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Lesson 14: Building the Modern State – Education, Administration and Army under Muhammad Ali

Social Studies

Lesson 14: Building the Modern State – Education, Administration and Army under Muhammad Ali

Overview

Overview

  • Know the missions and the schools established by Muhammad Ali.
  • Explain the diwans, the councils, the administrative division and the judiciary.
  • Show how he built the army, the fleet and the weapons factories.
Building the modern state: education, administration and army under Muhammad Ali
├── Education and its role in building the state
│   ├── The missions (1813–1847) · Rifa'a al-Tahtawi · School of Languages 1836
│   └── The schools (1816–1839) · Diwan al-Madaris 1837
├── Rule: executive and legislative authority
│   ├── The nature of rule: absolute individual rule
│   └── The diwans and councils (1824 → 1847)
├── Administrative division and the judiciary
│   ├── Seven mdiriyahs · Egyptianisation of jobs
│   └── Gam'iyat al-Haqqaniyya 1847 · Board of Commerce
├── Building military strength: officers and soldiers
│   ├── Aswan school 1820 · Suleiman Pasha al-Faransawi
│   └── Conscripts: Turks refused, Sudanese died, Egyptians succeeded in Greece 1824
└── The fleet and the arms factories
    ├── Fleet from 1810 · Bolac and Alexandria arsenals
    └── Arms and ammunition factories, forts and defences
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Education and its role in building the state

Education and its role in building the state

  • Under Muhammad Ali, education was tied to the policy of economic monopoly, building internal strength, external expansion and the wars he entered.
  • He cared for education at its stages higher, secondary and primary.
  • He sent missions of al-Azhar students to Italy, France, England and Austria in the period 1813 to 1847.
  • Their aim to acquire the necessary experience and to study the military arts, shipbuilding, navigation, engineering, mechanics, the principles of irrigation and drainage, law and politics.
  • Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi was the imam of the students of the first large mission to France (1826) and benefited greatly from French culture.
  • He realised the value of learning the sciences of European societies, so he proposed founding the School of Languages (1836) to teach European languages and translation — it deserves much credit for transferring Western knowledge to Egypt.
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The schools

The schools

  • He built the schools that served economic and military development, between 1816 and 1839.
  • Examples the schools of engineering, medicine and pharmacy, and the schools of accounting, arts, manufactures, agriculture and veterinary science.
  • At first they took pupils of al-Azhar and the kuttab who had a reasonable share of schooling, and later they became general and civil in character.
  • This education created a civil culture different from the prevailing religious culture, so the duality of thought and culture arose — its roots beginning with the French Campaign.
  • He created a special administration for the schools called Diwan al-Madaris (1837), which was the first ministry of education.
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Rule: the executive and legislative authorities

Rule: the executive and legislative authorities

The nature of rule

  • Rule rested on absolute individual authority, a continuation of what existed under the Ottoman and Mamluk walis.
  • He gave the government its system starting from the idea of the consultative diwans set up by the French Campaign.
Comparison aspectMain ideaKeywords
The High Diwan (1824)
  • chaired by the deputy of the Pasha
  • charged with examining all the affairs of government
chaireddeputyPashacharged
The Council of Shura (1829)
  • of senior officials
  • ulema and notables
  • it met once a year to deliberate on administration
  • education and public works
seniorofficialsulemanotables
The High Council (1834)
  • the equivalent of a cabinet
  • made up of the heads of the diwans and the services
  • with two notables added from each mdiriyah and two for accounts
equivalentcabinetmadeheads
The Basic Law (1837)
  • regulated relations between the government diwans and defined their competences — among them the diwans of revenue
  • jihad (war)
  • schools
  • the sea (for the fleet)
  • foreign affairs
  • Egyptian trade
  • the factories (fabriqat) and the Khedivial Diwan
regulatedrelationsbetweengovernment
The Private Council
  • examined the major affairs of government
  • legislated regulations and laws and issued instructions
examinedmajoraffairsgovernment
The Public Council (1847)to consider the general affairs of governmentconsidergeneralaffairsgovernment
•
  • Despite all of them
  • Muhammad Ali remained the source of supreme authority: the system rested on absolute individual rule
DespitethemMuhammadremained
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Administrative division and the judiciary

