the leadership it enjoyed in the Islamic world by virtue of its supervision of these two sanctuaries, at a time when it had begun to seek to overcome the factors Internal weakness, and the strengthening of links between it and the parts of the Islamic world, as it is the center of the Islamic caliphate. All these factors constituted an incentive for the Ottoman state to stand in the face of the Wahhabi call and confront it to limit its spread. At first, it tried through the governors of Baghdad and Damascus, but it failed, and its choice fell on Muhammad Ali Pasha, so this prepared a military campaign led by his son Ahmed Toson entered Yanbu and Badr, but it She was defeated in the Battle of Wadi Al-Safra. The Wahhabis did not invest their victory in Al-Safra, and they remained in their strongholds, which gave Toson the opportunity to reorganize the ranks of his forces, as he requested supplies from Cairo, and began to lure the striking tribes between Yanbu and Medina with money and gifts, and he succeeded in this policy that paved the way for him to regain Medina, Mecca and Taif But the Wahhabis returned and won in Turbah and Hanakia, and they cut off the transportation routes between Mecca and Medina, and diseases spread among the Egyptian army, and the soldiers fell ill as a result of severe heat and lack of supplies and water. His father asks for help.

Muhammad Ali Pasha decided to march himself to the Hijaz to continue the fighting and eliminate the Wahhabis, and to extend Egypt’s influence in the Arabian Peninsula. He left Egypt, on August 26, 1812 AD, corresponding to Sha’ban 17 in 1227 AH, at the head of another army and lodged in Jeddah and then left for Mecca He attacked the strongholds of the Wahhabis, but he failed to expand his reach, so he evacuated Al-Qunfudah after he had entered it, and his son Toson was defeated in Turbah again. It was natural, after these repeated defeats and the continuous skirmishes of the Wahhabis to the units of the Egyptian army, that Muhammad Ali Pasha asked for supplies from Egypt. Emirate his son Abdullah. It seems that this emir did not have military capabilities that would enable him to ward off the Egyptian danger, which led to the collapse of the Wahhabi front. This incident benefited Muhammad Ali Pasha, who was able to defeat a Wahhabi army in Basel, and took control of the soil and entered the port of Qunfudah, while Toson took control of The northern part of Najd.

At this stage in the development of the Wahhabi problem, Muhammad Ali Pasha was forced to leave the Arabian Peninsula and return to Egypt to eliminate a rebellion that targeted his rule. After eliminating this movement, he resumed his war against the Wahhabis, so he sent another military campaign to the peninsula led by his son Ibrahim Pasha on 5 September 1816, corresponding to Shawwal 12, 1231 AH. Ibrahim Pasha, after fierce clashes with the Wahhabis, managed to reach Diriyah and besieged it, so Abdullah bin Saud was forced to open the door to negotiations, and the two parties agreed to hand Diriyah to the Egyptian army, on the condition that it would not be exposed to the people, and that Abdullah bin Saud traveled to Astana to offer loyalty To the Sultan, and for the Wahhabis to return the Dari planet, and what remained in their possession of antiques and jewelry that they took when they took over Medina. Ibrahim Pasha, after receiving Diriyah, demolished it. Thus, the Wahhabi war waged by the Egyptian army in the Arabian Peninsula ended, and Ibrahim Pasha returned to Egypt.

annex Sudan

The next campaign in Muhammad Ali's campaigns was the campaign he stripped to annex Sudan. Muhammad Ali’s undeclared goals of that campaign were to seek gold and diamonds, which people said are found in the parts of Sudan, especially Sennar, and to take Sudanese soldiers into the Egyptian regular army for their patience, courage and obedience, and to get rid of the rest of the irregular soldiers in the Egyptian army that It was causing trouble and a source of trouble for Muhammad Ali. As for the apparent reason for that campaign, it was the elimination of the remaining Mamluks who fled to Dongola.

The campaign, consisting of 4,000 soldiers in Nile boats, was launched on July 20, 1820, and was led by Ismail Pasha, the third son of Muhammad Ali. The campaign moved south, descending from Aswan to Wadi Halfa to Dongola, where it confronted the Mamluks and defeated them without much resistance. On November 4 of the same year, she confronted a group of Sudanese with crude weapons and defeated them at Corti. Then the Egyptian army continued to advance, and seized Berber on March 10, 1821, then Shendi, whose king, Nimr, announced his surrender in front of the advancing army.

