Muhammad Ali Pasha

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Muhammad Ali Pascha, painting by Auguste Couder from 1871

Muhammad Ali Pascha , also Mehmed Ali Pascha ( Ottoman محمد علی پاشا Meḥemmed ʿAlī Pāšā , Turkish Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Paşa ; born around 1770 in Kavala ; died on August 2, 1849 in Alexandria ), was governor of the Ottoman province of Egypt ( Eyalet-i Mısır ) from 1805 to 1848 , but ruled relatively independently of the central government. He was the founder of the dynasty that ruled Egypt until 1953 .

Life

Origin and early years

There are few reliable facts about Muhammad Ali's origins and life before his time in Egypt. The anecdotes that Muhammad Ali uttered to European visitors about this time of his life and that were reproduced in contemporary representations served for his self-presentation and are therefore not credible.

Muhammad Ali's birthplace in Kavala

Muhammad Ali was born to Ibrahim Agha (died 1791/92) and Zeyneb Hatun (died 1795/96) around 1770 in the port city of Kavala. He later set the date of his birth to be 1769. His ethnic affiliation has not yet been established with certainty. It is often claimed that he is of Albanian ancestry and that his family originally lived in Korca, Albania. According to a family legend, Muhammad Ali's family on his father's side come from İliç in Anatolia and are of Kurdish origin. His great-grandfather Ibrahim Agha is said to have settled in Kavala together with Muhammad Ali's grandfather Uthman Agha around 1700. Muhammad Ali's mother was born in Nusretli (today's Nikiforos near Drama ) and was the sister of Hussein Agha, governor ( Ayan or Çorbacı ) of the Kavala district. His father Ibrahim Agha was the commander of a local irregular military unit and traded in tobacco on the side.

Muhammad Ali did not receive any formal education. He learned to read and write in the middle of his life. Like his father, he became an irregular soldier and was involved in the tobacco trade. In 1787 he married Amina (1770-1823), his widowed cousin on his mother's side, and lived with her for a while in Nusretli.

Relationships between the direct ancestors of Muhammad Ali and his wife Amina

In 1801 the Ottoman Empire put together an army to liberate Egypt (→ Egyptian Expedition ), which was conquered by Napoléon in 1798 . Kavala provided a contingent of around 300 men for this purpose. His brother-in-law and cousin Ali Agha was appointed commander, and Muhammad Ali became his deputy. The contingent was assigned to a corps of Albanian bashi bosuks . Together with British and regular Ottoman troops, the army sailed towards Egypt. During the journey, Ali Agha returned to Kavala and transferred the command of the contingent from Kavala to Muhammad Ali. The troops landed at Abukir on March 8, 1801 . United with the Ottoman army , which invaded Egypt by land through Syria, Cairo was conquered on June 27th and the French were persuaded to withdraw.

Power struggle

After the liberation of Egypt , a power struggle broke out there, originally based on the conflict between the Ottoman central government and the Mamlukes , who had had great influence in the province before the French invasion. Due to years of conflict with the French and plagued by plague epidemics, the Mamlucken were numerically weakened. The Ottoman central government wanted to use this situation to bring Egypt back under direct control and to eliminate the Mamlucken as a power factor. The main part of the Ottoman invasion army gradually withdrew from Egypt, so that from February 1802 the Ottoman governor Hüsrev Pascha only had a small garrison of Janissaries and the corps of Albanian auxiliary troops led by Tahir Pasha to fight the Mamlucken .

Muhammad Ali rose quickly and was Tahir's deputy by the end of 1801. On April 29, 1803, Tahir Pascha and most of his corps mutinied against Hüsrev Pascha because of the lack of pay and they drove him from Cairo . Tahir took over the office of governor ( kaymakam ) as long as the Ottoman central government did not appoint a new governor, but was murdered by Janissaries a month later because he was also unable to pay their wages. With Tahir's death, Muhammad Ali became the commander of the Albanian corps, allied with the Mamlucken leader Uthman Bey al-Bardisi, and together they exercised supreme power in Cairo. On February 27, 1804, another revolt broke out among the troops in Cairo because of the lack of pay payments, whereupon Bardisi was forced to collect high taxes from the population, which led to a revolt on March 7, 1804 . Muhammad Ali sided with the people and drove the Mamlukes out of Cairo.

The Ottoman central government appointed Hursid Pasha as governor of Egypt and Muhammad Ali as governor of Jeddah , which gave him the title of pasha . But Hurşid Pasha also drew the displeasure of the population by levying taxes on his troops. After Hursid Pasha had rejected their conditions the day before, the Cairo ulema , led by Umar Makram , elected Muhammad Ali as governor on May 13, 1805. Hursid Pasha refused to give up his office and barricaded himself in the citadel of Cairo , the official seat of the governor of Egypt. On July 9, a Ferman (ratified on June 18, 1805) reached Cairo, in which Muhammad Ali was officially appointed Ottoman governor of Egypt. After Hursid Pasha was informed of this, he left Egypt.

