Muhammed Ali Pasha
Muhammad Ali Pasha al–Mas'ud Ibn Ibrahim Agha Al-qoli (Ottoman Turkish: qoli Muhammad Ali Pasha; modern Turkish: Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Paşa; Albanian: Mehmet Ali Pasha), nicknamed al-Aziz or Aziz of Egypt, (March 4, 1769-August 2, 1849) was the founder of the Alawite dynasty and Ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848 and is commonly described as the "founder of modern Egypt", a saying that he the first one promoted it and continued after it in an orderly and striking manner. He was able to ascend the throne of Egypt in 1805 after the country's notables sold him to be its governor after the people revolted against his predecessor Khurshid Pasha. His intelligence and exploitation of the circumstances around him enabled him to continue to rule Egypt for that period, breaking the Ottoman custom that had not left a governor over 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 submitted to him, then he fought proxy wars on behalf of the Ottoman state on the Arabian Peninsula against the Wahhabis and the Greek revolutionaries rebelling against the Ottoman rule in the Morea and also expanded his State South by annexing Sudan. After that, he turned to attack the Ottoman Empire, where he fought its armies in the Levant and Anatolia, and almost overthrew the Ottoman Empire, had it not been for the conflict with the interests of the Western countries that stopped Muhammad Ali and forced him to cede most of the territories he annexed.
During the reign of Muhammad Ali, he was able to advance Egypt militarily, educationally, industrially, agriculturally, and commercially, which made Egypt a weighty state in that period, but its state did not continue due to the weakness of his successors and their excessive gains he achieved gradually until his State fell on June 18, 1953, with the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the Republic in Egypt.
Growing up and coming to Egypt
He was born in the city of qula in the province of Macedonia in northern Greece in 1769, to an Albanian family. His father "Ibrahim Agha" was the head of the guard in charge of the road guard in his country, and it was said that his father was a tobacco merchant. His father had seventeen sons, none of whom survived except him, and his father died from him when he was young, and then his mother did not die soon, so he became an orphan of the parents at the age of fourteen, Sponsored by his uncle "tusun", who also died, Sponsored by the governor of qula and his father's friend "shorbji Ismail", who included him in the and tusun and Ishmael, from females, bore him two daughters. 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 had a strength of three hundred soldiers, and the head of the battalion was the son of the governor of qula, whose battalion had barely reached the port of Abu Qir in Egypt in the spring of 1801 until he decided to return to his country and became the battalion commander. According to many of his contemporaries, he was fluent only in Albanian, although he was able to speak Turkish.
After the failure of the French campaign on Egypt, and its withdrawal in 1801, under the pressure of the English attack on the Egyptian loopholes, 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 were divided into two teams, one on the side of the Ottoman forces returning to Egypt under the command of Ibrahim Bey al-Kabir and the other on the side of the English under the command of Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi. It was not long before the English withdrew from Egypt according to the Treaty of Amiens. This led to a period of chaos as a result of the struggle between the Ottomans, who wanted to have actual and no-form power 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 negative for their inherent right. This conflict included a series of conspiracies and assassinations in the ranks of both sides, which killed more than one of the Ottoman governors. During this period of chaos, Muhammad Ali used his Albanian forces to fall between the two parties and find a place for him on the scene of events, Muhammad Ali also showed courtship to the leading Egyptian men and their scholars, sitting and praying behind them, and showing kindness and care for the troubles and sufferings of the Egyptian people, which also won him the affection of the Egyptians. In March 1804, a new Ottoman Wali named "Ahmed Khurshid Pasha" was appointed, who sensed the danger of Muhammad Ali and his Albanian band, who was able to take advantage of the current events and the Ottoman-Mamluk conflict, so he was able to evacuate the Mamluks outside Cairo, so he asked Muhammad Ali to head to Upper Egypt to fight the Mamluks, and was sent to Astana asking to supply him with an army of "Dalmatians". as soon as this army arrived, it wreaked havoc in Cairo, seizing money and luggage and assaulting the symptoms, which aroused the anger of the people. Its leaders demanded Governor Khurshid Pasha to restrain those forces. Still, he failed to do so, which sparked the people's revolution that led to the governor's dismissal, and the leaders of the people, led by Omar Makram -Captain Ashraf-Muhammad Ali to sit in his place. On July 9, 1805, in the face of de facto rule, the Ottoman Sultan Selim III issued a royal decree removing Khurshid Pasha from the mandate of Egypt, and the assumption of Muhammad Ali over Egypt.
Accession to the throne
After the notables of the people sold him at the courthouse to become the governor of Egypt on May 17, 1805, which was approved by the Royal Firman issued on July 9 of the same year, Muhammad Ali had to face the greatest danger, namely the Mamluks led by Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi, who was the 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 of the army chiefs to join them when attacking the city. Muhammad Ali knew what he was planning, so he demanded from the heads of the soldiers to keep up with them and lure them to enter the city. On the day of the celebration of the death of the Nile in 1805, a thousand Mamluks attacked Cairo, to fall into the trap set by Muhammad Ali for them, and inflicted heavy losses on them, forcing them to withdraw. Then Muhammad Ali took advantage of the opportunity, chased them until he evacuated them from Giza, and they retreated to the level that was still in their hands.
In early 1806, Muhammad Ali carried out an army to fight the Mamluks in Upper Egypt led by Hassan Pasha, the commander of the Albanian division, who clashed with the more numerous forces of Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi in Fayyum, 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 Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi's forces crawling towards Giza. This coincided with the March of the forces of Ibrahim Bey al-Kabir and Osman Bey Al-bardisi from Asyut to occupy Minya, which had a garrison belonging to Muhammad Ali, but the forces of Hassan Pasha supported the garrison and stopped the March of the Mamluk forces to Minya.
Meanwhile, the firman of Soltani was issued by the removal of Muhammad Ali from the Vilayet of Egypt, and the Vilayet of salanik took over him. Muhammad showed compliance with the order and readiness to leave, however, he argued that the soldiers refuse his departure before paying the overdue salaries. At the same time, he turned to Umar Makram, the captain of the Ashraf, who had a role in his assumption of power, to intercede with the Sultan to stop the Furman. So the scholars and dignitaries of Egypt sent a letter to the Sultan, mentioning the virtues of Muhammad Ali and what he had a hand in defeating the Mamluks, and asking him to keep him as governor of Egypt. Astana accepted this on the condition that Muhammad Ali would perform 4,000 sacks, (2) and send his son Ibrahim hostage in Astana until he paid this imposition.
After Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi headed to Giza, he did not attack Cairo, but headed to Damanhour, based on a secret agreement between him and his English allies, to take it as a center for assembling his forces, he besieged it, but the people of the city and its garrison dared to defend it. When Muhammad Ali received the news of the siege of Damanhur, he sent part of his army to confront the forces of Muhammad Bey Al-Alfi, they reached Rahmaniya in late July of 1806, and they clashed with the forces of Al-Alfi in Najila, a village near Rahmaniya, and Muhammad Ali's army was defeated for the second time, and withdrew to manuf. Al-Alfi returned to the siege of Damanhour, but he did not reach it, as the siege dragged on and his soldiers complained about him, forcing him to break the siege and withdraw to the upper level. Soon, Muhammad Ali received the news of the death of Uthman 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 glad for that. He soon stripped an army and took command of it to fight the Mamluks in Upper Egypt. The army of Muhammad Ali was able to defeat the Mamluks in Assiut, evacuate them from it, and take it as his camp headquarters, where the news of the English campaign came to him.
