Background

Ethnicity: Muhammad Ali was born to an Albanian family, whose origins are thought to have been from Korçë.

Muhammad Ali was born on March 4, 1769, in Kavala, Sanjak of Kavala, Rumelia Eyalet, Ottoman Empire (present-day Kavala, Greece). He was the second son of a tobacco and shipping merchant named Ibrahim Agha, and his wife Zeynep. His father died when Muḥammad Ali was a boy, and he was brought up by his uncle.

Education

Muhammad Ali did not receive school education because he worked as a tax collector since childhood.

Career

When Muhammad Ali was a boy he collected taxes in Kavala. Later he became involved in the tobacco trade and it helped him further his commercial interests in other territories. In 1798, the Ottoman Empire in Egypt was occupied by French personnel who worked under Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1801, Muhammad Ali joined an irregular military force dispatched to Egypt by the Ottomans to evict the French army. Following the French evacuation, Muhammad Ali seized effective control of Cairo and forced the sultan in Istanbul to appoint him officially as Wāli (governor) of Egypt with the title of Pasha in 1805. After that, he began to carry out reforms in order to strengthen his power.

Muhammad Ali also wanted to expand his Empire. That is why he came into open conflict with the Ottoman Empire. He managed to gain control of Syria all the way to Adana. Muhammad Ali also was granted the hereditary right to rule Egypt and Sudan in 1841. However, he did not rule for long after and retired from the office in the late 1840s. Muhammad Ali of Egypt died on August 2, 1849, and was buried in the imposing mosque he had commissioned in the Cairo Citadel.

Achievements

• Muhammad Ali was an Ottoman ruler, known as governor of Egypt from 1805 to 1848. He brought in a lot of reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres and paved the way for the modernization of Egypt. Muhammad Ali is also known for his contribution to ending the Mamluk reign over Egypt. Under his rule, Egypt entered the international community of nations as a state in its own right. Thanks to Muhammad Ali a great deal of cultural exchange has taken place between Egypt and Europe. He was awarded the Order of Glory, the Order of the Legion of Honour and the Order of Franz Joseph.

Politics

As the governor of Egypt Muhammad Ali established his control over Egypt by eliminating his Mamluk opponents in a massacre, justified by contrived reasons, in 1811, by centralizing government administration in Cairo, and by building a new army. As Muhammad Ali wanted to establish a European-style military, new labeling and organizational systems to identify soldiers were created. Besides, he created many military codes to regulate the definitions of crime and punishment, and this helped to create blind obedience to the laws. Disbanding his mercenary army, he created a fleet and an army of Egyptians conscripted from the peasant class but commanded by Turks and others recruited from outside Egypt.

Later Muhammad Ali instituted sweeping changes. By 1815 most of Egypt's agricultural land had been converted into state land, and profits from agriculture became available to the ruler. He improved Egypt's irrigation system, on which its agriculture depended. His most impressive accomplishment was the rebuilding of an ancient canal that linked Alexandria with the Nile River, an effort that reportedly cost the lives of some 100,000 of the Egyptian peasants who were ordered to do the digging. Under the Muhammad Ali's reign, the total length of Egypt's irrigation channels more than doubled, and the amount of land under cultivation between 1813 and 1830 increased by about 18 percent.

By the mid-1830s Muhammad Ali's policy of turning Egypt into a massive plantation for his own benefit had reached a point of diminishing returns. Muhammad Ali established a textile industry in an effort to compete with European industries and produce greater revenues for Egypt. However, this idea was not successful.

In 1832, Muhammad Ali allowed Antoine Clot, known as "Clot Bey" in Egypt, to establish a School of Medicine for women. Graduates served at the Civil Hospital in Cairo or at health centres throughout Egypt.

Personality

Those who knew Muhammad Ali said that he was a man of limited knowledge and narrow horizons.

Connections

Muhammad Ali married his cousin Amina Hanim in 1787. The marriage produced four sons and two daughters. Amina Hanim died in 1824. Muhammad Ali later married Ayn al-Hayat Khanum. The marriage produced a son, Mohamed Said Pasha.

Muhammad Ali also had several mistresses, including Mahduran Hanim, Mumtaz Qadin, Mahwish Qadin, Namshaz Qadin, Zayba Khadija Qadin, Shams Safa Qadin, Shami Nur Qadin, Naila Qadin, Gulfidan Qadin and Qamar Qadin.

Father:

Ibrahim Agha

Ibrahim Agha was a tobacco and shipping merchant. He also served as an Ottoman commander of a small unit in Kavala.

Mother:

Zeinab

Zeinab was the daughter of the "Ayan of Kavala" Çorbaci Husain Agha.

late wife:

Amina Hanim

(1770 – 1824)

Son:

Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt

Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt (1789 – November 10, 1848) was unrecognized Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He also served as a general in the Egyptian army.

Son:

Tusun Pasha

(1794 – September 28, 1816)

Son:

Isma'il Kamil Pasha

(1796 – 1822)

Son:

Abd al-Halim Bey

(1797 – 1818)

Daughter:

Tawhida Hanim

(1788 – 1830)

Daughter:

Khadija Nazli Hanim

(1795 – 1860)

Wife:

Ayn al-Hayat Khanum

(1790 – 1849)

Son:

Mohamed Said Pasha

(March 17, 1822 – January 17, 1863) was the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan from 1854 until 1863.

Mistress:

Mahduran Hanim

Mistress:

Mumtaz Qadin

Mistress:

Mahwish Qadin

Mistress:

Namshaz Qadin

Mistress:

Zayba Khadija Qadin

Mistress:

Shams Safa Qadin

Mistress:

Shami Nur Qadin

Mistress:

Naila Qadin

Mistress:

Gulfidan Qadin

Mistress:

Qamar Qadin

Son:

Muhammad Ali Pasha

(1833 – 1861)

Son:

Muhammad Abd al-Halim Pasha

(1830 – 1894)

Daughter:

Zaynab Hanim

References

• The Pasha: How Mehemet Ali Defied the West, 1839-1841 With striking parallels to recent confrontations in Iraq, this is the story of the first Western international coalition to suppress an aggressive Middle Eastern ruler. The challenger was Mehemet Ali Pasha, called the founder of modern Egypt. Convinced that the Europeans would never be able to unite against him, he sought, with charm, brilliance and bravado, to create a powerful Muslim counterweight to the encroaching West.
  2007
• Founder of Modern Egypt This book is an historical and administrative study of the reign of Muhammad Ali.
  1931
• Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali This account of Egyptian society in the reign of Muhammad Ali traces the beginnings of the nation state in Egypt. It considers Muhammad Ali as part of a social group whose economic interests led them in the direction of trade with Europe as a means of raising money for further investments.
  1984
• The Social Origins of Egyptian Expansionism during the Muhammad 'Ali Period Fred Lawson contends that, in the Arab world, expansionist policy has little to do with the temperament of the individual leaders and even less with the activities of the great powers. Instead, he argues that the character and intensity of a country's domestic political conflicts directly determine foreign policies.
  1992
• All the Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali, his Army and the Making of Modern Egypt While scholarship has traditionally viewed Mehmed Ali Pasha as the founder of modern Egypt, Khaled Fahmy offers a new interpretation of his role in the rise of Egyptian nationalism, firmly locating him within the Ottoman context as an ambitious, if problematic, Ottoman reformer.
  1997