Muhammad Bey Abu Dahab

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

Muḥammad Bey Abū Ḏahab , also abbreviated Abū Ḏahab , (* 1735 ; † 1775 in Akkon , then Ottoman Empire ), was a Mamluk leader who served from 1772 to 1775 as the executive Ottoman governor ( kaymakam ) and as the leader of the Mamluks ( shaikh al -balad ), effectively ruled Egypt.

Betrayal of Ali Bey

Egypt and Syria during the Ali Bey and Abu Dahab campaigns

Originally a Circassian from the North Caucasus or Abkhazia , Muhammad was given away as a Mamluk by a Jewish trader around 1760 to Ali Bey , a Mamluk leader in Egypt, who made him his treasurer ( khazandar ). In 1764 Ali Bey released him and made him a Bey . Since then, Muhammad was nicknamed Abū Ḏahab ( father of gold ). In 1766 he married Ali's sister Jahud. In a short time Abu Dahab bought more Mamluks and slaves than any emir before and thus increased the number of Mamluks considerably.

During the Russo-Turkish War , Ali Bey rebelled against the Ottoman rule in Egypt from 1768 and allied with the Palestinian emir Dhaher al-Omar . On Ali Bey's order, Abu Dahab first defeated the Hawwarah Bedouins of Upper Egypt, incited against Ali by the Ottomans, in 1769, and in 1770 he invaded the Hejaz and subjugated Mecca. In Syria he briefly conquered Jaffa, Jerusalem and Damascus on Ali Bey's order in 1771.

In Damascus, however, Abu Dahab made secret agreements with the Turks, evacuated the city and instead moved against Egypt in 1772. Via Gaza and Suez he first moved along the coast of the Red Sea and then through the desert to Assiut in Upper Egypt. Ali Bey tried in vain to banish him to Upper Egypt. Allied with those Upper Egyptian Bedouins, whom he had fought barely three years earlier, Abu Dahab then marched against Cairo and was able to convince numerous Mamluks to switch to his side. The capitulation of Ismail Bey sent against Abu Dahab finally forced Ali Bey to flee Cairo. After Ali's escape, Abu Dahab expanded his position of power as Sheikh al-Balad , while Ali Bey defeated the Turks again in Syria with the help of Dhaher al-Omar. Fake secret messages about alleged dissatisfaction of some emirs with Abu Dahab led Ali Bey to turn back with his army and move from Syria to Egypt in order to regain his power. At a73-Ṣāliḥīja (near Cairo), however, Ali Bey was ambushed in 1773 in Abu Dahab, was beaten, wounded, taken prisoner and died a few days later in a Cairo dungeon. The execution ordered by the Ottoman Sultan was carried out on his body. Contrary to the sultan's orders, however, Abu Dahab did not send Ali's head to Istanbul and arranged for a proper burial.

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  For his patron Ali Bey , Abu Dahab initially waged war against the Ottomans, but in 1772 he betrayed him

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  Together with Ali Bey, Abu Dahab first fought on the side of Emir Dhaher al-Umar , and in 1774 he moved against him

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  After the victory over Dhaher al-Umar, Abu Dahab hoped for Sultan Abdülhamid I to become governor in 1775

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  After Abu Dahab's death, his followers Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey shared power in Egypt

Ruler of Egypt and Syria

Abu Dahab ensured the loyalty of the other emirs through bribery and the award of profitable offices and led the re-strengthened Mamluk rule in Egypt to new power without breaking formally with the Ottomans. At the urging of the Ottomans, he finally moved against Ali Bey's former ally Dhaher al-Omar in 1774, whose uprising against the Ottomans was still going on. In Egypt he left Ismail Bey and his brother-in-law Ibrahim Bey (married to Abu Dahab's sister) as deputies and to guard the Ottoman governor. Before leaving, he had a new mosque built in the immediate vicinity of Azhar University , which is still called the Abu Dahab Mosque today.

Abu Dahab advanced into Jaffa via Gaza, took the city by storm, had it plundered and enslaved or killed all residents regardless of whether they were Muslims, Christians or Jews, sheriffs, scholars or bazaar traders. At least that is what the Egyptian chronicler al-Ǧabartī (1754–1829) reported, although he also confirmed that he was not to blame for any other shameful act against religion (Islam). Then Abu Dahab moved against Akkon, which Dhaher al-Omar evacuated without a fight. After these successes, he asked the Ottoman sultan not only to govern Egypt but also to Syria and sent rich gifts to Istanbul as a token of his devotion. In fact, according to al-Ǧabartī, the Sultan is said to have already agreed, but when Abu Dahab suddenly fell ill with the plague in Acre and died shortly afterwards, the documents of institution that had already been signed were withheld in Istanbul.

Al-Ǧabartī and Lusignian indicated, at least indirectly, that Abu Dahab's sudden death could have another connection. Lusignian reported that Abu Dahab went to bed safe that evening but was dead the next morning. Al-Ǧabartī pointed out that "the day before this happened to him" (that is, he was struck by the plague), Abu Dahab had reassigned and declared new offices and government posts in Syria to his entourage eager to return to Egypt that they would not return. His entourage was very sad and thoughtful, but after his sudden death they immediately decided to return.

Muhammadija

Abu Dahab's military deputy and commander of his cavalry, the Emir Murad Bey , returned the troops and Abu Dahab's body to Egypt. In Cairo from then on he shared the reign with Ibrahim Bey. Muhammad Bey Abu Dahab's former Mamluks were referred to as Muhammadija (or Abu Dahab faction), under Murad and Ibrahim's leadership they prevailed in the power struggles that broke out from 1776 against the Allawija (Ali Bey faction) under Ismail Bey.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Lusignan, page 79f
2. ^ Andrew Kippis: The New Annual Register or General Repository of History, Politics and Literature , Volume 7, p. 37. London 1787
3. ^ Encyclopaedia of Islam : Abū l-Dhahab, Muḥammad Bey

literature

• 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.
• ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Ǧabartī, Arnold Hottinger (translator): Bonaparte in Egypt - From the chronicles of ʿAbdarraḥmān al-Ǧabartī , pages 46–58 and 332f. Piper, Munich 1989
• Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , 24-24. London / New York 1998
• Arthur Goldschmidt jr .: Historical Dictionary of Egypt , page 29f. Lanham 2013

Web links

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