Fraser's campaign
As part of the Anglo-Ottoman war, England directed a campaign of 5,000 troops, led by Lieutenant General Fraser, 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 expedition landed its soldiers at Al-Ajmi Beach on March 17, 1807, and then the troops marched to occupy Alexandria, which the governor of the city, "Amin Agha"(3), handed over to the British troops without resistance, and they entered it on March 21. There they received the news of the death of their ally Al-Alfi, so Fraser was sent to Al-Alfi's successors in the leadership of the Mamluks to deliver their troops to Alexandria. At the same time, Muhammad Ali wrote to them to calm them down, but they were afraid of being accused of treason, so they decided to join Muhammad Ali's forces, although they had to wait until the results of the campaign were clear to decide with whom to join. Fraser decided to occupy Rashid and Al-Rahmaniyah, to cut off the path of reinforcements that might come to the city via the Nile River.
On March 31, Fraser sent 1,500 soldiers under the command of Major General " Patrick whishup "to occupy Rashid, the city Garrison led by" Ali Bey Al-sulankli " and the people agreed to lure the English to enter the city without resistance, even as soon as they entered its narrow streets, until they were shot from windows and roofs of houses, and those who survived withdrew to Abu Qir and Alexandria, after the English lost in that incident about 185 dead and 300 wounded, in addition to a number of prisoners. The garrison sent the prisoners 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 marching on the city, and on April 7, he laid siege to it and hit it with cannons, and Stewart sent a force that occupied the village of "Hammad" to encircle Rashid, preventing the arrival of supplies to the city. On April 12, Muhammad Ali returned from Upper Egypt, got the news, and decided to send an army of 4,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalries led by his deputy "Tabuz Oghli", to fight the English. The city held out for 13 days, until the Egyptian army arrived on April 20, forcing Stuart to withdraw. He also sent a messenger to Captain "MacLeod", the commander of the force occupying Al-Hammad, ordering him to withdraw, however, he was unable to arrive. The next day, the force of 733 soldiers was besieged in Al-Hammad. After fierce resistance, the force fell between a dead man and a prisoner. Stuart returned to Alexandria with the rest of his forces, having lost more than 900 of his men killed, wounded, and captured.
Muhammad Ali's troops continued their march towards Alexandria, besieging it. On September 14, 1807, peace was concluded after negotiations between the parties, which stipulated that the fighting would cease within 10 days, the English prisoners would be released, and the English troops would evacuate the city, which departed for Sicily on September 25. In doing so, Muhammad Ali got rid of one of the biggest dangers that almost overthrew his rule at the very beginning.
Getting rid of popular leadership
Despite the assistance provided by the popular leadership led by the captain of the Ashraf Omar Makram, Muhammad Ali began to call him Wali, and then intercede for him with the Sultan to keep him Wali over Egypt. Despite the promises and the approach that Muhammad Ali followed at the beginning of his reign with the popular leaders, promising to rule with Justice and being satisfied that they would have control over him, this did not last. As soon as the situation began to stabilize relatively internally, with the elimination of the two thousand the failure of the Fraser campaign, and the defeat of the Mamluks and their exclusion to the south of the upper level, Muhammad Ali found that he would not release his hand in government until he removed the popular leaders. This coincided with the division of Al-Azhar scholars on the issue of who is in charge of supervising the endowments of Al-Azhar between the supporters of Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sharqawi and the supporters of Sheikh "Mohammed Al-Amir".
In June of 1809, Muhammad Ali imposed new taxes on the people, so the people turned to Omar Makram, who stood next to the people and promised to move the people to a full revolution, and the informer transferred the matter to Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali took advantage of the attempt of several Sheikhs and scholars to get closer to him and some dignitaries were jealous of Omar Makram's status the people, such as Sheikh Mohammed al-Mahdi and Sheikh Mohammed Al-dawakhli, so Muhammad Ali lured them with money to sign a dignified age. Muhammad Ali had prepared an account to send to the Ottoman Empire, which included the aspects of exchange, and proved that he had spent certain amounts collected from the country 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 of the sincerity of what he said. However, Omar Makram refrained from signing and questioned its contents.
He sent a summons to Omar Makram to meet him, and Omar Makram refused, saying, " If you must, meet him at Sadat's House."Muhammad Ali found this an insult to him, so he gathered a gathering of scholars and leaders, announced the removal of Omar Makram from the syndicate of Overseers and the appointment of Sheikh Sadat, explaining the reason that he entered the book of Overseers some Copts and Jews for some money and that he was complicit with the Mamluks when they attacked Cairo on the day of the fulfillment of the Nile in 1805, and 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 over whom Muhammad Ali was able to control either with money or with deductions, whom Jabarti called the "sheiks of the time".
Castle massacre
Although Muhammad Ali was able to defeat the Mamluks, driving them to the south of Upper Egypt. However, he remained wary of their danger, so he resorted to an alternative strategy: pretending to reconcile and coax them by showering money, positions and deductions on them, in order to lure them to return to Cairo. It was the bait that was swallowed by the bulk of the Mamluks, who heeded the call, preferring a life of well-being and luxury to the harsh and hunted life of Muhammad Ali. However, some Mamluk leaders, such as Ibrahim Bey the great and Uthman Bey Hassan and their men, were not reassured by this offer, preferring to stay in Upper Egypt.
In December of 1807, Muhammad Ali received a royal order from the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa IV, to abstract a campaign to fight the Wahhabis who controlled the Hejaz, which deprived the Ottomans of control over the Two Holy Mosques, thereby threatening the religious authority of the Ottomans. However, Muhammad Ali continued to argue about the instability of the internal situation in Egypt, due to his constant wars with the Mamluks. But after pretending to reconcile with the Mamluks, Muhammad Ali had nothing left to prevent him from stripping that campaign, so Muhammad Ali decided to strip a campaign led by his son Ahmad tusun to fight the Wahhabis. The withdrawal of this 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, as the presence of the Mamluks near Cairo may encourage them to take advantage of the opportunity to pounce on Muhammad Ali and his forces. So Muhammad Ali resorted to a trick, Muhammad Ali announced a celebration in the castle on the occasion of dressing his son tusun to lead the campaign against the Wahhabis, and set the first of March for him in 1811, and sent invitations to notables, scholars and Mamluks to attend the celebration. The Mamluks heeded the invitation, and as soon as the celebration was over, Muhammad Ali invited them to walk in his son's procession. It was arranged to make their place in the middle of the knees, and as soon as the Mamluks reached a steep rocky road leading to Bab al-Azab, from which the campaign was scheduled to exit, until the door was closed and their horses piled up due to the slope, and then they were surprised by a stream of bullets fired from the rocks on both sides of the road and behind them targeting them. The victim of this massacre, known as the castle massacre, was everyone who attended the Mamluks, numbering 470 Mamluks, and only one Mamluk named "Amin Bey" survived the massacre, (4) who was able to jump over the castle wall. After that, the soldiers rushed to attack the Houses of the Mamluks, and finish off the remaining of them, and looted and looted their homes, but the looting and looting spread to neighboring houses, and those actions did not stop until the arrival of Muhammad Ali and his senior men and children the next day, and the number of those killed in those events was estimated at about 1000 Mamluks.
Muhammad Ali was subjected to many criticisms from Western historians for betraying 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 Muhammad Ali thus gained full control of Egypt.
