On the 70th anniversary of the fall of the House of Mohamed Ali, this is the
first of a series on the making and unmaking of Egypt’s former royal family.
اضافة اعلان
Mohamed Ali was
not the first ruler of Egypt to attempt to extract the country from the Middle
Ages and usher it into modernity. At the end of the 18th century, several of
the last Mamelukes who had previously ruled the country, most notably Ali Bek
Al-Kebir, had spearheaded notable changes. But Mohamed Ali was the founder of
modern Egypt.
He was the first
ruler of the country in over four centuries not to be appointed by an Ottoman
sultan. The withdrawal of France from Egypt in 1801 after its three-year
campaign in the country had proven a failure that created a power vacuum in the
country. It also stirred frustrations and aspirations.
The ease with
which French General Napoleon Bonaparte and his army had managed to conquer
Egypt at the end of the 18th century had revealed the shocking differences in
development between Egypt (and with it the rest of the East) and France (and
with it the West). This was a key reason why many Egyptian notables – sheikhs
from Al-Azhar, traditionally Sunni Islam’s most revered seat of learning, as
well as wealthy Cairene and Alexandrian merchants – wanted a complete overhaul
of how the country was ruled.
Mohamed Ali was
their choice to fill the vacuum. This mid-ranking officer in the Ottoman army
had built a reputation during the years of the French campaign as smart, pious,
and concerned about the future of the country. This was certainly at least in
part an act. In fact, he had ambitions to take over Egypt, and so he positioned
himself smartly, cultivated connections, and bided his time.
The Egyptian
notables effectively forced the Ottoman sultan’s hand into accepting Mohamed
Ali as his viceroy in the country. For many, particularly in Istanbul, Mohamed
Ali was a surprising choice. But the real surprise was that the Egyptians had
had a choice of ruler at all. It was the first time in many centuries that the
Egyptians had had any say in who was to govern them.
Mohamed Ali was
also the first non-Mameluke in over five centuries to rule Egypt. It is true
that since the Ottoman conquest of the country in the early 16th century, there
had always been an Ottoman ruler in Cairo. But he had almost always been a
figurehead, with real power residing with the country’s senior Mamelukes.
Mohamed Ali ended
that situation first by cutting all the trappings that had connected Egypt with
the Ottoman Empire and second by cutting off the heads of the most senior
Mamelukes in a meticulously executed massacre that followed a sumptuously
prepared dinner at the Cairo Citadel.
Eliminating the
Mamelukes was the first step in a determined and ruthless campaign. Following
the Mamelukes came the turn of the most important notables who had campaigned
and lobbied to put Mohamed Ali on the throne. Some of them were imprisoned,
some disappeared, others got the message and retreated from public life.
After the
Mamelukes and the notables came the land. Mohamed Ali confiscated the entirety
of Egypt’s land, including the religious endowments traditionally managed by
Al-Azhar. This effectively made him the sole landowner in Egypt at a time when
landownership was the only determinant and reservoir of wealth.
Sole and supreme
ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali then began to create the country he had envisioned.
He started with the armed forces, where the changes were not merely in
armaments, personnel, and logistics, but primarily in meaning. While serving in
the Ottoman garrison in Egypt, Mohamed Ali had observed the French army and
understood that modern armies were not merely fighting forces. Instead, they
were elaborate organizations under sophisticated command structures drawing on
agrarian and industrial production systems.
This understanding
ushered in the beginning of modern industry in Egypt. Factories producing
weapons, clothing, and vehicles, among other military requirements, were built
in the first few decades of the 19th century.
Mohamed Ali, an Ottoman by upbringing, experience, and way of life, mixed his immense ambition to create a dynasty of his own with his desire to fashion a modern, strong, and developed state anchored on Ottoman culture.
Villages and later
towns appeared around these factories. A new irrigation system was introduced,
and within a decade tens of thousands of acres had been added to Egypt’s
cultivated land. The new towns, the irrigation network, and the expansion of
cultivated land transformed the Nile Delta, perhaps more than any previous wave
of change had done since the settling of the Arabs in the area almost 13
centuries earlier.
At the beginning
of his reign, Mohamed Ali relied on the French officers, engineers, and
advisers who had stayed in Egypt after the French army had left. But as his
changes gained momentum and modern Egypt began to take shape, he increasingly
poached talented administrators from different European capitals as well as
from the Ottoman court. An elaborate, largely Turkic and Circassian, but also
international, power structure began to take shape round Mohamed Ali.
Here was the
essence of the Pasha’s project: the modern state that he built was in Egypt,
but it was not Egyptian. Mohamed Ali, an Ottoman by upbringing, experience, and
way of life, mixed his immense ambition to create a dynasty of his own with his
desire to fashion a modern, strong, and developed state anchored on Ottoman
culture.
Years later, when
the army led by his son, Ibrahim, was on the verge of entering Istanbul and
vanquishing the Ottomans, Mohamed Ali was aiming not at destroying the Ottoman
Empire as at taking it over, modernizing it, and bringing its various provinces
under his family’s control.
Mohamed Ali’s
project had given rise to modern Egypt; at heart, however, there was very
little of and about Egypt that was in the Pasha’s project. This was a reason
why Mohamed Ali never worried about the notion of legitimacy or the consent of
the Egyptian people.
The Pasha held
unflattering views of the Egyptians. Although he was the first to institute
programs to send promising young Egyptians to Europe to be educated (primarily
in science), his governing structure remained until the very end of his reign
in the mid-19th century largely devoid of Egyptian people.
Mohamed Ali’s
state was Egyptian by name, but its rulers, managers, and the thinking and culture
that shaped it were detached from the heritage of the land that Mohamed Ali had
come to control and upon which he built his state.
Mohamed Ali died
peacefully, having spent the last years of his life between two of his most
charming, yet far from most opulent, palaces in Cairo and Alexandria. In his
last years, he became increasingly detached, and according to some telling
stories, his mind was past its prime. But his reputation as by far the most
successful ruler the Mediterranean had seen in the first half of the 19th
century was all but secured for eternity.
In one of the
most-penetrating portraits of the pasha a few years before his death by Belgian
painter Jean-Francois Portaels, Mohamed Ali exudes the confidence of a man who
had transformed a backwater Ottoman colony into a strong modern state,
unrivalled in the East.
He remains a rare
example in Egyptian history of a leader who had vast ambition, wide vision, an
iron will, tremendous energy and an impressive work ethic, all mixed with the
ability to execute and implement what he wanted to achieve with firmness and
often ruthlessness. It was also always done in ways that rose above the
ignorance that had prevailed in the country before him.
Mohamed Ali not
only forced Egypt to wake from its long and lethargic sleep, he also turned its
face toward Western modernity. This was the first step in a long journey that
would last over 150 years.
But because his
project was essentially non-Egyptian, the body of the country remained for a
long period fixed in its place and hardly moving with the head. This created a
set of problems that would haunt the Mohamed Ali dynasty and Egypt for decades.
The writer is an Egyptian author, commentator, TV
presenter and documentary producer who specializes in regional politics and
political economy affairs.
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