Background
He was born in 1841 in the village of Hirriyat Razna near Zagazig in the Sharqia Governorate, approximately 80 kilometres to the north of Cairo. Urabi was the son of a village leader and one of the wealthier members of the community.
He was born in 1841 in the village of Hirriyat Razna near Zagazig in the Sharqia Governorate, approximately 80 kilometres to the north of Cairo. Urabi was the son of a village leader and one of the wealthier members of the community.
Ahmed received a decent education. After completing elementary education in his home village, he enrolled at Al-Azhar University to complete his schooling in 1849.
Conscripted into the army, he rose to the rank of colonel after serving as a commissariat officer during the Egyptian-Ethiopian war of 1875–76.
In 1879 he participated in the officers’ revolt against the khedive Tawfīq Pasha.
In 1881 he led a revolt against this dominance. The following year, intervention by the European powers and the dispute about the rights of the Egyptian Assembly concerning budget controls led to the formation of the nationalist ministry of Maḥmūd Sāmī al-Bārūdī, with Urabi as minister of war.
Khedive Tawfīq, threatened by increasing popularity, requested the assistance of the French and British, who promptly staged a naval demonstration in the bay of Alexandria.
Riots then broke out in Alexandria; when the British fleet bombarded the city (July 1882), Urabi , who was commander in chief of the Egyptian army, organized the resistance and proclaimed the khedive a traitor. Urabi's army was defeated at Tall al-Kabīr (September 13, 1882) by British troops that had landed at Ismailia under the command of Sir Garnet Wolseley.
Urabi Pasha was captured, court-martialed, and sentenced to death, but, with British intervention, the sentence was changed to exile in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
He was permitted to return to Egypt in 1901.
Urabi died an unpopular figure in relative obscurity on September 21, 1911.
Ahmed Urabi was an Egyptian nationalist who led a social-political movement that expressed the discontent of the Egyptian educated classes, army officials, and peasantry with foreign control.
A suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana, was given the name Arabi, in solidarity with his revolt against the British occupation, as the area was originally a part of New Orleans that sought separation.
A main street in Cairo's Al Mohandessin district and its underground station bear his name.
Orabi Square honors him in Alexandria.
The main square in Zagazig contains a statue of ‘Urabi on a horse and its university's emblem bears his picture.
A coastal road in the Gaza Strip is named Ahmed Orabi Street.
Orabi Pasha Street in Central Colombo, Sri Lanka, is named after him
The Orabi Pasha Cultural Center preserves his former house in Kandy.
Quotations:
"How can you enslave people when their mothers bore them free?". The reference is: Once a governor of Egypt punished a non-Muslim wrongly, the case was brought to the caliph of time i. e. Umar ibn ul Khattab (the second Caliph of Islam), the Muslim governor was proven to be wrong, Umar told the non Muslim to punish the Egyptian governor in same fashion, after it Umar said: Since when have you considered people as your slaves? Although their mothers gave birth to them as free living people Kanz ul Amaal.
"God created us free, and didn't create us Heritage or real estate, I swear by God, that there is no god but He, no bequeathing, no enslaved anymore".
Early in his career Ahmed joined a secret society within the army with the object of eliminating the Turkish and Circassian officers who monopolized the highest ranks.
He was a member of Freemasonry.
Quotes from others about the person
Urabi emerged as the national hero under the slogan “Miṣr li’l Miṣriyyīn” (“Egypt for Egyptians”).
In 1878 he was employed by Ismail in fomenting a disturbance against the ministry of Nubar, Rivers Wilson and de Blignieres, and received in payment a wife from Ismail's harem and the command of a regiment.