Period of service of the Sultanate
The Ottoman-Wahhabi war
The inability of the Ottoman state, since the early nineteenth century, to put down the revolutions that it had launched in its face, and it invoked its powers to put them down, and one of these revolutions that eliminated the state's bedfellows was the inability of the Ottoman state, since the early nineteenth century, to put down: The Greek Revolution and the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula.(6) the Wahhabi call achieved success in Najd, and was embraced by the Emir of Diriyah, Muhammad Bin Saud bin Muhammad al-Muqrin, and exceeded it to some parts of the Hejaz, Yemen, Asir and the outskirts of Iraq and the Levant, and the Wahhabis seized Mecca, Taif and Medina, until its danger seemed clear to the Ottoman presence in the places of its spread, but in the Arab East and the Islamic world, and played an important role 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 regenerative reform movements that appeared in the Ottoman state.
The Ottoman Empire felt the danger of this movement, and realized that its success would lead to the separation of the Hejaz and its exit from its hands, and thus the exit of the Two Holy Mosques, which would lose the leadership it enjoys in the Islamic world by virtue of its supervision of these two mosques, at a time when it was beginning to seek to overcome internal weaknesses and strengthen ties between it and the Islamic world as the center of the Islamic caliphate. All these factors formed an incentive for the Ottoman state to stand up to the Wahhabi call and confront it to limit its spread, so it tried at first through the governors of Baghdad and Damascus, but failed, so its choice fell on Muhammad Ali Pasha, so this prepared a military campaign led by his son Ahmed tusun entered Yanbu and Badr, but it was defeated in the Battle of Wadi al-Safra. The Wahhabis did not invest their victory in al-Safra, and remained in their strongholds, which gave tusun the opportunity to reorganize the ranks of his forces, he also requested supplies from Cairo, and began to lure the striking tribes between Yanbu and Medina with money and gifts, and succeeded in his policy that paved the way for him to regain Medina, Mecca, and Taif, but the Wahhabis returned and won in Tucson's situation became even more critical, and after these losses, he felt that a defense plan was required, and he sent to his father asking for help.
Muhammad Ali Pasha decided to march himself to the Hejaz to continue the fight to eliminate the Wahhabis and extend Egypt's influence in the Arabian Peninsula, so he left Egypt, on August 26, 1812, corresponding to 17 Sha'ban in 1227 ah, at the head of another army and landed in Jeddah and then left it for Mecca and attacked the strongholds of the Wahhabis, but he failed to expand the area of its spread, evacuated the Qunfudah after he had entered it, and his son tusun was defeated in the soil again. It was natural that after these repeated defeats and constant skirmishes of the Wahhabis of the Egyptian army units, Muhammad Ali Pasha asked for extensions from Egypt, and when the aid arrived, and while he was preparing for March, his opponent Saud died on April 27, 1814, corresponding to the 6th Jumada I in 1229 ah, and was succeeded in the emirate by his son Abdullah. It seems that this prince did not have the military capabilities to be able to ward off the Egyptian danger, which led to the collapse of the Wahhabi front, so this incident was in the interest of Muhammad Ali Pasha, who was able to overcome the Wahhabi Army in Bessel, and took control of the soil and entered the port of Al-Qunfudah, while Tucson controlled the northern section of Najd.
At this stage of the development of the Wahhabi problem, Muhammad Ali Pasha was forced to leave the Arabian Peninsula and return to Egypt to eliminate a rebellion movement aimed at his rule, after eliminating this movement, he resumed his war against the Wahhabis, sending another military campaign to the peninsula led by his son Ibrahim Pasha on September 5, 1816, corresponding to 12 Shawwal in 1231 Ah. Ibrahim Pasha, after fierce clashes with the Wahhabis, managed to reach and besiege Diriyah, so Abdullah bin Saud was forced to open the door to negotiations, and the parties agreed to hand over Diriyah to the Egyptian army, provided that it was not exposed to the people and that Abdullah bin Saud travel to Astana to offer allegiance to the Sultan, and the Wahhabis return the planet Al-Dari, and what remained in their possession of the antiques and jewelry that they took when they captured Medina. Ibrahim Pasha, after receiving Diriyah, demolished it. Thus, the Wahhabi war fought by the Egyptian army in the Arabian peninsula ended, and Ibrahim Pasha returned to Egypt.
Annexation of Sudan
The next campaign in the campaigns of Muhammad Ali was the one that he inventoried for the annexation of Sudan. Muhammad Ali's unspoken goals from that campaign were to seek gold and diamonds, which people reported they were found in the parts of Sudan, especially Sinnar, and to take Sudanese soldiers in the Egyptian regular army for their patience, courage, and obedience, and get rid of the rest of the soldiers of the irregular divisions in the Egyptian army that were causing unrest and a source of trouble for Muhammad Ali. The ostensible reason for this campaign was the elimination of the remaining Mamluks who had fled to Dungula.
The expedition of 4,000 soldiers set out in Nile boats on July 20, 1820, led by Ismail Pasha, the third son of Muhammad Ali. The expedition marched south, descending from Aswan to Wadi Halfa to Dongola, where it encountered the Mamluks and defeated them without much resistance. On November 4 of the same year, he confronted a crowd of Sudanese with primitive weapons and defeated them in a kurti. Then the Egyptian army continued to March, and captured Berber on March 10, 1821, and then Shendi, whose king Nimr announced his surrender in front of the marching army, and then captured Omdurman, they passed it and near it founded the city of Khartoum to be a military base for the Egyptian forces.
Ismail Pasha then directed his brother-in-law Mehmed Bey's defender in a campaign to annex Kordofan. In April 1821, the defterdar's forces clashed with the forces of Muhammad al-Fadl Sultan of Kordofan in Bara, and the defterdar won and entered the city of El-Obeid, thereby annexing Kordofan to the territories under the Egyptian authority. Ismail marched with the rest of his army to annex the kingdom of Sennar and captured the city of Wad Madani, whose king, King "Badi", offered his loyalty to the Egyptian army, and the Egyptians entered Sennar on June 12, 1821.
While the army was in Sinnar, the disease spread among the soldiers, so Ismail was forced to ask his father for an extension, he supplied him with troops led by his older brother Ibrahim Pasha, and they agreed to divide the work between them, so Ismail's task was to March his army on the Blue Nile region, while Ibrahim headed to annex the Dinka country and explore the Upper Nile. Ismail continued his march in the Blue Nile region until he reached Fazughli in January 1822. Ibrahim was forced by illness to return to Egypt.
Revolts 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, King Nimr ordered to appear before him and began to scold and accuse him of stirring up unrest, and then punished him by ordering him to pay a heavy fine and a thousand slaves, King Nimr showed compliance setting the place on fire, and ordering his soldiers to throw arrows and arrows at anyone who tried to escape, Ismail and his men died of suffocation and burning. When Muhammad Bey Al-diftardar reached the news, he crawled to Chandi and committed murder and captivity, and tracked down King Nimr, but he did not realize it, as he fled to the borders of Abyssinia. After that, the situation in Sudan stabilized and Muhammad Ali's rule was condemned.
The Moorish war
Until the early nineteenth century, Greece was part of the Ottoman sultanate, and during this period, signs of revolution against 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, The spread of European ideas, especially the ideas of the French Revolution, the reactions against Ottoman centralization, and direct European intervention. Revolutionary movements and secret and overt political associations began to pose a threat to the unity of the Ottoman state starting in 1820 and took their centers in both 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" Fraternal Association " (Greek: Φιλική Εταιρεία or Εταιρεία των Φιλικών; Nehra: filki eteria), called for the revival of the Byzantine Empire and the seizure of the capital Astana, the expulsion of Muslims from Europe and their push to Asia. The revolution in the province of Almora in particular has taken on a religious character, raising the slogan: Faith, Freedom, and Homeland. The Ottoman Empire faced great difficulties in fighting the rebels, due to the large number of islands and the rugged routes that Greece was famous for, due to the knowledge of the Greeks how to take advantage of them strategically against the Ottoman forces. When the threat of revolution worsened, Sultan Mahmud II asked Mehmed Ali Pasha to send his troops to Greece to subdue the rebels.
