Mehmed Ali Pasha and His Reforms
An Exploration of Ottoman Reforms in the Long Nineteenth Century- Part IV
This post is the latest installment in a series of articles I’ve been writing on the Ottoman reform era. Previously, I examined the question of “Ottoman decline” and explored the major reform efforts initiated in Istanbul under Selim III and Mahmud II, who sought to modernize the Ottoman Empire during the early 19th century. If you haven’t read these earlier pieces, I highly encourage you to do so.
This week, I will shift my perspective and focus on Egypt. This is important for two reasons. When we think of this period of Ottoman modernization, we usually concentrate on what was going on in Istanbul. However, while Sultan Selim III and Mahmud II were trying to get their reform efforts up and running in the capital, in Egypt, the governor Mehmed Ali Pasha was himself taking similar steps and making rapid progress in his drive to modernize the province, to the point that nowadays he is usually known as the “founder of modern Egypt.”
Integrating Mehmed Ali’s story into the broader narrative of Ottoman reform efforts is important for two reasons. First, it challenges the view that Egypt under Mehmed Ali Pasha was already a sovereign entity, separate from the Ottoman Empire. Instead, it highlights the importance of analyzing Egypt as a part of the wider Ottoman world. And secondly, this approach also allows us to gain a fuller understanding of how the Ottoman modernization process unfolded throughout the Empire and not just in the capital.
My analysis of Mehmed Ali Pasha will consist of two parts. In this post, I will introduce to you this rather remarkable historical figure and the changes that he brought about in Egypt. Next week, I’ll explore how Mehmed Ali Pasha eventually came to be known as the “founder of modern Egypt” and whether this is a historically accurate claim or not (spoiler alert: it is not).
Before we do that, however, let’s look at who Mehmed Ali Pasha was.
A Brief Biography
The early life of Mehmed Ali Pasha is relatively obscure. It is generally accepted that he was from Kavala, a region in modern-day Greece, and was born sometime around 1769–1770. Mehmed Ali started his career as a junior officer in the Ottoman army and was part of the Ottoman forces that fought alongside the British to kick the French out of Egypt in 1801. Once the turmoil of Napoleon’s invasion settled down, he won the power struggle that he fought against Hüsrev Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman troops that were sent to Egypt to fight against the French, and gained control of the province. As a result, Selim III (reluctantly) appointed him the governor of Egypt in 1805.
As he secured his position in Egypt, Mehmed Ali (he gained the title of “Pasha” once he was appointed governor) moved to tighten his grip on power, eliminating any possible dissent, usually through violent means. Once he was in full control of the province, he started implementing reforms, especially in the military sphere (which we will get to in a while), which led him to become powerful enough to successfully challenge Mahmud II’s forces in 1831 and 1839.
Initially, things were amicable enough between him and Mahmud II. As a dutiful governor of the Empire and the Sultan, Mehmed Ali Pasha helped Mahmud II crush the Wahhabi rebellion between 1811 and 1818, while also defeating the Greeks and taking Crete and Morea in 1826 during the Greek Revolution of 1821-1827.
As his influence grew, however, Mehmed Ali Pasha started to get more and more ambitious. In 1827, he asked the Sultan for the governorship of Damascus, in addition to Egypt. This was not pure greed but a calculated move on his part since Syria, especially the north of the province, had the source of timber that Egypt lacked and Mehmed Ali Pasha needed for his navy. When Mahmud II refused his request, the Pasha launched an invasion of Syria in 1831. His army, led by his son Ibrahim Pasha, decisively defeated the Sultan’s troops and went as far as the depths of Anatolia while also capturing the Ottoman grand vizier. In the end, Mahmud II had no choice but to grant him the governorship of Egypt, Hejaz, and Crete, as well as appoint his son, Ibrahim Pasha, as the governor of Syria.
