Muhammad Ali of Egypt
| Muhammad Ali | |
|---|---|
| Khedive | |
Portrait by Auguste Couder, 1840 | |
| Wāli of Egypt | |
| Reign | 17 May 1805 – 20 July 1848 |
| Predecessor | Hurshid Pasha |
| Successor | Ibrahim Pasha |
| Born | 4 March 1769 Ottoman Albania[1][2] |
| Died | 2 August 1849 (aged 80) Ras el-Tin Palace, Alexandria, Ottoman Egypt |
| Burial | Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo Citadel, Egypt |
| Spouse |
|
| Issue |
|
| Dynasty | Alawiyya |
| Father | Ibrahim Agha |
| Mother | Zaynab Hanim |
| Religion | Islam |
| Military career | |
| Battles / wars | See battles
|
Muhammad Ali[a] (4 March 1769 – 2 August 1849) was the Ottoman Albanian[5] viceroy and governor who became the de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, widely considered the founder of modern Egypt. At the height of his rule in 1840, he controlled Egypt, Sudan, Hejaz, the Levant, Crete and parts of Greece and transformed Cairo from a mere Ottoman provincial capital to the center of an expansive empire.[6][7][8]
Born in a village in Albania,[1][2] when he was young he moved with his family to Kavala in the Rumelia Eyalet, where his father, an Albanian tobacco and shipping merchant, served as an Ottoman commander of a small unit in the city. Ali was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from French occupation following Napoleon's withdrawal. He rose to power through a series of political maneuvers, and in 1805 he was named Wāli (governor) of Egypt and gained the rank of Pasha. As Wāli, Ali attempted to modernize Egypt by instituting dramatic reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres. He also initiated a violent purge of the Mamluks, consolidating his rule and permanently ending the Mamluk hold over Egypt.
Militarily, Ali recaptured the Arabian territories for the sultan, and conquered Sudan of his own accord. His attempt at suppressing the Greek rebellion failed decisively, however, following an intervention by the European powers at Navarino. In 1831, Ali waged war against the sultan, capturing Syria, crossing into Anatolia and directly threatening Constantinople, but the European powers forced him to retreat. After a failed Ottoman invasion of Syria in 1839, he launched another invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1840; he defeated the Ottomans again and opened the way towards a capture of Constantinople. Faced with another European intervention, he accepted a brokered peace in 1842 and withdrew from the Levant; in return, he and his descendants were granted hereditary rule over Egypt and Sudan. His dynasty would rule Egypt for over a century, until the revolution of 1952 when King Farouk was overthrown by the Free Officers Movement led by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, establishing the Republic of Egypt.
- ^ a b Fahmy, Khaled (2002). All The Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali,Hisarmy And The Making Of Modern Egypt. Cambridge Middle East studies. Vol. 8. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 9789774246968. p. 1:
"the Pasha then embarked upon a monolog that lasted for more than half an hour in which he told his British visitor a story about his childhood in Albania."I was born in a village in Albania and my father had ten children besides me, who are all dead; but, while living, not one of them ever contradicted me. Although I left my native mountains before I attained to manhood, the principal people in the place never took any step in the business of the commune, without previously inquiring what was my pleasure. I came to this country an obscure adventurer, and when I was yet a Bimbashi (captain), it happened one day that the commissary had to give each of the Bimbashis a tent. They were all my seniors, and naturally pretended to a preference over me; but the officer said, — "Stand ye all by; this youth, Mohammed Ali, shall be served first" and I advanced step by step, as it pleased God to ordain; and now here I am" — (rising a little on his seat, [Barker comments] and looking out of the window which was at his elbow, and commanded a view of the Lake Mareotis [to the south of Alexandria]) — "and now here I am. I never had a master," — (glancing his eye on the roll containing the Imperial firman)."
- ^ a b Mortimer-Murphy, Kieran. French and British Policy and Culture in Egypt 1798-1841: The Reign of Muhammad Ali and the Eastern Crisis (PDF) (PhD thesis). Flinders University. p. 95
"Muhammad Ali was born in Albania, one of his father’s eleven children."
- ^ "Mohammed Ali". Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. 49 (303): 65–82. January–June 1841 – via Google Books.
- ^ Khalid Fahmy (1998). All the Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali, his Army and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Özavcı, Hilmi Ozan (2021). Dangerous Gifts: Imperialism, Security, and Civil Wars in the Levant, 1798-1864. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-885296-4.
- p. 93:
In the meanwhile, the Albanian commander Mehmed Ali came to shine amid the limelight of politics and became immensely popular among the inhabitants. As his biographer tells us, Mehmed Ali was a man who had mastered 'the art of staging spectacles and of influencing audiences'.
- pp. 97–98:
The French consul believed that '[the] Albanian has more character and would probably be less sensitive to the advice and the means of seduction of our enemies'.
- p. 93:
- ^ FAHMY, KHALED. "The era of Muhammad Ali Pasha,1805-1848" (PDF). psi427.cankaya.edu.tr.
- ^ Abir, M. (1977). "Modernisation, Reaction and Muhammad Ali's 'Empire'". Middle Eastern Studies. 13 (3): 295–313. doi:10.1080/00263207708700354. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4282660.
- ^ Ibrahim, Hassan (1998), Daly, M. W. (ed.), "The Egyptian empire, 1805–1885", The Cambridge History of Egypt: Volume 2: Modern Egypt, from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century, The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 198–216, ISBN 978-0-521-47211-1, retrieved 14 May 2025
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