Muhammad Ali Pasha accepted this role because the danger was directed against the general Muslim state, represented by the Ottoman state, and against Islam represented by the Ottoman Sultan, the caliph of the Muslims, so he sent a military campaign led by Hassan Pasha landed on the island of Crete and put down the revolution there, as well as sent another campaign led by his son Ibrahim Pasha, to put down the revolt of the Morea, and succeeded in carrying out a landing on its shores after severe sea collisions with the Greek fleet in 1825, and rescued the Ottoman army besieged in the port of Koron, and besieged Navarin, the most important sites of the peninsula. Ibrahim Pasha managed to enter this gap, opened Kalamata and Tripolitsa in June 1825, chased the rebels and captured their strongholds, except the city of Nauplii, the capital of the revolutionary government, and prepared to eliminate the last rebel strongholds in Hydra, astapzia, the port of nauplii and Missolonghi. The latter soon fell to the Egyptian army and was the last major stronghold of the rebels.
As a result of the victory of the Egyptian army, the Greeks mobilized European public opinion to save the revolution, so a group of poets and literary magnates rose, stirring up public opinion in Europe with their writings, and urging European countries to intervene in favor of the revolution. Indeed, Britain invited Russia to consult to reach an understanding on the future of Greece, and these negotiations culminated in the signing of the St. Petersburg protocol, which France joined shortly after, and the three countries agreed to urge the Sublime Porte to conclude a truce with the Greeks, and grant them a measure of autonomy within the framework of nominal dependence on the Ottoman Sultan. But the fall of Missolonghi turned things upside down, so the European countries, led by Russia, turned to violence in support of the revolutionaries, sending their ships to the waters of Greece to impose their 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 Navarin struck them, without warning, and destroyed them on October 20, 1827, corresponding to the 29th of Rabi ' al-Awwal in 1243 Ah.
At this point of the Greek problem, the Ottoman and Egyptian views were in agreement on general policy, however, after the intervention of the European countries and their naval victory at Navarin, the two sides differed. Muhammad Ali Pasha saw that there was no point in continuing the fight after he lost his fleet and his sea communications with his armies were cut off in Greece, and that the wisdom was to separate the Egyptian policy from the Ottoman policy, and he was quickened in his decision to withdraw by sending France a military force landed in the Morea, and receiving a memorandum from European countries insisting on separating Greece and targeting Egypt if he continued to follow the Ottoman policy. So Muhammad Ali preferred to isolate Egypt from the Greek problem, leaving its matter to the Sultan. On September 7, 1828, corresponding to the 26 Safar year 1244 ah, the withdrawal of Egyptian soldiers from the Morea began on board the remaining ships and only one thousand and two hundred soldiers remained in Greece to maintain some sites until the Ottoman soldiers received them, but the French forces carried out this task instead of the Ottoman forces.
The campaign on the Levant
Muhammad Ali Pasha came out of the Greek war without winning a new conquest, and did not achieve any benefit from participating in it, while the war with the Wahhabis ended by extending his influence on the Arabian Peninsula, and allowed him to enter Sudan to annex the integral part of the Egyptian lands, but the work he did after that was the Levant theater. Muhammad Ali aspired from all the assistance and services he provided to the Ottoman state that the Sultan would grant him one of the major states, but the Sultan contented himself with Muhammad Ali cutting off the island of Crete in recognition of his services and compensation for some of what he lost in the Greek war, but this compensation was not valuable, as it was not easy for Egypt to rule this island and benefit from it because its people are famous for disobedience and rebellion, and he saw to annex the Levant to Egypt, driven by two factors: political and economic.
As for the political factor, it is to take the Levant as a barrier that will protect Egypt from Ottoman strikes in the future, 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 population, thereby increasing the number of members of his army. As for the economic factor, he wanted to exploit the resources of the Levant, from wood, charcoal, copper and iron, which Egypt lacked, as well as its economic importance due to its geographical location and its connection with Anatolia, its trade relations with Central Asia, where trade convoys pass, and because of its location on the pilgrimage route to the holy house.
It is likely that Muhammad Ali Pasha aspired to annex the Levant since 1810, and hoped to reach its rule with the consent of the Sultan, so he asked Mahmud II, in 1813, during the Wahhabi war, to entrust him with the rule of this country on the pretext that he needed an extension of it to help him fight, Sultan Muhammad Ali promised to give it to him because the war in the peninsula was troubling him and he was looking to eliminate the Wahhabis quickly for fear that their call would lead to division among Muslims. When the war ended, the Sultan returned and broke his promise, as he felt that the presence of Muhammad Ali in the Levant was dangerous for 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: Abdullah Pasha, the governor of Acre, and Bashir II Shihabi, the Emir of Lebanon, both of whom owed Muhammad Ali to stay in office. As for Abdullah Pasha, Muhammad Ali had helped him to the Sultan, following his dispute with the governor of Damascus in 1821, The Sultan pleased him and approved him to the state of Acre, as Muhammad Ali had provided him with money in his battle against the governor of Damascus.
Prince Bashir had supported Abdullah Pasha in that dispute, marched at the head of his army fought the governor of Damascus, and defeated him. As soon as the Ottoman Empire was aware of the defeat of the governor of Damascus, the Sublime Porte launched 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. Since Muhammad Ali was on good terms with the sultan, he was able to appease him, soften his attitude towards Prince Bashir, and return him to his Principality. The prince and Mohammed Ali developed a close relationship and a strong friendship after they were united by a similar ambition, namely, to expand the territory of each other's countries, so they vowed to walk together in a common policy. The goals of Muhammad Ali began to take shape starting in 1825 when the first French general "bouaye" declared that he would, after finishing the Moorish war, put his hand on the Levant, including the state of Acre, and would stand with his army only on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, in Yemen and the central part of the Arabian Peninsula. These ideas correspond to what was rumored, quoting 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 vulnerable vassal, and the control of the Levant, starting in 1829, became necessary in his Strategic Policy.
One of the British consuls, named Parker, in 1832, saw that the army of Muhammad Ali was engaged in the project of liberating the Arab peoples and uniting them into an Arab empire, and that his immediate goal was to consolidate his power in the bashalak of Acre and Damascus, and then expand towards Aleppo and Baghdad through all the Arab states. Most historians have linked Muhammad Ali Pasha's request from the Sultan in 1813, to take over the Levant, in order to eliminate the Wahhabis in the Hejaz, with his campaign in 1831. If this were true, the governor of Egypt would have taken advantage of his success in subduing the Wahhabis to march towards the Levant to annex it, especially since the Sublime Porte refused him two requests at that time: the first was to return Yusuf King to the Wilayat of the Levant, and the removal of Suleiman Pasha from it, and the second was to grant him this Wilayat. But Muhammad Ali counted that his mission was to save the Ottoman state itself from the danger of ruin, to make radical changes, and to breathe new life into it. He believed in the unity of the Islamic world under the leadership of the Sultan, provided that he hastened to protect Muslims after the Navarin disaster, warning of the need to renew the sultanate based on the Islamic religion. Whether Muhammad Ali dreamed of an Arab state separate from the Ottoman Empire and based on its ruins, or his message was to establish a strong Islamic sultanate, there is no doubt that the intervention of European countries in this issue prevented him from any understanding with the Sublime Porte, on the one hand, and prevented him from achieving his goals, on the other.
