Lesson 12: The Rise of Muhammad Ali and the Consolidation of His Power in Egypt

01The political struggle after the French left (1801–1805)

The three contending forces

• After the French withdrawal, three forces struggled for power: the Ottomans, the English and the Mamluks.

The Ottomans (the Turks)

• The sultan looked to restoring his rule and influence over Egypt.
• He was determined to fight and eliminate the Mamluks.
• He began the recovery of control by appointing Khosrow Pasha as wali of Egypt.

The English

• England coveted extending its influence over the Nile valley and occupying key positions on the Mediterranean and Red Seas to secure its line of communications to India.
• So it never thought of withdrawing its forces after helping to evacuate the French.
• It drew close to the Mamluks because it had intervened with the sultan to prevent the execution of their leaders.
• It abandoned them once France restored its relations with the Ottoman State, and told them to submit to Ottoman rule.

The Mamluks

• They hoped to regain the rule of the country and thought of using the English against the Turks.
• The English did not object; they let them live in the illusion of returning to power and planned to use them for their own ends.
• The conflict between Mamluks and Ottomans renewed after England left Egypt (March 1803), in line with the Treaty of Amiens (March 1802).
• The Mamluks occupied El-Minya and put navigation on the Nile under their control.

Chaos

• The country fell into chaos and fighting between warring factions, with many walis in a short period.
• Conditions worsened economically, and the walis could not pay the soldiers, who revolted against them.
• Walis were imprisoned and arrested; some were killed or fled.
• The Mamluks succeeded in expelling the Ottoman troops from Cairo and took over the rule.

02The emergence of Muhammad Ali

How he appeared

• Under the Mamluks economic conditions worsened, so a revolt broke out in March 1804.
• Fearing the revolt would reach his own soldiers, Muhammad Ali declared his joining the ulema and sheikhs and mixed with the angry people.
• He promised the ulema to strive to lift the tax from the people and ordered his soldiers to respect the populace.
• Thus he won the people's affection and the confidence of their leaders, and they saw him as a just man who hates oppression.

The struggle over Cairo

• He exploited the wave of anger against the Mamluks, attacked their posts in Cairo and besieged their leaders' houses, so they fled to Upper Egypt.
• A political vacuum followed; he proposed releasing Khosrow Pasha from the Citadel and appointing him wali, and his own standing rose.
• The Arnaut (Albanian) troops objected to Khosrow, so he proposed Khorshid Pasha, governor of Alexandria, because he was an Ottoman.
• Khorshid distrusted Muhammad Ali and sought to be rid of him by sending him to Upper Egypt to fight the Mamluks, and asked the sultan for troops — who sent the Dalatoğlu ("the reckless"), who spread corruption and plunder.
• Khorshid also asked for the Arnaut troops to be recalled to Istanbul; Muhammad Ali refused with the ulema's backing.
• Khorshid obtained a decision appointing Muhammad Ali wali of Jeddah (May 1805), but he did not comply, relying on the ulema's support.

03The strength of the Egyptian people and the appointment of Muhammad Ali

The popular leadership

• This force did not contend for power like the three forces; it grew out of the heart of the clash between them.
• Egyptian leadership took shape from the days of the French invasion and its resistance, and its experience widened through governing with the French and learning the new knowledge.
• Its most prominent men: Sayed Omar Makram (naqib al-ashraf), Sayed Muhammad al-Sadat (a leader of the Sufi orders), Sheikh Abdullah al-Sharkawy and Sheikh Muhammad al-Mahdi (of the ulema), and Sayed Ahmed al-Maharagi (of the senior merchants).

The people's revolt and the appointment of Muhammad Ali

• Egyptian anger grew against the Dalatoğlu and the imposition of taxes, so the leaders of the people — the ulema and the naqibs of the guilds — met at the court house (May 1805).
• They resolved to depose Khorshid Pasha and appoint Muhammad Ali wali in his place.
• They took pledges from him to go by justice and to conclude no matter without their counsel.
• This was the first time in modern Egyptian history that a wali was deposed by the will of the people and another appointed by that will; the event is therefore counted as the first social contract in Egypt and the Arab homeland.
• Khorshid did not yield; fighting broke out and Omar Makram led the resistance in Muhammad Ali's favour, until the sultan's messenger arrived with consent to his appointment, and the ulema and the subjects were satisfied.