In 1807, in alliance with the Mamlukes, he defeated the British army and forced them to withdraw from Egypt (see Alexandria expedition ). Muhammad Ali saw the Mamlucken as a potential threat to his power and as an obstacle to building a modern army. On March 1, 1811, he ordered his Albanian troops to massacre the Mamluk families. Around 1,000 members of this military elite were killed. He motivated his Albanian soldiers by allowing the Mamluck houses to be looted and their wives to be raped. His son Ibrahim Pascha broke the remaining power of the Mamlukes with a campaign to Upper Egypt in 1812.

Ruler of Egypt

He then tried to subject his Albanian troops to the discipline of a modern army. The attempt failed and culminated in an unsuccessful murder plot by Albanian soldiers against their commander. Later in his reign he sent the Albanian troops to the Arab theater of war against Wahhabi rebels (see Ottoman-Saudi War ). He consciously accepted that the majority of the men would not return. With the help of a new, European-trained leadership class, Muhammad Ali Pascha began building a modern administration and promoting the economy by establishing export-oriented industries. For this purpose, he commissioned embassies from the 1820s to acquire the necessary technical and scientific skills in Europe and to apply them profitably in their homeland. The innovation boost that this triggered was considerable and is denoted by the Arabic term nahda .

In the countryside, Muhammad Ali abolished the privileges of the feudal lords and enforced the taxation of land owned by Islamic foundations. He also tried to extend the cultivable area through irrigation. In 1820 the Mahmudiya Canal, named after the Ottoman Sultan, was completed. The canal connected Alexandria with the Nile Delta . For the three-year construction of the project, Muhammad Ali had up to 300,000 farmers conscripted as workers. He also tried to build up his own industry in the province of Egypt through protective tariffs and state investments. The state revenues of his sphere of influence increased from the beginning of his rule to 1821 by more than fivefold.

Even if the attempt to industrialize the country and implement land reform were not as successful as expected, a new middle class was emerging in the cotton industry and trade . The lack of success is due not least to the interventions of European powers.

With the newly established and - in the French style - by the French Colonel Sève (Suleiman Pasha) trained Egyptian army which were commissioned by the Ottoman sultan Wahhabis in Ottoman-Saudi war trounced. For the services he acquired, Muhammad Ali Pasha was enfeoffed by the Sultan with the island of Thasos in 1813 , where he introduced numerous administrative reforms.

His troops advanced south along the Nile . In 1821 the Sultanate of Sannar was conquered by Egyptian troops led by Ismael Kamil Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali. Khartoum was founded and ruled the country as the Turkish-Egyptian Sudan .

Egypt under Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was able to bring the country under his control, but the main goal of the conquest, namely the procurement of slaves as soldiers for his army, he could not achieve satisfactorily. Around 20,000 men were captured by his soldiers and taken to Egypt as slaves. But only around 3,000 of them survived the grueling journey and later served in the Pasha's army. The soldiers of the Pasha suffered badly under these conditions; Thousands fell victim to epidemics due to a lack of nutrition, hygiene and medical care.

During the Greek Revolution , after three unsuccessful campaigns , the Ottoman Sultan Mahmut II was forced to summon Muhammad Ali for his support. In 1824 he was appointed governor of Morea by the Sultan . The disciplined Egyptian army, supported by a well-organized fleet, quickly achieved what the Turks had failed. By 1826, the Greeks were practically subjugated on land, and Ibrahim Pasha was preparing to conquer the Greek islands.

In 1824, the army succeeded in suppressing a peasant uprising led by an Islamic scholar . Around 4,000 people fell victim to the fighting and reprisals. Muhammad Ali also executed forty-five officers whose men deserted to the rebels.

However, when a British-French fleet intervened in the Battle of Navarino , the Ottoman Empire had to give Greece independence in 1830.