The wars of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the Levant were both defensive and offensive, but they were defensive wars because Muhammad Ali Pasha knew that the Ottoman state was sparing no effort in seeking to regain its position in Egypt and that Sultan Mahmud II was not well-intentioned, and they were offensive wars because his goal was also expansion. It seems that Mehmet Ali Pasha decided to confront the high gate from several backgrounds. Anas lost strength in his army, and he found that the Ottoman state was in a state of deterioration and disintegration and that it was the focus of the attention and intrigues of European countries. Thus, the governor of Egypt was taken prisoner by two factors: he was taken prisoner himself, as he saw that the Sublime Porte had wronged him when he was banned from the Wilayat of the Levant, despite performing great services to the Sultanate, and he was taken prisoner believing that he had reformed the Wilayat of the Levant.
Its stages
The wars in the Levant went through two phases, the first phase ended with the Kutahya agreement, in 1833, and established Egyptian control over the Levant, while the second phase ended with the London agreement in 1840, and decided on the withdrawal of the Egyptian army.
The first stage
The immediate causes of the war lie in the internal conflict that occurred between Muhammad Ali Pasha and Abdullah Pasha, the governor of Acre, Muhammad Ali created a dispute with the governor of Acre by demanding that he return the money he had provided to him, and return the Egyptian peasants fleeing from paying taxes and from serving in agriculture, and when Abdullah Pasha procrastinated in meeting Muhammad Ali's request, he took this procrastination as a pretext for occupying the lands of the Levant. The Egyptian army marched towards Palestine on October 14, 1831, corresponding to the first Jumada 7, 1247 Ah, under the leadership of Ibrahim Pasha ibn Muhammad Ali, and took control of its cities without much resistance, except for Acre, which was hit by a concentrated siege by land and sea so that the tide would not come to it by sea and it would not be able to open it, as happened to Napoleon Bonaparte before when he besieged it in 1799. While she was resisting the siege of Ibrahim Pasha, the Sons of Emir Bashir, along with Egyptian soldiers, were in control of Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and Byblos. When Tripoli eluded them, Ibrahim Pasha rushed to the aid of his allies, and soon it fell into their hands.
The Ottoman Empire was troubled in front of the advance of the Egyptian army, promised disobedience, and countered it. An Ottoman army, led by Osman Pasha, the governor of Aleppo, collided with the Egyptian army in the agricultural plain south of Homs but was defeated in front of it. Then Ibrahim Pasha returned to Acre to continue its siege, he entered it forcibly on May 28, 1832, corresponding to the 27th of Dhu al-Hijjah in 1247 Ah, captured Abdullah Pasha and sent him to Egypt. The Egyptian commander continued his march towards the North, after taking control of Acre, he entered Damascus with Prince Bashir and his army after they fought the governor of the city, and the residents welcomed him because they were closer to wanting to change their rulers due to the disadvantages of the Ottoman governors.
Alarmed by the fall of Acre and Damascus and the control of the Egyptians over the southern Levant, the Sultan feared that his position would be shaken in front of their victories, he mobilized another army led by Al-sarkar Hussein Pasha and pushed him to stop the Egyptian army and force the Egyptians to withdraw from the Levant, and at the same time issued a decree declaring the betrayal of Muhammad Ali Pasha and his son Ibrahim to the legitimate authority. Ibrahim Pasha collided with the new Ottoman army in the Battle of Homs and overcame it on June 29, 1832, corresponding to 10 Safar in 1248 ah, and took control of Hama and then entered the city of Aleppo, and prepared to resume the march towards the North. Hussein Pasha withdrew North, after his loss, and stationed himself in the Bilan corridor, one of the corridors separating the Levant and Anatolia, Ibrahim Pasha followed him, collided with him and overcame him, and chased the rest of his army until they had to leave the area through the port of Alexandretta and took control of the corridor, and also occupied the port of Eyas, north of Alexandretta, and entered the state of Adana and Tarsus.
The defeat of the Ottomans encouraged Ibrahim Pasha to continue his way, and he advanced inside the Anatolian countries until he reached the city of Konya, and the Ottomans had gathered to defend the heart of the Sultanate, and the Battle of Konya took place on December 20, 1832, corresponding to 27 Rajab in 1248 ah, and the Egyptian commander succeeded in overcoming them and captured their commander, the great Sadr Muhammad Rashid Pasha. With this victory, the way was opened for him to Astana, so that at that time the world imagined that the end of the Ottoman sultanate was near. After the defeat of Konya, anxiety reigned in the capital of the caliphate, and the chances of the Sultan, who was afraid of Ibrahim Pasha's advance towards the capital, trembled, so he appealed to European countries to stand up to the imminent danger, only Russia saved him, (7) as Britain was preoccupied with its internal affairs and the Belgian issue, (8) and France supported Muhammad Ali and cooperated with him, and there were a number of French commanders in his army, and Austria and Prussia stood neutral. In 1833, Russia sent a naval fleet to Astana to defend it, and Britain and France were no sooner informed of the presence of Russian ships in Astana waters until they were alarmed, and they felt the Russian danger to them, and feared that Russia would take advantage of the collapse of the Ottoman state to strengthen its position in the sea lanes, so they hastened to offer their assistance to the Sultan if he abandoned Russian assistance. But the Russians refused to evacuate their ships only after the Egyptians withdraw from Anatolia. It was then that representatives of Britain and France actively mediated between the Sultan and Muhammad Ali, until letters were exchanged between them. France used its friendly relations with Egypt to convince Muhammad Ali Pasha to settle his dispute with the Sultan, not to be hard on his demands, and to have enough of his conquest of the sanjaks of Sidon, Tripoli, Jerusalem and Nablus. Muhammad Ali Pasha rejected the French point of view, insisted on the annexation of the Levant and the Adana Vilayet, made the Taurus Mountains the boundary between the Ottoman state and his possessions, ordered his son to advance in his conquest with the aim of putting pressure on the Sultan.
France made strenuous efforts to reconcile the Ottoman and Egyptian points of view, and at one stage of the negotiations threatened to sever relations with Egypt. Finally, the two sides reached the signing of the kutahe agreement, on May 4, 1833, corresponding to the 14th of Dhu al-Hijjah in 1248 Ah, according to which the Sublime Porte ceded the entire Levant, and acknowledged to Muhammad Ali Pasha the jurisdiction of Egypt, Crete and the entire natural Syria (including Lebanon, Palestine and Adana), and the jurisdiction of his son Ibrahim over Jeddah. In return, Muhammad Ali pledged to repay the Sultan every year the money that the Ottoman governors had previously paid for the Levant. Thus, Ibrahim Pasha fled Anatolia, and the first stage of the Levant wars ended, and the crisis seemed to be over as well.