In 1839, Mahmud II went against Mehmed Ali Pasha once more to subdue him but was defeated yet again (and died before he learned of the news). This time, however, European powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia) joined the conflict on the side of the Ottoman government. The Ottoman Empire was very vulnerable, at this point, with the sixteen-year-old Abdulmecid having just replaced Mahmud II. Fearing that the situation was about to spill out of control, the European powers issued an ultimatum to Mehmed Ali Pasha in 1840. Mehmed Ali believed that he had the backing of the French and refused to comply. As a result, a joint force of British, Austrian, and Ottoman forces went against and defeated Mehmed Ali’s armies and forced him back to Egypt. In the end, Mehmed Ali Pasha was stripped of his control of Syria (as well as the Hejaz) but was given the governorship of Egypt for life with hereditary succession in 1841 by a special decree granted by Sultan Abdulmecid. He died in 1849 and was succeeded by his son Ibrahim.
Mehmed Ali Pasha’s Reforms
The reform path that Mehmed Ali Pasha embarked on as governor had parallels with what Selim III and Mahmud II tried to achieve in Istanbul. Like them, the most important pillar of Mehmed Ali Pasha’s reforms in Egypt was establishing a modern army, based on European models. From the early 1820s onward, this was Mehmed Ali Pasha’s primary concern.
Mehmed Ali Pasha styled his new army on Selim III’s “New Troops.” Unlike the central Ottoman government, however, the Pasha was much quicker to grasp the need to adopt mass conscription to supply his new fighting force. The practice of conscription was hugely unpopular for the Egyptian peasants, and they did pretty much everything they could to avoid it, including abandoning their villages and maiming themselves. Once they were drafted, the conscripts went through rigorous training under European supervisors, whom Mehmed Ali recruited to Egypt. It was this discipline and efficiency that were instilled in them that had proved to be the decisive factor in Mehmed Ali Pasha’s defeat of the Ottoman troops in 1831 and 1839.1
The victories did not come cheap, however. The new army brought with it the need to find new sources of revenue. Even before establishing his modern fighting force, Mehmed Ali Pasha had already gone into a strong centralization drive to fill up his treasury, bringing the countryside under Cairo’s control, performing a cadastral survey, and replacing tax farming with a more direct form of taxation. He also set up a monopoly system that forced producers to sell to the government in Cairo at set prices. These efforts to consolidate power in the center also led to a great expansion of Mehmed Ali Pasha’s bureaucratic apparatus in Cairo.2
What turned out to be the financial game changer for Mehmed Ali was the introduction of long-fiber cotton for cultivation in 1821. This crop was marked for export and produced huge revenues for Mehmed Ali Pasha’s coffers and was used to finance his projects, including his new army but also large-scale public works and the establishment of several factories, which some earlier scholars took to be the beginnings of a “modern industry” in Egypt.
The founding of a modern fighting force also led to other needs. To supply his military with capable men, Mehmed Ali Pasha established engineering and medical schools, as well as hospitals. He also sent students abroad, especially France, to study. Meanwhile, he set up a printing press in Cairo and ordered translations of European works into Ottoman Turkish, the only language he knew (in fact, he was illiterate until he was in his late 40s). Niccolo Machiavelli was one of the authors whose works were translated and printed, although the Pasha did not seem to enjoy them too much.3
Founder of Modern Egypt?
All these reforms that Mehmed Ali Pasha had implemented—the new army, expanding bureaucracy, new schools, hospitals, and factories—led many historians to call Mehmed Ali Pasha the “founder of modern Egypt.” In fact, in popular parlance, he is still known this way, both in Egypt and abroad. He is portrayed as a proto-Egyptian who fought to free Egypt from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire and put Egyptians back on the path to modernity and nationhood, from which they were kept for almost 300 years.
Is that an apt claim, though? More recent scholarship, mine included, argues that it is not. In fact, Mehmed Ali Pasha was an Ottoman through and through and continued to operate within the Ottoman imperial and cultural milieu to the end of his life.
This is where I will pick up Mehmed Ali Pasha’s story next week. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
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Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army, and the Making of Modern Egypt, The American University in Cairo Press, 2002.
Carter Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A History, 1789-2007, Yale University Press, 2010.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, The Turks in Egypt and Their Cultural Legacy, The American University in Cairo Press, 2012.
It's good to see his career in context of the age and empire he was part of. Clearly shows that though he may have been at loggerheads with the Ottoman government at Istanbul, his actions and aims were, in the end, pretty similar to what the reformer Sultans wanted to achieve.
Fascinating!!! Thank you!