Muhammad Ali offered the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II to subjugate the troubled province of Syria . In return, he wanted to be installed as governor in Syria. After the sultan refused to do so, Egyptian troops under Ibrahim Pasha occupied Palestine and Syria in 1831 . On May 27, 1832 they stormed Acre and on June 18 Damascus . The Egyptian troops advanced to Anatolia after victories over the Ottomans at Homs (July 7th) and Konya (December 1832) . On April 8, 1833, the Treaty of Kütajeh was signed and Muhammad Ali's rule over Syria was recognized for the time being. In 1838 the Ottoman Empire felt strong enough to resume fighting against the Egyptian troops under Ibrahim Pasha in Syria. However, the Egyptian troops defeated the Ottoman army under Hafiz Pasha in the battle of Nizip on June 24, 1839. Only after the intervention of Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria (1840) was Muhammad Ali Pasha forced to evacuate Syria and Palestine in 1841 ( Orient crisis ). He also had to open Egypt to the European economy, which hindered the development of its own industry. The Ottomans, however, had to recognize Muhammad Ali Pasha as a hereditary wali in Egypt.

In 1848, the seriously ill Muhammad Ali handed over rule to his son Ibrahim, the conqueror of Syria. He died in the same year, so that Muhammad Ali formally took power again. After his death, Prince Abbas I , the son of Ahmad Tusun, who died in 1816, succeeded him as the hereditary Wali of Egypt. After this, Muhammad Ali's son Mehmet Sa'id ascended the throne.

In Cairo he left behind the Muhammad Ali Mosque, which was built from 1824 to 1884 .

progeny

Muhammad Ali Pascha, David Wilkie (1841).

Muhammad Ali had a total of 17 sons and 13 daughters. Only seven sons and three daughters reached adulthood. Of these, three sons and one daughter survived their father. With his first wife Amine (born 1770 - died 1823), whom he married in Kavala in 1787 , he had a. a. the following children:

Muhammad Ali kept concubines and slaves. From the relationships with them arise u. a. the following children:

  • Abd al-Halim (1797-1818)
  • Zeyneb (I) (1799 - August 1821); married to Ahmad Pascha abu Widan (officer and 1838–43 governor of the Sudan provinces)
  • Muhammad Said (March 17, 1822 - January 18, 1863); 1854–1863 governor of Egypt
  • Husain (1825 - April 1847)
  • Zeyneb (IV) (October 12, 1825 - April 11, 1882); married to Yusuf Kamil Pasha (1863 Ottoman Grand Vizier)
  • Muhammad Abd al-Halim (March 25, 1830 - June 4, 1894); 1855–1856 Governor of the Sudan provinces and father of Said Halim Pasha (1913–17 Ottoman Grand Vizier)
  • Muhammad Ali (March 3, 1833 - June 27, 1861)

Muhammad Ali married some of his concubines and slaves, but these marriages remained childless.

literature

Web links

Commons : Muhammad Ali Pascha  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

swell

  1. ^ Khaled Fahmy: All The Pasha's Men - Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt. Cairo / New York 1997, pp. 1-9.
  2. ↑ Khaled Fahmy: Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt . Oxford 2008, pp. 5-6.
  3. ↑ Hamilton Gibb: The Encyclopaedia of Islam . Brill, 1954, p. 266.
  4. ^ Machiel Kiel: Ottoman architecture in Albania, 1385-1912 . Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture, 1990.
  5. ↑ Khaled Fahmy: Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt . Oxford 2008, pp. 2-5.
  6. ^ Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot: Egypt in the reign of Muhammad Ali . Cambridge 1984, pp. 24-25.
  7. ↑ a b c Immanuel Wallerstein: Unthinking Social Science , London 1991, p. 14 and Ismail Küpeli: What went wrong with the “Fall of the Orient”? Munich 2006, p. 9
  8. ^ Khaled Fahmy: All The Pasha's Men - Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt . Cairo / New York 1997, pp. 82-84
  9. ^ Khaled Fahmy: All The Pasha's Men - Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt . Cairo / New York 1997, pp. 84-86
  10. ↑ See for the preceding Lukas Wick: Islam und Verfassungsstaat . Ergon-Verlag Würzburg, 2009, p. 55
  11. ^ Khaled Fahmy: All The Pasha's Men - Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt . Kairo / New York 1997, pp. 9-11, p. 72
  12. ↑ Khaled Fahmy: All The Pasha's Men - Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt , Cairo, New York, 1997 pp. 86-89; P. 211
  13. ^ Khaled Fahmy: All The Pasha's Men - Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt . Cairo / New York 1997, p. 94 ff.
  14. ^ Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot: Egypt in the reign of Muhammad Ali. Cambridge 1984. pp. 27-28.
  15. ^ Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot: Egypt in the reign of Muhammad Ali. Cambridge 1984. p. 80.
predecessor Office successor
Hursid Pasha Wali of Egypt
1805–1848 		Ibrahim Pasha
personal data
SURNAME Muhammad Ali Pasha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES محمد علی پاشا (Ottoman); Mohammed Ali Pasha; Mehmet Ali Pasha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wali of Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH around 1770
PLACE OF BIRTH Kavala
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1849
Place of death Alexandria