Subsequently, Ismail Pasha directed his brother-in-law, Muhammad Bey Al-Daftardar, in a campaign to annex Kordofan. In the month of April of 1821, the forces of Al-Daftardar clashed with the forces of Muhammad Al-Fadl, Sultan of Kordofan in Bara. Al-Daftardar won and entered the city of El-Obeid, thus annexing Kordofan to the lands under Egyptian authority. Ismail marched with the rest of his army to annex the Kingdom of Sennar, so he seized the city of Wad Madani, and its king, King "Badi", offered his loyalty to the Egyptian army, and the Egyptians entered Sennar on June 12, 1821.

While the army was in Sennar, the disease spread among the soldiers, so Ismail was forced to request extensions from his father, so he provided him with forces led by his older brother Ibrahim Pasha, and they agreed to divide the work between them. Upper Nile. Ismail continued his march in the Blue Nile region until he reached Fazoghli in January of 1822. As for Ibrahim, illness forced him to return to Egypt.

Revolutions began to appear in various regions due to the continuous increase in taxes imposed by the Egyptians on the Sudanese, and as soon as Ismail Pasha arrived in Shendi in December of 1822, the King ordered Nimr to appear before him and began to reprimand and accuse him of stirring up unrest, then punished him by ordering him to pay a fine Fatal and a thousand slaves, so King Nimr showed compliance and days did not pass until he invited Ismail Pasha and his senior men to a feast, and after he burdened them with food and drink, he ordered a fire to be set in the place, and ordered his soldiers to shoot everyone who tried to escape with arrows and arrows, Ismail and his men died by suffocation and burning. When Muhammad Bey Al-Daftardar reached the news, he crawled to Shendi and carried on killing and captivity, and the king pursued Nimr, but he did not catch him as he fled to the borders of Abyssinia. After that, the situation in Sudan stabilized and the rule of Muhammad Ali was condemned.

Morea war

The country of Greece, until the early nineteenth century, was part of the Ottoman Empire, and during this period the signs of revolution against the Ottoman rule appeared in the country, due to four factors: the development of Greek society due to the economic prosperity that resulted from the Napoleonic wars, and the spread of European ideas, especially the ideas of the French Revolution Mechanized reactions against Ottoman centralism, and direct European intervention. The revolutionary movements and the secret and overt political associations began to pose a threat to the unity of the Ottoman Empire starting in 1820, and they took centers in Russia and Austria to be in close contact with European governments on the one hand, and to escape the persecution of the Ottoman rulers on the other. Some of these associations, such as the "Brotherhood Assembly" (Greek: Φιλική Εταιρεία or Εταιρεία των Φιλικών; Naqqrah: Vilki Etria), advocated the revival of the Byzantine Empire, the capture of the capital, Astana, and the expulsion of Muslims from Europe and into Asia. The revolution in the province of Almora in particular took a religious character, raising the slogan: faith, freedom and homeland. The Ottoman Empire faced great difficulties in fighting the revolutionaries, due to the large number of islands and the rugged roads for which Greece was famous, due to the Greeks' knowledge of how to take advantage of them strategically against the Ottoman forces. When the danger of revolt increased, Sultan Mahmud II asked Muhammad Ali Pasha to send his forces to Greece to subdue the revolutionaries.

Muhammad Ali Pasha accepted this role because the danger was directed against the general Muslim state, represented by the Ottoman Empire, and against Islam represented by the Ottoman Sultan, the Caliph of the Muslims. Pasha, to put down the revolt of the Morea, and succeeded in carrying out a landing on its shores after harsh naval collisions with the Greek fleet in 1825, and rescued the Ottoman army besieged in the port of Coron, as well as Navarin, the most important sites of the peninsula. Ibrahim Pasha was able to enter this breach, and also conquered Kalamata and Tripolsta in June of 1825, chased after the revolutionaries and captured their strongholds, except for the city of Nobili, the capital of the revolutionary government, and prepared to eliminate the last rebel strongholds in Hydra, Asbesta, the port of Nobili and Misolonghi. Soon the latter fell into the hands of the Egyptian army and was the last major stronghold of the revolutionaries.

As a result of the victory of the Egyptian army, the Greeks stirred up European public opinion to save the revolution. A group of poets and writers rose up to raise public opinion in Europe with their writings, urging European countries to intervene in favor of the revolution. Indeed, Britain invited Russia to consult, in order to reach an understanding on the future of Greece, and these negotiations culminated in the signing of the Saint Petersburg Protocol, which France joined after a short period, and the three countries agreed to urge the Sublime Porte to conclude an armistice with the Greeks, and grant them a measure of autonomy within the framework of Nominal dependency on the Ottoman Sultan. But the fall of Misolonghi turned things upside down, so European countries, led by Russia, turned to violence in support of the revolutionaries, sending their ships to the waters of Greece to impose its demands by force, preventing Ottoman and Egyptian ships from reaching the shores of this country, and sending supplies to the Ottoman and Egyptian armies. The Allied fleets besieged the Ottoman and Egyptian fleets in the port of Navarre and struck them, without warning, and completely destroyed them on October 20, 1827 AD, corresponding to Rabi’ al-Awwal 29, 1243 AH.

