Ismail Bey

This article is about an Egyptian Mamluk ruler of the 18th century. For the 19th century Crimean Tatar intellectual, sometimes also referred to as Ismail Bey , see İsmail Gasprinski .

A Mamluken-Bey (anno 1779)

Ismāʿīl Bey (* around 1735; † in March 1791 in Cairo , Egypt , then Ottoman Empire ), called Ismail Bey al-Kabir ("the great"), was an emir of the Mamluks and regent of Egypt.

Allawia

Ismail Bey was probably of Georgian descent and, like his master Ali Bey, initially belonged to the Mamluks of Ibrāhīm Katḫodā al-Qāzadoglu. After Ibrahim's death (1754) he was involved in succession battles and initially became Ali Bey's treasurer. After Ali's takeover (1766), Ismail was promoted to Bey, while Ali Bey's son-in-law (according to other sources, brother-in-law or adopted son) Muhammad Bey Abu Dahab became the new treasurer.

Ali Bey had risen to become the sultan of Egypt, who was independent of the Ottoman Sublime Porte , in 1768 . The Bedouins of Lower Egypt, incited by the Ottomans, defeated Ismail Bey in 1768, the revolting Hawwara Arabs of Upper Egypt in 1769 Abu Dahab. When Ali Bey had sent Abu Dahab across the Red Sea to subjugate Jeddah and Mecca in 1770, Ismail Bey advanced by land to Jeddah and subjugated the coastal towns and ports of the Hejaz.

After Ali Bey had sent Abu Dahab to conquer Syria in 1771, he was betrayed by Abu Dahab in 1772. Ismail was sent by Ali to stop Abu Dahab, who was marching on Cairo, but had to submit to the superior force of the enemy. There are different traditions and opinions as to whether Ismail Bey remained loyal to Ali Bey to the end or as long as possible, or whether he betrayed him to Abu Dahab. Ali Bey fled to Palestine and was beaten and killed by Abu Dahab on his return in 1773.

First and second reigns

Main opponent: Murad Bey tried to poison Ismail in 1777 and expelled him from Cairo in 1778. After Ismail's death in 1791, he appropriated his villa.

After Abu Dahab's death, his Mamluken faction, the Muhammadija , initially fell out, while the former Mamluken Ali Beys, the Allawija faction, rallied around Ismail Bey. Taking advantage of rivalries between the Muhammadija emirs Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey , Ismail Bey tried, with the help of the Emir Yussuf Bey and the support of the Porte, to utter the office of the supreme Mamluk Emir ( Sheikh al-Balad ), but was ousted by Murad and Ibrahim . Murad even tried in 1777 to get rid of the dangerous competitor by poisoning Ismail; however, the attempted murder failed and outraged other Mamluk leaders; Murad and Ibrahim had to flee from Cairo to Upper Egypt in August 1777.

Even with the Ottoman blessing, Ismail was initially only able to assert himself as Sheikh al-Balad for six months until February 1778 and only in Lower Egypt and Cairo. The Allawija units under Abd ar-Rahman Bey, sent by him to persecute Murad and Ibrahim in Upper Egypt , fell away from him, ran over to the Muhammadija Duumvirn and returned to Cairo with them. This time it was Ismail who had to flee to Upper Egypt with his remaining followers. However, the alliance between Muhammadija and Allawija broke up after a few days, and Abd ar-Rahman Bey and his followers were killed or wiped out in street fighting in Cairo.

Ismail Bey fled from Upper Egypt to Istanbul, but returned briefly to Upper Egypt via Tripoli in 1781 to instigate an unsuccessful uprising against Murad and Ibrahim. Beaten by Murad, he had to withdraw to Nubia in 1782 and went into exile in Istanbul.

Third reign

Ally: The Turkish admiral Hassan Pasha brought Ismail Bey back to power in 1786

After Ibrahim and Murad stopped paying tribute to Istanbul, repeatedly deposed Ottoman pashas (governors) and sent them back to Istanbul, and also did not pay any taxes for the pilgrimage, the Ottoman Porte was determined to bring Egypt back under its direct control by 1786 at the latest . With the help of Turkish troops and naval units under Cezayirli Gazi Hassan Pasha (and with the help of Ibrahim Bey's renegade deputy Ali Bey ad-Defterdar) Ismail returned to Cairo and was reinstated as Sheikh al-Balad by the Ottoman Sultan (although Ali Bey ad -D. Had hoped for this office). But again Ismail ruled only Lower Egypt and Cairo, Murad and Ibrahim continued the fight against Ismail and the Turks from Upper Egypt. Turkish expeditions sent against them were initially successful, but were soon pushed back. Instead of the governorship offered to them by the Turks over the provinces of Esna (for Murad) and Qina (for Ibrahim), Murad and Ibrahim gradually recaptured all cities south of Girga .

The Russo-Austrian Turkish War, which broke out in 1787, complicated Ismail's situation, Hassan Pascha and the Ottoman-Turkish troops were needed on the Russian front. To compensate for the imminent withdrawal of the Turks, Ismail asked the consul of France, traditionally allied with the Ottoman Empire, to send French officers and training units in 1789, but the outbreak of the French Revolution prevented this.

It was not so much the withdrawal of the Turks as the plague that caused Ismail's regime to collapse from 1790 onwards. When Ismail also died of the plague in March 1791, hunger riots and renewed street fights were raging in Cairo and Alexandria, as a result of which Murad and Ibrahim returned.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kadir I. Natho: Circassian history , page 169. Xlibris 2009
2. ↑ Lusignian, page 81
3. ^ Bidwell, 205
4. ^ Andrew Kippis: The New Annual Register or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature , Volume 7, p. 41. London 1787

literature

• ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Ǧabartī, Arnold Hottinger (translator): Bonaparte in Egypt - From the chronicles of ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Ǧabartī. Piper, Munich 1989, pages 58-71
• Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History. London / New York 1998, pages 205 and 286f.
• MW Daly, Carl F. Petry: The Cambridge History of Egypt. Volume 2, Cambridge 1998, pages 79-85

Web link

• Sauveur Lusignan: A history of the Revolution of Ali Bey against the Ottoman Porte . London 1783