Ali Bey al-Kabir

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Ali Bey after a drawing by Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel from 1773

ʿAlī Bey Bulut Kapan ( the cloud catcher ), known as Alī Bey al-Kabir ( the great ) (* 1728 in Abkhazia ; † May 8, 1773 near Cairo , Egypt ) was a Mamluk leader in Egypt who opposed from 1769 to 1772 the Ottoman supremacy rebelled.

Ascent

Ali Bey was born in the Caucasus in 1728 and given away as Mamluk to Ibrahim Katchuda in 1743 , the leader of the Mamluk household ( bayt ) of the Kazdughliyya and from 1744 to 1754 Sheikh al-Balad of Cairo (highest office in the Egyptian Beylikat). After his military training and release, Ali became district governor (kaschif) in 1749 . For the Hajj season of 1753/1754 he was appointed commander of the pilgrim caravan (amir al-hadj) . He was nicknamed Bulut Kapan because of his performance in warding off Bedouin attacks . He was then raised to bey . Ali Bey joined Abd al-Rahman Katchuda when he overthrew Ali Bey al-Ghazzawi , who had been Sheikh al-Balad since 1757, in 1760 . Ali Bey received the title of Sheikh al-Balad, but the highest authority was exercised by Abd al-Rahman. From 1763, Ali Bey began to expand his power over rival Mameluks and the Ottoman central government, forcing Abd al-Rahman into exile in 1765. In 1766 he was replaced by Chalil Bey by the Ottoman governor of Egypt, Hamzah Pascha , and withdrew to Syria with his supporters. In 1767 Ali Bey expelled Chalil Bey from Cairo and was then reinstated as Sheikh al-Balad by the new Ottoman governor Mehmed Raqim Pasha .

Ruler of Egypt

Egypt and Syria during the Ali Bey and Abu Dahab campaigns
Silver coin minted by Ali Bey in 1769. The front (left) shows the tughra of the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa III. In addition to the minting location ('minted in Egypt'), the reverse indicates the minting year according to the Islamic calendar ('1183') instead of the year the Sultan came to power as usual .

At the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War which demanded Ottoman -Turkish Porte Ali Bey initially sending a 12,000-strong relief corps. At the same time, however, she began to fear Ali's abundance of power as well as the possibility that he could ally himself behind her back with enemies of the empire (Russia, Venice, Emir Beim) and use the auxiliary corps against them. After an attempt to have him stabbed or poisoned by Turkish agents was uncovered, Turkish agents incited the Hawwarah Bedouins, who settled in Upper Egypt between Aswan and Asiut, to revolt.

After the pacification of the country through the subjugation of the Upper Egyptian Bedouins, Ali Bey declared Egypt independent in 1768 or 1769 and expelled the Ottoman governor of the country. Chroniclers told Ali Bey that from then on he wanted to rebuild the Mamluk empire that had been conquered by the Turks two and a half centuries earlier. In May 1770 Ali Bey had his brother-in-law (husband of Ali's sister Jahud) Muhammad Bey move Abu Dahab against Mecca to install Abdullah bin Hussein as Emir of Mecca (1770–1773). Meanwhile, Hasan Bey al-Jeddawi was sent out with a fleet with the order to occupy Jeddah . At the same time he had sent Ismail Bey by land through the Hejaz to Jeddah. In August 1770 the campaign was successfully concluded.

Sauveur Lusignan, Ali Bey's biographer and for some time his companion, claims that Ali had the new Sherif of Mecca proclaim him Sultan of Egypt and the Two Seas in return for his support , which would have amounted to a declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire. There is no evidence for this or for the claim that the Sherif of Mecca recognized Ali Bey as the overlord.

Campaign to Syria

Ali Bei in the Brockhaus from 1851, where the adopted son Mohammed Bei (Muhammad Bey) and son-in-law Abu Da (h) are mistakenly mistaken for different people

During the Russo-Turkish War , Ali Bey allied himself with the Palestinian Emir, who had been rebelling against the Porte for a long time, and Russia . On Ali's behalf, Abu Dahab conquered large parts of Palestine , Lebanon and Syria from Gaza, Jaffa and Acre from 1770 onwards . In the meantime, even Jerusalem and Damascus had to submit.

In Damascus, however, Abu Dahab made secret deals with the Ottomans, evacuated the city and instead moved against Egypt. Ali Bey tried in vain to banish him to Upper Egypt. Allied with Upper Egyptian Bedouins, Abu Dahab marched against Cairo and was able to convince numerous Mamluks to switch to his side. Ismail Bey sent by Ali against Abu Dahab also submitted to the superior opponent. Ali Bey fled from Cairo to Dhaher al-Omar in Acre. In Syria he defeated the Turks in 1772 and conquered Tire, Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli and Antiocha or Nablus, Ramla and, after a long siege, finally Jaffa.

On his campaign to return to Egypt, Ali Bey was beaten, wounded, captured and succumbed to his injuries in April 1773 at aṣ-Ṣāliḥīja (near Cairo in the governorate of Ash-Sharqiyya ). The execution ordered by the Ottoman Sultan was carried out on his body. Contrary to the orders of the Sultan, however, Abu Dahab did not send Ali's head to Istanbul and ordered a proper burial.

Allawia

After Ali's death, his Mamluken faction, the Alawija , was led by Abd ar-Rahman Bey or Ismail Bey , of whom Ismail in turn allied with the Ottomans, whereupon the Alawija fell away from him in 1778. Ali's widow, Sitt Nafisa, was forced to marry Murad Bey , who eventually prevailed against Ismail Bey along with Ibrahim Bey .

literature

Contemporary representations

  • ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Ǧabartī, Arnold Hottinger (translator): Bonaparte in Egypt - From the chronicles of ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Ǧabartī , pages 46–64. Piper, Munich 1989

Overview literature

  • Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 2 (The Arabs in the fight against Ottoman despotism and European colonial conquest), page 306. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1975
  • Barbara Kellner-Heinkele: The Arab East under Ottoman rule (1517-1800) , page 342ff. In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . Beck, Munich 1994
  • Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , 24-24. London / New York 1998

Scientific studies

  • Daniel Crecelius: The Roots of Modern Egypt: A Study of the Regimes of `Ali Bey al-Kabir and Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, 1760-1775 . Bibliotheca Islamica, 1982.
  • John Williams Livingston: The Rise of Shaykh al-Balad 'Alī Bey al-Kabīr: A Study in the Accuracy of the Chronicle of al-Jabartī . In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 33, No. 2 (1970), pp. 283-294.
  • John Williams Livingston: Ali Bey Al-Kabīr and the Mamluk Resurgence in Ottoman Egypt, 1760-1772. Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1968.
  • Samuel Lachman: The coins struck by Ali Bey in Egypt . In: Numismatic Circular Vol. 83, no. 5 (May, 1975), p. 198-201; Vol. 83, no. 9 (Sept. 1975), p. 336-338.
  • PM Holt: The "Cloud Catcher": Ali Bey the Great of Egypt . In: History Today, IX (1959), pp. 48-58.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Crecelius: The Roots of Modern Egypt: A Study of the Regimes of `Ali Bey al-Kabir and Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, 1760-1775 . Bibliotheca Islamica, 1982. p. 73.
personal data
SURNAME Ali Bey al-Kabir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ali Beg; Ali Bek; Ali Bei, Ali Bey al-Kabir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mamluken-Emir, Bey in Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH 1728
PLACE OF BIRTH Abkhazia , Caucasus
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1773
Place of death Cairo , Egypt