The history of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty (1805–1953) spanned the later period of Ottoman Egypt, the Khedivate of Egypt under British occupation, and the nominally independent Sultanate of Egypt and Kingdom of Egypt, ending with the Revolution of 1952 and the formation of the Republic of Egypt.
Muhammad Ali's rise to power
The process of Muhammad Ali's seizure of power was a long three way civil war between the Ottoman Turks, Egyptian Mamluks, and Albanian mercenaries along with Egyptians loyal to Muhammad Ali. It lasted from 1803 to 1807 with the Muhammad Ali Pasha taking control of Egypt in 1805, when the Ottoman Sultan acknowledged his position. Thereafter, Muhammad Ali was the undisputed ruler of Egypt, and his efforts henceforth were directed primarily to the maintenance of his practical independence.
Egypt under Muhammad Ali
Campaign against the Saudis
The Ottoman-Saudi war in 1811–18 was fought between Egypt under the reign of Muhammad Ali (nominally under Ottoman rule) and the Wahabbis of Najd who had conquered Hejaz from the Ottomans.
When Wahabis captured Mecca in 1802, the Ottoman sultan ordered Muhammad Ali of Egypt to start moving against Wahabbis to re-conquer Mecca and return the honour of the Ottoman Empire.
First Arabian campaign
Acknowledging the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan, and at the commands of the Ottoman Porte, in 1811 Muhammad Ali dispatched an army of 20,000 men (and 2,000 horses) under the command of his son Tusun, a youth of sixteen, against the Saudis in the Ottoman–Saudi War. After a successful advance this force met with a serious repulse at the Battle of Al-Safra, and retreated to Yanbu. In the end of the year Tusun, having received reinforcements, again assumed the offensive and captured Medina after a prolonged siege. He next took Jeddah and Mecca, defeating the Saudi beyond the latter and capturing their general.
But some mishaps followed, and Muhammad Ali, who had determined to conduct the war in person, left Egypt in the summer of 1813—leaving his other son Ibrahim in charge of the country. He encountered serious obstacles in Arabia, predominantly stemming from the nature of the country and the harassing mode of warfare adopted by his adversaries, but on the whole his forces proved superior to those of the enemy. He deposed and exiled the Sharif of Mecca and after the death of the Saudi leader Saud he concluded a treaty with Saud's son and successor, Abdullah I in 1815.
Following reports that the Turks, whose cause he was upholding in Arabia, were treacherously planning an invasion of Egypt, and hearing of the escape of Napoleon from Elba and fearing danger to Egypt from France or Britain, Muhammad Ali returned to Cairo by way of Kosseir and Kena, reaching the capital on the day of the Battle of Waterloo.
Second Arabian campaign Tusun returned to Egypt on hearing of the military revolt at Cairo, but died in 1816 at the early age of twenty. Muhammad Ali, dissatisfied with the treaty concluded with the Saudis, and with the non-fulfillment of certain of its clauses, determined to send another army to Arabia, and to include in it the soldiers who had recently proved unruly.
This expedition, under his eldest son Ibrahim Pasha, left in the autumn of 1816. The war was long and arduous but in 1818 Ibrahim captured the Saudi capital of Diriyah. Abdullah I, their chief, was made prisoner and with his treasurer and secretary was sent to Istanbul (in some references he was sent to Cairo), where, in spite of Ibrahim's promise of safety and of Muhammad Ali's intercession in their favor, they were put to death. At the close of the year 1819 Ibrahim returned having subdued all opposition in Arabia.
Reforms Forced conscription of Egyptians (1820-1823) While the process had begun in 1808, Muhammad Ali's representative at Cairo had completed the confiscation of almost all the lands belonging to private individuals, while he was absent in Arabia (1813–15). The former owners were forced to accept inadequate pensions instead. By this revolutionary method of land nationalization Muhammad Ali became proprietor of nearly all the soil of Egypt.
During Ibrahim's engagement in the second Arabian campaign, the pasha turned his attention to further strengthening the Egyptian economy and his control over it. He created state monopolies for the chief products of the country as well as a number of factories. In 1819 he began digging the new Mahmoudiyah Canal to Alexandria, named after the reigning Sultan of Turkey. The old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity of providing a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. The conclusion of the commercial Treaty of Balta Liman in 1838 between Turkey and Britain, negotiated by Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling), struck the death knell to the system of monopolies, though its application regarding Egypt was delayed for some years, and finally included foreign intervention.
Another notable addition to the economic progress of the country was the development of cotton cultivation in the Nile Delta starting in 1822. The cotton seed for the new crop had been brought from the Sudan by Maho Bey, and with the organization of the new irrigation and industry, Muhammad Ali was able to extract considerable revenue in a few years time.