Administrative division and the judiciary

Administrative division

  • Under Ottoman rule Egypt was divided into 16 regions; Muhammad Ali made changes so that the financial burdens on the people were equalised.
  • He divided the country into seven mdiriyahs (governorates), nearly equal, each headed by a director.
  • Each mdiriyah was divided into marakiz headed by a mamur, then sections headed by a nazir, then districts and villages headed by an omdeh or sheikh al-balad.
  • The Turkish element held every administrative post except sheikh al-balad, omdeh and the financial posts; Egyptians were then substituted gradually, and by the end of the 1870s all posts were Egyptianised except the high ranks in the army.

The judiciary

  • He created a new judicial body called Gam’iyat al-Haqqaniyya (1847) to try senior officials; it functioned as a court for felonies and misdemeanours.
  • He created a commercial court called Majlis al-Tijara (the Board of Commerce) to settle commercial disputes between the people, or between them and foreigners; foreign representatives were part of its composition.
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Building military strength: officers and soldiers

Building military strength: officers and soldiers

Training the officers

  • Muhammad Ali was a military man who understood the importance of military power, so he turned to building an organised national force in place of the irregular, mercenary and mutinous troops.
  • He founded military schools to train officers and founded the Muhanfasakhana (school of engineering) to prepare experts for the industries connected with the army — so the army was an instrument of the advance of civilisation besides its military role.
  • His first attempt at regular officers he ordered the training of a corps of Turkish soldiers who had taken part in the Wahhabi wars, but they refused modern training, and matters went as far as a plot to depose him.
  • He returned to his idea in 1820 and opened a school at Aswan to graduate officers on the modern system, relying on the French colonel Sève, who took the name Suleiman Pasha al-Faransawi after embracing Islam.

Recruiting the soldiers

  • He decided to avoid recruiting Turks and Arnauts because of their mutinous nature, and to avoid Egyptians for fear of their revolt; so he turned to recruiting Sudanese.
  • The Sudanese experiment failed most of them died because the climate did not suit them.
  • He decided to rely on Egyptians, and the experiment succeeded in the war of Greece (1824).
  • When conscription widened, he brought a group of senior French officers to help organise the army, and sent young men to Europe to complete their military studies; they replaced the foreign instructors on their return.
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The fleet and the arms factories

The fleet and the arms factories

The fleet

  • The Egyptian navy began in 1810, when Muhammad Ali entered the Wahhabi wars.
  • He built an arsenal at Bolac (1810) and then at Alexandria to build war and merchant ships.
  • He founded a camp to teach sailors among the rank and file, and a hospital and a naval school on board one of the ships to train naval officers.
  • He sent missions of naval officers to France and England to complete their training practically on board European warships.
  • He founded weapons factories in Egypt so as to do without importing arms, and built the forts and fortifications needed to defend the country’s vulnerable frontiers.
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Exam traps and key takeaways

Exam traps and key takeaways

  • Missions ran 1813–1847; schools 1816–1839; the School of Languages 1836; Diwan al-Madaris 1837 — do not shift these by a year.
  • Al-Tahtawi was the imam of the first large mission to France (1826), and proposed the School of Languages — he did not found it single-handed.
  • Diwan al-Madaris is the first ministry of education the standard superlative question.
  • The cultural duality (civil vs religious culture) has its roots in the French Campaign, not in the missions alone.
  • Councils 1824 High Diwan · 1829 Shura (once a year) · 1834 High Council (cabinet-like) · 1837 Basic Law · 1847 Public Council. Match each to its description.
  • Despite the councils, power stayed absolute and individual in Muhammad Ali’s hands.
  • Administration 16 → 7 mdiriyahs, hierarchy mamur → nazir → omdeh/sheikh al-balad; Egyptianisation completed by the end of the 1870s except high army ranks.
  • Justice Haqqaniyya tried senior officials; the Board of Commerce included foreigners — each is the answer to a different stem.
  • Conscription order Turks refused → Sudanese died of climate → Egyptians succeeded at Greece 1824.
  • Sève = Suleiman Pasha al-Faransawi; the navy began 1810 with the Wahhabi wars; the arsenal was first at Bolac.
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