The second stage
The settlement, which took place in Kutahya, was only a temporary settlement, as Muhammad Ali Pasha agreed to hold it only for fear of the threat of European countries depriving him of his conquest, and for his part, Sultan Mahmud II agreed to hold it involuntarily under the pressure of military and political events, and he is determined to resume fighting in better conditions to restore his influence in the Levant and Egypt, and since the political thinking of each party was on this form of contradiction, the war had to be resumed to determine the final result. The Sultan implemented a two-pronged strategic policy: he began to incite the inhabitants of the Levant against Egyptian rule on the one hand, (9) and mobilized troops to beat the Egyptian armies and force them out of the country, with the help of Britain, on the other. Muhammad Ali Pasha realized, after the political developments, that the positions of the European countries were not in his favor, and that his separatist plans were unattainable, but he did not lose hope for the Sultanate's recognition of the hereditary rights of his family to rule the areas that were under his administration, and tried to take the opportunity to hold new talks, so he held talks with the Sultan's envoy, Rami Efendi, in Egypt ended in failure due to hardening positions.(10)
Thus, political matters developed towards a crisis, war between the two sides became inevitable, war preparations were actively and intensively conducted in Astana, and European countries followed the Sultan's military inclinations with great interest. The Sultan took advantage of the revolt of the inhabitants of the Levant against Egyptian rule and pushed an army in the spring of 1839, led by Hafiz Pasha, to the Levant, and his appearance at the border was enough to bring the crisis to a climax, but Ibrahim Pasha was waiting, fulfilling his father's desire to avoid everything he shows as an aggressor. After the Jaman rallied, the sultan ordered Hafiz Pasha to attack Ibrahim Pasha entrenched in Aleppo. It seems that Muhammad Ali had the joy to assume the Sultan and his commander's responsibility of starting hostile military operations, so he ordered his son to attack the Ottoman army, and that was on June 15, 1839, corresponding to the other spring 2, 1255 Ah. In the Battle of Nasib (located east of antab on the Euphrates Island), the Ottoman army suffered a heavy loss and a real disaster, as the army almost died from the dead, and the Egyptians captured about fifteen thousand soldiers, and plundered huge amounts of weapons and supplies. Sultan Mahmud II died before the news of the defeat reached him.
Sultan Abdul Majid I succeeded his father Sultan Mahmud II, a boy who was not yet eighteen years old, and soon hurried to conduct negotiations with Muhammad Ali. To make peace, Muhammad Ali stipulated that the rule in the Levant and Egypt should be a hereditary right in his family. Sultan Abdul Majid would have almost accepted Muhammad Ali's conditions if he had not received a joint memorandum from Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, asking him to break off negotiations with Muhammad Ali. The four countries had agreed to prevent the strong Muhammad Ali from replacing the weak Ottoman sultanate in the Levant, through which the British route to India passed. As for France, it was isolated in its Eastern policy from the four countries and considered that it would continue to support Muhammad Ali, hoping to guarantee it an excellent position in the region. Soon after, in 1840, the four countries held a conference with the Ottoman government in London, where they discussed the so-called "Eastern question", and the conference resulted in the signing of the quadruple alliance treaty. In this treaty, the four European countries offered Muhammad Ali the state of Egypt genetically, and the state of Acre for his lifetime. These countries stipulated that Muhammad Ali announce his acceptance of this offer within ten days, if he does not, the four countries withdraw their offer for the state of Acre. If he does not answer within twenty days, the four countries withdraw their entire offer, leaving the Sultan free to deprive him of the mandate of Egypt.
Muhammad Ali Pasha, for his part, was determined to hold on to the country he had conquered and approved by the Kutahe Agreement, and he was betting on helping France and on a European war that he was waiting for from hour to hour. when the Ottoman sultanate and the consuls of European countries in Egypt informed him of the terms of the treaty, he let the ten days pass without issuing any official response. the consuls of European countries, on the eleventh day, informed him of the second ultimatum, and they gave him another ten days and also informed him that he no longer had the right to the state of Acre. The second ten days passed without explicitly accepting the implementation of the terms of the agreement, so the consuls of the European countries promised that this meant refusal, and then the Sultan issued a decree to remove him from the jurisdiction of Egypt. In front of this, the European countries began to take preliminary measures to implement their commitments, so Britain ordered its fleet in the Mediterranean to cut off land and sea transportation between Egypt and the Levant hit the ports of this country, and instructed its ambassador in Astana to ignite the fire of revolution against Muhammad Ali in the Levantine cities and villages, and the four European countries severed their relations with Egypt.
Muhammad Ali Pasha received the news of his isolation calmly, and he hoped to overcome this ordeal, and then he drifted to peace when the British Sea Prince "Napier" appeared in front of Alexandria, threatening with the language of iron and fire, and he saw that France was unable to resist the whole of Europe, so he signed an agreement with the said Sea Prince in which he promised to obey the wishes of the major countries and evacuate the Levant on condition of guaranteeing his hereditary mandate to Egypt, but the Ottoman state rejected this condition at the behest of Britain. France supported Muhammad Ali Pasha in his position and tightened this until he was afraid of a European war, then Austria and Prussia intervened in this issue and forced Britain and Russia to adopt the point of view of Muhammad Ali Pasha and France, so the governor of Egypt passed the impasse of dethronement, although he was forced to content himself with the mandate of Egypt in the future, and indeed the Sultan issued a decree to make the mandate of Egypt Hereditary for Muhammad Ali Pasha, and the Ottoman - Egyptian crisis ended, and the Egyptians fled the Levant.
State Building
Muhammad Ali turned to building a modern European-style state in Egypt, and he used European experts in his economic and scientific projects, including, in particular, the French Saint Simonians, who spent a few years in Egypt in the Thirties of the nineteenth century and were calling for the establishment of a model society based on industry based on modern science. The most important pillars of his modern state were his modern educational and educational policy, as he believed that he would not be able to create an advanced European-style military force, provide it with all modern technologies, and establish an effective administration and a prosperous economy that supports and protects it only by creating modern education to replace traditional education.
Military
Muhammad Ali realized that to achieve his expansionist goals, he had to establish a modern regular military force, which would serve as the instrument that would achieve those goals for him. Before and at the beginning of the reign of Muhammad Ali, the army was composed of irregular divisions that tended by nature to riot and chaos, mostly Kurds, Albanians, and Circassians, in addition to those forces groups of godfathers whom the governors resorted to as mercenaries, and their actions were no more than guerrilla and hit-and-run methods. Muhammad Ali saw that this army was unreliable, so he made an effort to create an army that would compete with foreign armies in their fight 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 several Albanian Arnaut soldiers belonging to his son Ismail's squad on modern military systems, at a place he allocated for this in Bulaq. These soldiers did not like it, because of their nature, which tends to riot and chaos, so they revolted against Muhammad Ali and attacked his palace, and there was a fight between them and the guards, during which Muhammad Ali's guards were able to control the situation, but Muhammad Ali realized that he could not rely on such soldiers, so he postponed the implementation of the idea.
In 1820, Muhammad Ali established a military school in Aswan, to which he attached a thousand of his Mamluks and his senior Mamluks 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 experiment was successful and the group graduated to become the nucleus of the Egyptian regular army.
After that, Muhammad Ali had a problem, that by experience it was proved that the Turkish, Kurdish, Albanian and Circassian soldiers were no longer suitable to be the mainstay of his army because they did not accept being included in a regular army, so he argued that he needed them to secure the gaps, and he sent them to Damietta and Rashid to evacuate Cairo, and to reassure them he sent Adi, at the hands of the new officers. However, the experiment failed because of the outbreak of diseases among the Sudanese soldiers, because of the different climate, so he had no choice but to rely on the Egyptians. The peasants at first resisted their conscription, because they saw no interest in it, considering it a forced labor. But over time, the peasants reacted to the new situation, they felt under the banner of the army dignity, a secure life, clothing, and housing, in which they would not suffer their sufferings in agriculture. By June of 1824, Muhammad Ali had six battalions of regular soldiers, numbering more than 25 thousand soldiers, and he ordered them to move to Cairo.
