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

01Education 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.

The missions

• 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.

02The 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.

03Rule: 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.

The diwans and councils

• The High Diwan (1824): chaired by the deputy of the Pasha, charged with examining all the affairs of government.
• The Council of Shura (1829): of senior officials, ulema and notables; it met once a year to deliberate on administration, education and public works.
• 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.
• 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.
• The Private Council: examined the major affairs of government, legislated regulations and laws and issued instructions.
• The Public Council (1847): to consider the general affairs of government.
• Despite all of them, Muhammad Ali remained the source of supreme authority: the system rested on absolute individual rule.

04Administrative 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.

05Building 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.

06The 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.

Arms and ammunition factories

• 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.

07Exam 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.