At this point in the Greek problem, the Ottoman and Egyptian views were in agreement on the general policy, but after the intervention of the European countries and their naval victory in Navarre, the two sides' views differed. Muhammad Ali Pasha saw that there was no point in continuing the fight, after he lost his fleet and cut off his maritime communications with his armies in Greece, and that wisdom requires separating Egyptian policy from the Ottoman policy, and he hastened his decision to withdraw quickly by sending France a military force that landed in Al-Moura, and receiving a memorandum from European countries insisting on separating Greece and targeting Egypt, if he continued to follow the Ottoman policy. Therefore, Muhammad Ali preferred to isolate Egypt from the Greek problem, leaving it to the Sultan. On September 7, 1828 AD, corresponding to Safar 26, 1244 AH, the withdrawal of the Egyptian soldiers from Al-Moura began on board what remained of the ships, and only one thousand and two hundred soldiers remained in Greece to preserve some sites until the Ottoman soldiers received them, but the French forces carried out this task. instead of the Ottoman forces.

The campaign against the Levant

Muhammad Ali Pasha came out of the Greek war without winning new conquests, and he did not achieve any benefit from participating in them, while the war with the Wahhabis ended with the extension of his influence on the Arabian Peninsula, and allowed him to enter Sudan, including the complementary part of the Egyptian lands. As for the work he did After that, his theater was Bilad al-Sham. Muhammad Ali aspired from all those aids and services he provided to the Ottoman state that the Sultan would grant him a mandate from the major states, but the Sultan was satisfied that Muhammad Ali cut off the island of Crete in appreciation of his services and compensation for some of what he lost in the Greek war, but this compensation was of no value, as It was not easy for Egypt to rule this island and to benefit from it because its people were famous for their disobedience and rebellion, and he decided to include the Levant to Egypt, driven by two factors: political and economic.

As for the political factor, it is the Levant as a barrier to protect Egypt from future Ottoman strikes on the one hand, and the establishment of an Arab state, or the establishment of a strong Islamic sultanate, on the other hand, and extending his influence over this country will enable him to recruit an army from its residents, thus increasing the number of his army members . As for the economic factor, he wanted to exploit the resources of the Levant, such as wood, coal, copper and iron, which Egypt lacked, in addition to its economic importance due to its geographical location and its connection with Anatolia, and its commercial relations with Central Asia, where trade caravans pass, and because of its location on the pilgrimage route to the Sacred House. .

It is likely that Muhammad Ali Pasha had aspired to annex the Levant since 1810, and hoped to reach its rule with the approval of the Sultan. Fighting, Sultan Muhammad Ali promised that he would take over it, since the war in the peninsula was disturbing his sleep, and he was looking forward to eliminating the Wahhabis quickly, fearing that their call would lead to division among Muslims. And when the war ended, the Sultan returned and broke his promise, as he felt that the presence of Muhammad Ali in the Levant was a danger to the entity of the Sultanate itself. Muhammad Ali paved the way for the implementation of his plan, by consolidating his relations with the two most powerful people in the region, namely: Abdullah Pasha, the governor of Acre, and Bashir II al-Shihabi, the Emir of Lebanon, both of whom owe Muhammad Ali to remain in his position. As for Abdullah Pasha, Muhammad Ali had helped him with the Sultan, following his dispute with the governor of Damascus in 1821. The Sultan imposed on him and approved him for the mandate of Acre, just as Muhammad Ali had provided him with money in his battle against the governor of Damascus.

As for Prince Bashir, he had supported Abdullah Pasha in that dispute, and he marched at the head of his army and fought and defeated the governor of Damascus. As soon as the Ottoman Empire saw the defeat of the governor of Damascus, he stripped the Sublime Porte with a strong military campaign that forced Prince Bashir to leave the country and travel to Egypt, where Muhammad Ali welcomed him, and they agreed to cooperate together. Since Muhammad Ali was on good terms with the Sultan, he was able to appease him and soften his position on Prince Bashir, and to return him to his emirate. A close relationship and strong friendship developed between the Emir and Muhammad Ali after they were united by a similar ambition, which is to expand the territory of each of them, and they pledged to walk together in a common policy. Muhammad Ali’s goals began to crystallize in 1825 when the French General “Boyer” declared that he would, after the end of the Morea war, lay his hand on the Levant, including the state of Acre, and would not stand with his army except on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and in the countries of Yemen and the central part of the Arabian Peninsula. These ideas are consistent with what was rumored, quoting from him and his son Ibrahim Pasha, that he would be the defender of the rights of the Arab peoples living under Ottoman rule the life of a miserable and weak follower, and control of the Levant, starting in 1829, became a necessary matter in his strategic policy.