Thus, Egypt became a regular army, which began to increase steadily until it reached 169 thousand officers and soldiers in a census taken in 1833, and 236 thousand in a census taken in 1839. Muhammad Ali also established a Diwana known as the Diwan of Jihadism to organize the affairs of the army secure its needs for ammunition, supplies, and medicines, and organize salaries. The first engagements of this army were in the Morea war, which showed what the Egyptian military had reached, which made it an affair among contemporary military forces, and Ibrahim Pasha relied on it in his campaign on the Levant and Anatolia
The fleet
When Muhammad Ali embarked on the Wahhabi war, the need arose to build ships to transport soldiers across the Red Sea, so he began to create them at 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 the years of the campaign. After the establishment of 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 the purchase of ships from Europe and also contracted the construction of other ships in the ports of Europe. But after the destruction of this fleet in the Battle of Navarin in front of the more developed 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 serezhi. The Arsenal undertook the task of rebuilding the fleet on modern European patterns, and the number of Warships manufactured at that Arsenal until 1837 amounted to 28 warships, including 10 large ships each armed with a hundred cannons, so Egypt dispensed with the purchase of ships from abroad. Muhammad Ali was very interested in this Arsenal, he constantly visited it, he urged the workers to work, he attended the inauguration ceremonies of new ships.
Military education
Muhammad Ali expanded military education in Egypt, having ordered the construction of the officers ' school in Aswan and the military school in Bani Adi, he ordered the establishment of other schools in farshut, Nakhila and jarja. He also founded a military preparatory school in Qasr Al-Aini to prepare students to enter military schools, with about 500 students studying there, but then it was transferred to Abu Zaabal, where it became able to accommodate about 1,200 students.
Muhammad Ali then added a piyad school in the Khanqah, which was transferred to Damietta in 1834, then to Abi Zabal in 1841, a Sawari school in Giza in 1831, and another for artillery in Tora in 1831 as well. He also founded a military staff school on October 15, 1825 near the Khanqah, and a school of military music. He also established a training camp for fleet soldiers on naval actions in Ras Al-tin. To prepare naval officers, Muhammad Ali established a practical Naval School on board one of the warships, and as its scope expanded, it was divided into two divisions, each one on a ship.
Military industries
Muhammad Ali believed that to ensure independence, and not to become at the mercy of foreign countries, he should establish weapons factories in Egypt. The weapons and Cannon factory in the castle was the first of this thinking, which was founded in 1827, and it produced between 600 and 650 guns, and between 3 and 4 guns per month. He also produced cavalry swords, spears, sword-bearers, bridles, and saddles. In 1831, Muhammad Ali founded another rifle factory in the observed 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 a year, except drums and swords.
He also established an electrolysis plant on Al-Rawda island away from Al-Omran, and added other plants in ashmunin, ihnasia, badrshin, Fayoum, and Tarana, the total production of which in 1833 was about 15,800 quintals.
Educationally
Muhammad Ali realized that in order for his state to rise, he must establish an educational system, which will be the mainstay on which he relies to provide the human competencies that manage the bodies of his modern state and its powerful army. Therefore, Muhammad Ali began to send a group of Azhari students to Europe to study in various fields, to be the nucleus to start this scientific renaissance. He also founded primary and higher schools, preparing successive generations of learners on whom his modern state depends.
Scientific expeditions
In 1813, Muhammad Ali sent the first educational missions to Europe, and their destination was Italy, where several students were sent to Livorno, Milan, Florence, and Rome to study Military Science, shipbuilding methods, engineering and printing, and then followed by missions to France and England. The first missions were small, as there were a total of no more than 28 students sent during them, however, Osman Nur al-Din, who became the admiral of the Egyptian fleet, and Nicolas Mesbaki, who founded the Bulaq printing press by order of Muhammad Ali in 1821, shone among them.
The Golden Age of these expeditions, however, was with the expedition of 1826, which consisted of 44 students to study military and Administrative Sciences, Medicine, Agriculture, Natural History, metallurgy, chemistry, hydraulics, metal casting, weapons industry, printing, architecture and translation. This was followed by a second expedition in 1828 to France, a third in 1829 to France, England and Austria, and a fourth that specialized in Medical Sciences only in 1832. The year 1844 witnessed the largest of those scientific missions that were sent to France, and it was known as the "Anjal mission" because it included 83 students, including two of Muhammad Ali's sons and two of his grandchildren. The total number of these missions was nine, which included 319 students and a total of 303,360 pounds was spent on them. Muhammad Ali also ordered three expeditions led by the bekbashi Selim the captain in 1839, 1840, and 1841 to explore the headwaters of the Nile. These expeditions had the great credit of exploring these areas and knowing their conditions.
High schools
He established several colleges and they were called "higher schools" at the time, starting in 1816, with an engineering school in the castle to graduate engineers undertaking construction work. In 1827, he established a medical school in Abi Zaabal on the advice of Klout Bey to meet the needs of the army of doctors, and over time these doctors served the general public, and then attached a pharmacy school and another for midwives (childbirth) in 1829. Then she established the Engineer School in Bulaq for military engineering, the School of metallurgy in ancient Egypt in 1834, the Alsun School in Azbakiya in 1836, the School of Agriculture in benbroh in 1837, the Accounting School in Sayyida Zeinab, the School of Veterinary Medicine in Rashid and the school of Arts and crafts in 1839, the total number of Higher School students reached about 4,500 students.
Primary schools
When the higher schools advanced and expanded, Muhammad Ali decided to establish a "Diwan of schools" in 1837, and entrusted its management to some members of the missions returning to Egypt, to organize education in schools. This court decided to expand the base of education in Egypt, so it drew up a regulation for the dissemination of primary education, which stipulated the need to establish 50 primary schools, which was approved by Muhammad Ali, and ordered their establishment to be 4 of them in Cairo and one in Alexandria, each of which includes 200 students, and the rest distributed to various regions, each of which includes 100 students.
Economically
In order to achieve political independence, Muhammad Ali needed to grow the country's wealth and strengthen its financial position, so he deliberately revitalized the economic aspects of Egypt, and used tens of thousands of Egyptian workers who worked in these fields by forced labor to achieve this.
Industry
Muhammad Ali built an industrial base for Egypt, and his motives for doing this were primarily to provide for the needs of the army, so he established spinning and weaving factories, a factory for ropes needed for warships and merchant ships, a factory for silk fabrics, another for Wool, a linen textile factory, a Tarabish factory in fuh, an iron foundry in Bulaq, a factory for copper plates that lined ships, sugar production plants, indigo, soap and leather tanning factories in bershid, a glass and Chinese factory, a factory for for wax and contemporary for oils. The creation of the naval arsenal also had a huge role in the manufacture of merchant ships.
Agriculture
Muhammad Ali was interested in agriculture, he took care of irrigation, built many canals, built bridges and aqueducts. He also expanded the scope of Agriculture, allocating about 3,000 acres for the cultivation of berries to be used in the production of natural silk, olives for the production of oils, and planted trees to meet the needs of shipbuilding and construction works. And in 1821, he introduced the cultivation of a new variety of cotton suitable for the manufacture of clothing, after the common variety was suitable only for use in upholstery.
Commerce
After Egypt's agricultural yields, especially cotton, increased, the scope of Egypt's foreign trade expanded. The establishment of the merchant fleet, the repair of the port of Alexandria, the paving of the Suez-Cairo Road, and securing it for the operation of convoys also played a role in restoring the trade movement between India and Europe through Egypt, so the foreign trade movement was very active until the value of exports reached 2,196,000 pounds and imports 2,679,000 pounds in 1836.