Other domestic efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. Muhammad Ali showed favor to European merchants as he relied on them to sell his monopoly's exports. And under his influence the port of Alexandria rose in importance again. It was also under Muhammad Ali's encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed.
The Pasha also attempted to reorganize his troops along European lines, but this led to a formidable mutiny in Cairo. Muhammad Ali's life was endangered, and he sought refuge by night in the citadel, while the soldiers committed many acts of plunder. The effects of the revolt were reduced by gifts to the insurgent's leaders; Muhammad Ali also ordered that those who suffered from the disturbances should receive compensation from the state treasury. The conscription portion of the Nizam-ı Cedid (New System) was temporarily abandoned, as consequence of this mutiny.
Economy
Egypt under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century had the fifth most productive cotton industry in the world, in terms of the number of spindles per capita. The industry was initially driven by machinery that relied on traditional energy sources, such as animal power, water wheels, and windmills, which were also the principle energy sources in Western Europe up until around 1870. While steam power had been experimented with in Ottoman Egypt by engineer Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in 1551, when he invented a steam jack driven by a rudimentary steam turbine,Ahmad Y Hassan (1976), Taqi al-Din and Arabic Mechanical Engineering, p. 34–35, Institute for the History of Arabic Science, University of Aleppo it was under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century that steam engines were introduced to Egyptian industrial manufacturing. While there was a lack of coal deposits in Egypt, prospectors searched for coal deposits there, and manufactured boilers which were installed in Egyptian industries such as ironworks, textile manufacturing, paper mills and hulling mills. Coal was also imported from overseas, at similar prices to what imported coal cost in France, until the 1830s, when Egypt gained access to coal sources in Lebanon, which had a yearly coal output of 4,000 tons. Compared to Western Europe, Egypt also had superior agriculture and an efficient transport network through the Nile. Economic historian Jean Batou argues that the necessary economic conditions for rapid industrialization existed in Egypt during the 1820s–1830s, as well as for the adoption of oil as a potential energy source for its steam engines later in the 19th century.
Invasion of Libya and Sudan
In 1820 Muhammad Ali gave orders to commence the conquest of eastern Libya. He first sent an expedition westward (Feb. 1820) which conquered and annexed the Siwa oasis. Ali's intentions for Sudan was to extend his rule southward, to capture the valuable caravan trade bound for the Red Sea, and to secure the rich gold mines which he believed to exist in Sennar. He also saw in the campaign a means of getting rid of his disaffected troops, and of obtaining a sufficient number of captives to form the nucleus of the new army.
The forces destined for this service were led by Ismail, his youngest son. They consisted of between 4000 and 5000 men, being Turks and Arabs. They left Cairo in July 1820. Nubia at once submitted, the Shaigiya tribe immediately beyond the province of Dongola were defeated, the remnant of the Mamluks dispersed, and Sennar was reduced without a battle.
Mahommed Bey, the defterdar, with another force of about the same strength, was then sent by Muhammad Ali against Kordofan with like result, but not without a hard-fought engagement. In October 1822, Ismail, with his retinue, was burnt to death by Nimr, the mek (king) of Shendi; following this incident the defterdar, a man infamous for his cruelty, assumed the command of those provinces, and exacted terrible retribution from the inhabitants. Khartoum was founded at this time, and in the following years the rule of the Egyptians was greatly extended and control of the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa obtained.
Ahmad Revolt In 1824 a native rebellion broke out in Upper Egypt headed by one Ahmad, an inhabitant of al-Salimiyyah, a village situated a few miles above Thebes. He proclaimed himself a prophet, and was soon followed by between 20,000 and 30,000 insurgents, mostly peasants, but some of them deserters from the Nizam Gedid, for that force was yet in a half-organized state.
The peasants were angered by many of Ali's reforms, especially the introduction of conscription and the increase in taxes and forced labour.
The insurrection was crushed by Muhammad Ali, and about one fourth of Ahmad's followers perished, but he himself escaped and was never heard of again. Few of these unfortunates possessed any other weapon than the long staff (nabbut) of the Egyptian peasant; still they offered an obstinate resistance, and the combat in which they were defeated resembled a massacre. This movement was the last internal attempt to destroy the pasha's authority.
The subsequent years saw an imposition of order across Egypt and Ali's new highly trained and disciplined forces spread across the nation. Public order was rendered perfect; the Nile and the highways were secure to all travelers, Christian or Muslim; the Bedouin tribes were won over to peaceful pursuits.
Greek campaign
Muhammad Ali was fully conscious that the empire which he had so laboriously built up might at any time have to be defended by force of arms against his master Sultan Mahmud II, whose whole policy had been directed to curbing the power of his too ambitious vassals, and who was under the influence of the personal enemies of the pasha of Egypt, notably of Hüsrev Pasha, the Grand Vizier, who had never forgiven his humiliation in Egypt in 1803.