And a British consul, named Parker, saw in 1832 that Muhammad Ali's army was engaged in the project of liberating the Arab peoples and gathering them into an Arab empire, and that its direct goal was to consolidate its power in Shaleq Acre and Damascus, and then expand to Aleppo and Baghdad through all the Arab states. Most historians link the request of Muhammad Ali Pasha from the Sultan in 1813, to take over the Levant, in order to eliminate the Wahhabis in the Hijaz, and his campaign in 1831. If this was true, the governor of Egypt would have taken the opportunity of his success in subjugating the Wahhabis to march towards Bilad al-Sham to annex it, especially that the Sublime Porte refused him at the time two requests: the first of which was to return Yusuf Kang to the mandate of al-Sham, and to expel Suleiman Pasha from it, and the second of which was to grant him this mandate. But it is clear that Muhammad Ali considered his mission to be to save the Ottoman Empire itself from the danger of ruin, to bring about radical changes, and to breathe new life into it. He was a believer in the unity of the Islamic world under the leadership of the Sultan, on condition that he hurry to protect the Muslims after the Navarin disaster, warning of the necessity of renewing the Sultanate on the basis of the Islamic religion. Whether Muhammad Ali dreamed of an Arab state separate from the Ottoman Empire and built on its ruins, or his message required the establishment of a strong Islamic sultanate, there is no doubt that the interference of European countries in this issue prevented him from any understanding with the Sublime Porte, on the one hand, and prevented him from achieving goals, on the other hand.

The wars of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the Levant are considered defensive and offensive wars at the same time. As for them being defensive wars, it is because Muhammad Ali Pasha knew that the Ottoman Empire spared no effort in seeking to regain its position in Egypt, and that Sultan Mahmud II was not purely intent, either as wars offensive because his goal was also expansion. It seems that Muhammad Ali Pasha made the decision to confront the Sublime Porte on several grounds. He lost in his army strength, and found that the Ottoman Empire was in a state of decline and disintegration, and that it was the focus of attention and conspiracies of European countries. Thus, the governor of Egypt fell captive of two factors: a prisoner himself, as he saw that the Sublime Porte wronged him when he prevented him from the mandate of the Levant, despite his performance of great services to the Sultanate, and captive his belief that he reformed the rulers of the Levant.

State building

Muhammad Ali tended to build a modern state on the European model in Egypt, and in his economic and scientific projects he used European experts, especially the French Saint-Simonians who spent a few years in Egypt in the 1830s and were calling for the establishment of a model society on the basis of industry based on modern science. . The most important pillars of his modern state was his modern educational and cultural policy, as he believed that he would not be able to establish a military force in the advanced European style, provide it with all modern technologies, and establish an effective administration and a prosperous economy that supports and protects it, except by finding modern education to replace traditional education.

militarily

Muhammad Ali realized that to achieve his expansionist goals, it was necessary for him to establish a modern regular military force, which would serve as the tool that would achieve those goals for him. Before and at the beginning of the era of Muhammad Ali, the army was composed of irregular divisions that tended to riot and chaos, mostly Kurds, Albanians and Circassians, in addition to these forces groups of Arabs who were used by the governors as mercenaries, and their actions did not exceed the methods of guerrilla warfare and hit and run. Muhammad Ali saw that this army does not depend on him, so he made an effort to create an army that would compete with foreign armies in fighting them, and decided to replace his irregular soldiers with an army based on the modern military system.

Army

Muhammad Ali’s first attempt to establish a regular army was in 1815, when he returned from the Wahhabi war, where he decided to train a number of Albanian Arna’ut soldiers from his son Ismail’s division on modern military systems, in a place he designated for that in Bulaq. These soldiers did not like that, because of their nature that tends to riot and chaos, so they revolted against Muhammad Ali and attacked his palace, and a fight took place between them and the guard, during which Muhammad Ali’s guard was able to control the situation, but Muhammad Ali realized that he could not rely on such soldiers, so he postponed Implementation of the idea.

Muhammad Ali resorted again to the trick. In 1820, Muhammad Ali established a military school in Aswan, and attached a thousand of his mamluks and the Mamluks of his senior associates, to be trained in modern military systems by a French officer named Joseph Seif who came to Egypt and offered his services to Muhammad Ali. After three years of training, the experience succeeded and that group graduated to be the nucleus with which the Egyptian regular army began.