The system of government.
Muhammad Ali ruled Egypt as an autocrat with a tendency to consult some confidants before concluding matters, but he differed from the autocratic rule of the Mamluks in that he was subject to an administrative system instead of the chaos that prevailed in the Mamluk era. Muhammad Ali established a government council known as the" High Diwan " based in the Citadel, headed by the deputy Wali Muhammad Ali, and under the authority of this Diwan two chambers specialized in military affairs, the Navy, trade, foreign affairs, schools, buildings and works. He also established an advisory council that includes senior statesmen and several notables and scientists, which meets every year and specializes in discussing issues of administration, education, and Public Works. In 1837, Muhammad Ali drew up a basic law known as the "policy" law, in which he defined the powers of each of the government offices.
Administrative division
Muhammad Ali divided Egypt into seven directorates, four in the sea face, the first included Beheira, Qalyubia, and Giza, the second Menoufia, the Western, the third Dakahlia, and the fourth eastern, one in central Egypt and included Beni Suef, Fayoum and Minya, and two in Upper Egypt, the first from south of Minya to north of Qena and the second from Qena to Wadi Halfa, in addition to five governorates, namely Cairo, Alexandria, Rashid, Damietta and Suez.
The financial system
Muhammad Ali abolished the "obligation" system, which allowed some so-called obligated individuals to pay tax quotas on some villages, and authorized them to collect them with their knowledge, which burdened farmers because they usually collected those funds worth more than they paid. However, he replaced this system with a "monopoly" system, which made Muhammad Ali the sole owner of the lands of the Egyptian country, thereby abolishing individual ownership of land. Muhammad Ali also stressed 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, including taxes imposed on land, farms, individuals, and livestock. Just as Muhammad Ali monopolized land and agriculture, he also monopolized industry and trade, which made him the sole owner of Egypt's lands, the only trader of its products, and the only manufacturer of its manufactures.
Omranya
Muhammad Ali was interested in some aspects of architecture that served his emerging state, he founded cities such as Khartoum and Kassala, erected castles to defend the loopholes and the capital of the country, and also built a lighthouse to guide ships in Ras Al-tin in Alexandria. He also took care of the construction of palaces and government houses, established a notebook to keep government documents, an antiquities house after he issued an order to prevent the exit of antiquities from Egypt, paved trade routes, organized mail traffic, and made stations for horses to rest.
Social
During the reign of Muhammad Ali, Society was divided into several social strata, the highest of which was the ruling class, which included Muhammad Ali's family, his senior men, state employees educated in schools and sent abroad, then the class of scientists, notables, farmers, factory workers, Arabs, and slaves from the Greeks captured in the Moorish war, Circassian neighbors, Abyssinians and Sudanese who were serving in the homes of the wealthy. Under Muhammad Ali, the population increased from 2,514,400 in 1823 to 4,476,440 in 1845. Muhammad Ali Pasha was broad-minded and tolerant in religious affairs. 11 he was close to Christians as well as Muslims, and he used them in his rule and included them in his entourage.
The end of Mehmed Ali Pasha
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 for it, Muhammad Ali Pasha fell into a state of paranoia, and he began to become confused thinking little by little and suffers from difficulty in remembering, it is uncertain whether this was the result of his mental effort during the Levant war, or a normal condition as a result of his advanced age, or it was 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 Egypt and him personally at the end of his life, in 1844, the head of the financial court, Sharif Pasha, found that the debts of the Egyptian state amounted to 80 million francs and that the tax arrears amounted to 14,081,500 piastres out of the total tax estimated at 75,227,500 piastres. The Pasha was afraid to bring the matter to Muhammad Ali because it might have a severe impact on him, so he brought the matter to Ibrahim Pasha, who suggested that his sisters ' loved ones should convey the news to his father, but this did not have the desired effect, Muhammad Ali's anger exceeded what everyone expected, and he did not calm down and settle his mind only after six days had passed.
A year after this incident, Ibrahim Pasha fell ill with tuberculosis, arthritis became worse, 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 own decision that his son was dead, and this is evident from what he told the Sultan when he visited Astana in 1846, where he expressed fear: "My son is a queer old man, and Abbas is a lazy slacker, who can rule Egypt now except children, and how can these people keep it?"After that, Muhammad Ali returned to Egypt and remained governor of it until he grew old, and by 1848 he had developed dementia and his accession to the throne of the state became impossible, so his sons dismissed 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, and was succeeded by his nephew tusun, Abbas Helmi. By this time, Muhammad Ali Pasha was also suffering from the disease, and he had reached such dementia that he could not comprehend the news of the death of his son Ibrahim, so he was not informed about it. Muhammad Ali lived a few months after the death of his son and died in the Ras Al-tin Palace in Alexandria on August 2, 1849, corresponding to the 13th of Ramadan in 1265 Ah, so he transferred his body to Cairo where he was buried in the mosque that he had built a while ago in the citadel of the city. The funeral of Muhammad Ali Pasha was moderately attended and the ceremony was largely due to Wali Abbas Helmi, who had long differed in opinions and views with his grandfather and uncle Ibrahim and held something of a grudge against him. British consul John Murray, one of the people who participated in the funeral of Muhammad Ali to his final resting place, says:
Attendance at the funeral was pitifully meager; many consuls and ambassadors were not invited to participate, neither shops nor government departments were closed.. In short, there is a general impression that Abbas Pasha is to blame, he underestimated his grandfather and his illustrious memory, he did not respect his memory with due respect, and how could it not be that he allowed this man's funeral to be held in such a miserable form and neglected to take care of him the most negligently.
The attachment and veneration of the name of Muhammad Ali by all strata of Egyptian society is a greater and more honorable funeral than any other given to him by his successors. Older parents who remember talk about the chaos and injustice with which the country was plunged before his arrival; young people compare his rule with the rule of his fickle and vacillating successor; all layers of the people, from Turks and Arabs, do not hesitate to say that prosperous, civilized Egypt died with Muhammad Ali...Sir, we cannot and no one can deny that Muhammad Ali, despite all his mistakes, was a great man.
His legacy,
The most prevailing theories among historians and in public circles are those that say that Muhammad Ali Pasha is the "father of modern Egypt", being the first ruler over it, who was able to strip the Sublime Porte of its actual power over the country, since the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. Although he failed to achieve the complete separation of Egypt from the Ottoman Empire, he laid the foundations of the modern Egyptian state, which took shape after his death. By building a large and powerful army to defend and expand his country, he created a centralized bureaucracy, 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 would consolidate the rule of his descendants of Egypt and Sudan for almost 150 years, during which Egypt was a legally autonomous state under the Ottoman Empire, and then under the British protectorate.
Another section of the people believes that Muhammad Ali Pasha was not the builder of modern Egypt, but a gas foreigner like any other occupier of the land of Egypt, starting with the Persians in 525 BC.M. The arguments of the owners of this opinion are represented by several points, including that Muhammad Ali did not speak Arabic or make it the official language at his court, but replaced it with Turkish, and he exploited Egypt's wealth and human resources to achieve his ends, and not to achieve the interests of the country and its people, and he burdened Egyptians with taxes, forced labor and forced conscription. One of the most prominent topics that make some people wary of the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha is the story of his intention to demolish the Great Pyramid and use its huge stones to build new aqueducts at the head of the Nile Delta in the Shalqan area, which later became the charity aqueducts, which he backed off after the French engineer Linan de bellefon convinced him of their uselessness. In general, the above-mentioned view is considered the least accepted view by historians, especially the Arabs.