04Consolidating power: facing the Mamluk–English–Ottoman danger

• The Mamluks and the English rejected the appointment of Muhammad Ali; the Mamluks attacked Cairo and Giza, but he repelled them and pursued them into Upper Egypt.
• Britain saw his appointment as a threat to its interests and asked the sultan to give the waliya to Muhammad Bey al-Alfi, a Mamluk leader, or to another wali.
• The sultan agreed and issued a firman in 1806 transferring Muhammad Ali to the waliya of Salonica and appointing Mousa Pasha wali of Egypt.
• The popular leadership intervened and persuaded the sultan to confirm Muhammad Ali, so Britain's relation with the sultan deteriorated.
• Britain exploited that and sent a naval campaign under Fraser to seize Egypt.

05Facing Fraser's campaign (March 1807)

• The campaign landed at Alexandria and moved from there to Rashid (Rosetta) and El-Hammad.
• Al-Alfi had died about two months before its arrival, and England did not know that.
• Muhammad Ali was in Upper Egypt pursuing the Mamluks, so the burden of the struggle fell on the Egyptians themselves.
• The Egyptians resisted the English fiercely in the streets of Rashid and at El-Hammad, took some prisoners and killed others, so the English fell back to Alexandria.
• Muhammad Ali returned from Upper Egypt, marched on Alexandria and besieged it; Fraser saw no way out but to ask for peace and evacuation in exchange for releasing the prisoners. Muhammad Ali agreed and entered Alexandria victorious.

06Destroying the popular leadership

Why he got rid of it

• Muhammad Ali realised the strength of the popular leadership and the restrictions it had placed on him when he accepted the waliya.
• He grew wary of Omar Makram's rising standing among the people.
• He saw the need to monopolise rule without popular guardianship.
• He was helped by the division among the popular leaders over Omar Makram's standing, his rivals secretly intriguing against him.

The crisis of 1808

• The Nile flood fell low (August 1808); conditions worsened, prices rose and the government increased taxes.
• The people complained to the ulema, and the ulema asked Muhammad Ali to relieve the crisis by not collecting the assessed taxes.
• He rebuked them, because they had not done for the people what he had found they did for themselves when the ulema exempted the multazims from the tax on the surplus of their iltizam — so he put them in a difficult position before the people.

The exile of Omar Makram

• Muhammad Ali exploited the crisis to issue decisions on taxes and property that gave him control and sole rule.
• By the terms of his appointment, Omar Makram's consent was required, but he refused to deliberate.
• His rivals seized the opportunity and set Muhammad Ali against him, so he was dismissed from the naqaba of the ashraf and exiled to Damietta (1809), and Muhammad al-Sadat was appointed in his place.
• Al-Sadat became a pliant tool in Muhammad Ali's hands.

07The Citadel Massacre (March 1811)

• After the exile of Omar Makram nothing remained but the Mamluks; he had already lured them to leave Upper Egypt and settle in Cairo so that they would be under his eye and their treachery safe.
• When the sultan asked him to go to the Hejaz to crush the Wahhabi movement, he feared the Mamluks would resume their hostility while the army was absent.
• He plotted their elimination and invited them to a celebration at the Citadel marking the departure of the Egyptian army led by his son Tosun to the Hejaz.
• When the ceremonies ended, the Mamluk contingents were hemmed in and all were killed except those who managed to escape.
• Thus Muhammad Ali monopolised the rule of Egypt and began to build organised internal strength in the economic, administrative and political spheres.

08Summary table: how Muhammad Ali removed his rivals

09Exam traps and key takeaways

• The three contending forces are Ottomans, English and Mamluks; the popular leadership is a fourth force that did not seek power — a common trick option.
• England left Egypt in March 1803 under the Treaty of Amiens (March 1802) — do not attach the departure to the treaty's year.
• Muhammad Ali rose by joining the ulema and the people, not by Ottoman appointment.
• The May 1805 event is the first social contract in Egypt and the Arab world, and the first deposition and appointment of a wali by the people's will.
• It was Khorshid who tried to remove him (Jeddah waliya, May 1805), not the sultan directly.
• The sultan's 1806 firman named Mousa Pasha and transferred Muhammad Ali to Salonica; the popular leadership reversed it.
• Fraser landed at Alexandria but was stopped at Rashid and El-Hammad; al-Alfi was already dead, which is why England's plan collapsed.
• The exile of Omar Makram was to Damietta in 1809; his successor al-Sadat was compliant.
• The Citadel Massacre's pretext was the departure of Tosun's army to the Hejaz, and its result was sole rule, not merely safety.