After that, Muhammad Ali had a problem, that by experience it was proved that the Turkish, Kurdish, Albanian and Circassian soldiers were no longer fit to be the mainstay of his army because they did not accept the inclusion in a regular army, so he argued that he needed them to secure the frontiers, and he sent them to Damietta and Rashid to evacuate Cairo, and to reassure them he sent some with them His sons as their leaders, then he sent to his son Ismail to supply him with twenty thousand Sudanese to be trained for soldiers in camps he prepared for them in Bani Uday, at the hands of the new officers. However, the experiment failed due to the outbreak of diseases among the Sudanese soldiers, due to the different climate, so he had no choice but to rely on the Egyptians. The peasants initially resisted their conscription, because they saw no interest in it, and considered it an act of forced labour. But with the passage of time, the peasants responded to the new situation. Under the banner of the army, they felt dignity and a secure life, in which they did not suffer in agriculture. By June of 1824, Muhammad Ali had six battalions of regular soldiers, numbering more than 25,000, and ordered them to be moved to Cairo.

Thus, Egypt became a regular army, which began to increase steadily until it reached 169,000 officers and soldiers in a census conducted in 1833, and to 236,000 in a census conducted in 1839. Muhammad Ali also established a bureau known as the Diwan of Jihadism to organize the affairs of the army, secure its needs for ammunition, supplies, and medicines, and organize salaries. It was the first participation of this army in the Mora War, which showed what the Egyptian military had reached, which made it important among the contemporary military forces, and Ibrahim Pasha relied on him in his campaign on the Levant and Anatolia.

fleet

When Muhammad Ali embarked on the Wahhabi war, there was a need to build ships to transport soldiers across the Red Sea, so he proceeded to build them in the Bulaq Arsenal, and then transported the pieces on camels to Suez to be assembled there. The role of this fleet was initially limited to transporting supplies and supplies throughout campaign years. After he established the Egyptian regular army, he found it necessary to establish a strong war fleet to help him extend his influence.

Muhammad Ali initially relied on purchasing ships from Europe, and also contracted to build other ships in European ports. But after the destruction of this fleet in the Battle of Navarrein in front of the more advanced fleets of England, France and Russia, Muhammad Ali did not despair and in 1829 ordered the construction of the "Alexandria Arsenal", the management of which was entrusted to a French engineer named Srezi. The arsenal carried out the task of rebuilding the fleet on modern European patterns. The number of warships that were made in that arsenal until 1837 reached 28 warships, including 10 large ships, each armed with a hundred cannons, so Egypt dispensed with buying ships from abroad. Because of Muhammad Ali's interest in this arsenal, he was constantly visiting it, urging workers to work, and attending the inauguration ceremonies of new ships.

Military Education

Muhammad Ali expanded military education in Egypt. After he ordered the construction of the Officers School in Aswan and the Soldiers School in Bani Uday, he ordered the establishment of other schools in Farshout, Al-Nakhilah and Gerga. He also established a military preparatory school in Qasr al-Aini to prepare students to enter military schools, in which about 500 students study, but then it was transferred to Abu Zaabal, where it accommodated about 1200 students.

After that, Muhammad Ali added a school for the yard in Khanaqah, which was transferred to Damietta in 1834, then to Abu Zaabal in 1841, and a school for the masons in Giza in 1831, and another for artillery in Tora in 1831 as well. He also established a war staff school on October 15, 1825 near Al-Khanqah, and a military music school. He also established a camp for the training of the fleet's soldiers on naval works in Ras El-Tin. To prepare the naval officers, Muhammad Ali established a practical naval school on the deck of one of the warships, and when its scope expanded, it was divided into two divisions, each one on a ship.

Military industries

Muhammad Ali saw that in order to ensure independence, and not to be at the mercy of foreign countries, he should establish arms factories in Egypt. The first of this thinking was the Arms and Cannon Factory in the castle, which he founded in 1827, and was producing between 600 and 650 guns, and between 3 and 4 guns per month. He also produced knights' swords, spears, swords, bridles, and saddles. In 1831, Muhammad Ali established another factory for guns in the Marsod Basin, which produced 900 rifles per month, and then a third factory in the suburbs of Cairo, and the three factories manufactured 36,000 rifles in a year, excluding drums and swords.

Educational

Muhammad Ali realized that in order for his country to rise, he must establish an educational system, which would be the mainstay on which he relied to provide the human competencies that run the bodies of his modern state and its powerful army. Therefore, Muhammad Ali began sending a group of Al-Azhar students to Europe to study in several fields, to be the nucleus for the start of that scientific renaissance. He also established primary and higher schools, to prepare successive generations of educated people on whom his modern state depends.

Scientific missions

In 1813, Muhammad Ali sent the first educational missions to Europe, and its destination was Italy, where he sent a number of students to Livorno, Milan, Florence and Rome to study military sciences, shipbuilding methods, engineering and printing, then followed them with missions to France and England. The first missions were small, as a total of 28 students were sent. Despite this, Othman Noureddine, who became the Admiral of the Egyptian fleet, and Nicholas Mesabki, who established the Bulaq Press by order of Muhammad Ali in 1821, were among them.

The golden age of these expeditions, however, was with the 1826 expedition of 44 students to study military and administrative sciences, medicine, agriculture, natural history, metallurgy, chemistry, hydraulics, metal casting, weapons making, printing, architecture, and translation. This campaign was followed by a second campaign in 1828 to France, a third in 1829 to France, England and Austria, and a fourth specialized in medical sciences only in 1832. The year 1844 witnessed the largest of those scientific missions sent to France, and it was known as the “Angels Mission” because it included 83 students. Among them are two of Muhammad Ali's sons and two of his grandchildren. The total number of these scholarships was nine, which included 319 students, and the total amount spent on them was 303,360 pounds. Muhammad Ali also directed three campaigns led by al-Bakbashi Salim al-Qubtan in 1839, 1840, and 1841 to explore the sources of the Nile. These campaigns had great credit for exploring those areas and knowing their conditions.

High schools

He established many colleges and were called at the time "high schools". He started them in 1816, with a school of engineering in the castle, to graduate engineers who undertake construction works. In 1827, he established a medical school in Abu Zaabal on the advice of Clot Bey to meet the army’s needs of doctors, and with time these doctors served the common people, then a school for pharmacy and another for midwives (delivery) was attached to it in 1829. Then the Engineer Khanna School was established in Bulaq for military engineering The School of Minerals in Old Egypt in 1834, the Al-Alsun School in Azbakeya in 1836, the Agriculture School in Nabarouh in 1837, the Accounting School in Sayeda Zeinab in 1837, the Veterinary School in Rashid and the School of Arts and Crafts in 1839, the total number of high school students was about 4,500 students.

Elementary schools

When the higher schools advanced and expanded in scope, Muhammad Ali decided to establish the “Diwan al-Madras” in 1837, and entrusted its administration to some members of the missions returning to Egypt, to organize education in schools. This bureau decided to expand the base of education in Egypt, so it established a regulation for the dissemination of primary education, which stipulated the need to establish 50 primary schools, which Muhammad Ali agreed to, and ordered their establishment to be 4 of them in Cairo and one in Alexandria, each with 200 students, and the rest distributed among various The regions have 100 students each.

Economically

In order for Muhammad Ali to achieve political independence, he needed to develop the country's wealth and strengthen its financial position, so he revitalized the economic aspects of Egypt, and used tens of thousands of Egyptian workers who worked in those areas with forced labor to achieve this.

Industry

Muhammad Ali built an industrial base for Egypt, and his motives to do so were primarily to provide for the needs of the army, so he established factories for spinning and weaving, a cloth factory in Bulaq, a factory for ropes necessary for war and commercial ships, a factory for silk fabrics, another for wool, a factory for weaving linen, a fez factory in Fouh, an iron casting factory in Bulaq and a panel factory. Copper lining the ships, sugar factories, indigo and soap factories, Bershid leather tanning, glass and china factory, wax factory and oil presses. The establishment of the naval arsenal also played a major role in the manufacture of merchant ships.

Farming

Muhammad Ali was interested in agriculture, so he took care of irrigation, built many canals, and built bridges and aqueducts. He also expanded the scope of agriculture, allocating about 3,000 acres to grow berries to be used in the production of natural silk, and olives for the production of oils, as well as planting trees to meet the needs of shipbuilding and construction works. In 1821, he introduced the cultivation of a new type of cotton suitable for the manufacture of clothing, after the common type was only suitable for use in upholstery.

Trading

After Egypt's agricultural yields increased, especially cotton, the scope of Egypt's foreign trade expanded. The establishment of the merchant fleet, repairing the port of Alexandria, paving the Suez-Cairo road and securing it for the conduct of convoys, also played a role in restoring the movement of trade between India and Europe through Egypt.

Administrative

Muhammad Ali ruled Egypt autocratic with a tendency to consult some close people before concluding matters, but he differed from the tyrannical rule of the Mamluks in that he was subject to an administrative system rather than the chaos that prevailed in the Mamluk era. Muhammad Ali established a government council known as the "High Court", located in the citadel, headed by the Deputy Governor Muhammad Ali, and under the authority of this Diwan are offices dealing with war and naval affairs, trade, foreign affairs, schools, buildings, and works. He also established an advisory council that includes senior statesmen and a number of dignitaries and scholars, which meets every year and is concerned with discussing issues of administration, education and public works. In 1837, Muhammad Ali put in place a basic law known as the “Al-Siyasatnah” law, defining the powers of each government bureau.

Administrative division

Muhammad Ali divided Egypt into seven districts, four in Lower Egypt, the first of which included Beheira, Qalyubia, Giza, the second Menoufia, the Gharbia, the third Dakahlia and the fourth al-Sharqiya, and one in Middle Egypt that included Beni Suef, Fayoum and Minya, and two in Upper Egypt, the first from southern Minya to northern Qena, and the second from Qena to Wadi Halfa, in addition to five governorates: Cairo, Alexandria, Rashid, Damietta and Suez.

Financial system

Muhammad Ali abolished the “obligation” system, which allowed some so-called obligated individuals to pay tax shares on some villages, and authorize them to collect them on their own, which was burdensome to farmers because they usually charged the money for more than what they paid. However, he replaced this system with a "monopoly" system that made Muhammad Ali the sole owner of the lands of the Egyptian country, and thus abolished the individual ownership of the lands. Muhammad Ali also exhausted the people with the taxes that he imposed on the people, whenever he needed to finance one of his campaigns or projects without a specific system. These taxes included taxes imposed on land, crops, individuals and livestock. Just as Muhammad Ali monopolized land and agriculture, he also monopolized industry and commerce, which made him the sole owner of Egypt’s lands, the sole trader of its products, and the sole manufacturer of its products.

urban

Muhammad Ali was interested in some urban aspects that serve his emerging state. He founded cities such as Khartoum and Kassala, and built fortresses to defend the frontiers and the country's capital. He also built a lighthouse to guide ships in Ras al-Tin in Alexandria. He was also concerned with building palaces and the role of the government, and established a bookcase to store government documents, and a house for antiquities after issuing an order preventing the exit of antiquities from Egypt.

socially

During the era of Muhammad Ali, society descended into several social classes, the highest of which was the ruling class, which included the family of Muhammad Ali, his senior men and state employees from the educated in schools and those on scholarships abroad, then the class of scholars and notables, farmers, factory workers, Arabs and slaves from the Greeks who were captured in the Mora war, the Circassian slaves, the Abyssinians and the Sudanese who They served in the homes of the wealthy. The population increased during the era of Muhammad Ali from 2,514,400 people in 1823, to 4,476,440 people in 1845. Muhammad Ali Pasha was tolerant and broad-minded in religious matters (11) so he brought Christians and Muslims to him, and he used them in his rule and entered them in his entourage.

The end of Muhammad Ali Pasha

his last years

After the withdrawal of the Egyptian soldiers from the Levant and the separation of the latter from Egypt and its return to the Ottoman Empire with great international support, and after it became clear that France was not ready to fight a war for Egypt or its ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha fell into a state of paranoia, and began to become confused little by little, and suffering It is difficult to remember, and it is not certain whether this was the result of his mental effort during the Levant war, or a natural condition as a result of his old age, or the effect of silver nitrate, which his doctors advised him to take a long time ago to treat himself from dysentery.

What made Muhammad Ali Pasha’s condition worse were the misfortunes that befell him personally in his late life. In 1844, the Chief of the Financial Court, Sherif Pasha, found that the Egyptian state’s debts amounted to 80 million francs, and that the tax arrears amounted to 14,081,500 piasters of the total tax estimated at about 75,227,500 piasters. The Pasha was afraid of presenting the matter to Muhammad Ali because it might have a severe impact on him, so he presented the matter to Ibrahim Pasha, who suggested that the most beloved of his sisters to his father transmit the news, but this did not have the desired effect, as Muhammad Ali’s anger exceeded what everyone expected. And he did not calm his mind and calm his mind until after six days had passed.

A year after this incident, Ibrahim Pasha fell ill with tuberculosis, and his joint disease worsened, and he started spitting blood when coughing, which increased Muhammad Ali's worries and sadness, so he sent his son to Italy for treatment, although he realized in his heart that his son was among the dead, This is evident from what he said to the Sultan when he visited Constantinople in 1846, where he expressed his fear of losing his achievements due to the inability of his grandchildren to take responsibility for the country and the people. He said: “I have a sick old man, and Abbas is lazy and lazy. To keep it?” After that, Muhammad Ali returned to Egypt and remained its ruler until his old age intensified, and by 1848 he had contracted dementia and his accession to the throne of the state became impossible, so his sons removed him and Ibrahim Pasha took over the administration of the state.

His death

Ibrahim Pasha ruled Egypt for only 6 months, before he fell ill and passed away on November 10, 1848. He was succeeded by his nephew Toson, Abbas Helmy. By this time, Muhammad Ali Pasha was also suffering from illness, and he had reached such a degree of dementia that he could not comprehend the news of the death of his son Ibrahim, so he was not informed of it. Muhammad Ali lived a few months after the death of his son, and died in Ras al-Tin Palace in Alexandria on August 2, 1849 AD, corresponding to Ramadan 13 in 1265 AH. The funeral of Muhammad Ali Pasha was moderate in attendance and ceremonies, largely due to the governor, Abbas Helmy, who had always differed in opinions and views with his grandfather and uncle Ibrahim, and he held him something of a grudge. British Consul John Murray, one of the people who participated in the funeral of Muhammad Ali to his final resting place, says:

...the attendance at the funeral was emaciated and wretched; Many consuls and ambassadors were not invited to participate, and neither shops nor government departments were closed.. In short, there is a general impression that Abbas Pasha is worthy of the blame. The funeral of this man is carried out in such a miserable manner, and he neglected the care of him most negligently.

...The attachment and veneration of all classes of Egyptian society to the name of Muhammad Ali is a funeral of greater significance and more honor than any other funeral offered by his successors. Old people who remembered talk about the chaos and injustice that plunged the country before his arrival; Young people compare his rule to that of his fickle and vacillating successor; All classes of people, Turks and Arabs, do not hesitate to say that the prosperous and civilized Egypt died with Muhammad Ali...Actually, sir, we cannot and no one can deny, that Muhammad Ali, in spite of all his faults, was a man of great stature. .

His legacy

The most prevalent theories among historians and in public circles are those that say that Muhammad Ali Pasha is the "father of modern Egypt", as he was the first ruler over it, and who was able to strip the Sublime Porte of its actual authority over the country, since the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. Although he failed to achieve complete separation of Egypt from the Ottoman Empire, he laid the foundations of the modern Egyptian state, which crystallized after his death. By building a large and powerful army to defend and expand his country, he established a central bureaucracy and an educational system that allowed for social mobility in Egyptian society, and a broad economic base based on agriculture and military industries. His efforts and actions consolidated the rule of his descendants over Egypt and Sudan for nearly 150 years, in which Egypt was a legally independent state under the Ottoman Empire, and then under British protection.

Another group of people believes that Muhammad Ali Pasha was not the builder of modern Egypt, but rather a foreign invader, like any other occupier of the land of Egypt, starting with the Persians in 525 BC. The arguments of the holders of this opinion are represented by several points, including that Muhammad Ali did not speak Arabic or make it the official language in his court, but rather replaced it with Turkish, and that he exploited Egypt’s wealth and human resources to achieve his own ends, not to achieve the interest of the country and its people, and that he burdened the Egyptians with taxes and forced labor. and forced conscription. One of the most prominent topics that make some reservations about the era of Muhammad Ali Pasha is the story of his intention to demolish the Great Pyramid and use its huge stones to build new arches at the head of the Nile Delta in the Shalakan area, which later became the archaeological arches, which he retracted after being persuaded by the French engineer Linan Du Balfon useless. In general, the aforementioned view is the least acceptable view of historians, especially Arabs.

Muhammad Ali Pasha married two women: the first was Amina Hanim, the daughter of Ali Pasha, famous as Masri, from the village of Nasrtli, with whom he had five sons, three sons and two daughters: Ibrahim Pasha, Ahmed Toson Pasha, Ismail Pasha, Tawhida Hanim, and Nazli Hanim. As for his second wife, Mah Duran Hanim, known as "Oqmish Qadin", he had no children.

uhammad Ali also had a number of female slave girls, and they were what his right hand owned according to Islamic law, such as female slaves or female slaves. As for his offspring, they are: Umm Nu’man, from which Nu’man Bey gave birth, Ain Hayat Qadin, from which Muhammad Saeed Pasha gave birth, Mumtaz Qadin, from whom he gave birth to Hussein Bey, Mahosh Qadin and Ali Siddiq Bey gave birth to her, Shaz Qadin slept from her, and Muhammad Abdul Halim gave birth to her, Ziba. Khadija Qadin, with whom he bore Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Saghir, Shams Safa Qadin, with whom he bore two daughters: Fatima Hanim and Ruqayya Hanim, and Shama Nur Qadin, from whom Zainab Hanim gave birth. In addition to Nayla Qadin, Kelfdan, and Qamar Qadeen, from whom he had no children.