The expedition, aboard xebecs, landed at Aboukir in the spring of 1801. In 1801, his unit was sent, as part of a much larger Ottoman force, to re-occupy Egypt following a brief French occupation that upended Mamluk dominance in Egypt. She was the daughter of Ali Agha and Kadriye (Zeynep's sister).Īfter Muhammad's promising success in collecting taxes, he earned the rank of Second Commander under his cousin Sarechesme Halil Agha in the Kavala Volunteer Contingent of Albanian mercenaries that was sent to re-occupy Egypt following General Napoleon Bonaparte's withdrawal. Muhammad Ali later married his cousin Amina Hanim, a wealthy widow. As a reward for Muhammad Ali's hard work, his uncle gave him the rank of " Bolukbashi" for the collection of taxes in the town of Kavala. When his father died at a young age, Muhammad was taken and raised by his uncle Husain Agha with his cousins. His mother was Zeynep, the daughter of Çorbaci Husain Agha, another Muslim Albanian notable in Kavala. He was the second son of a Bektashi Albanian tobacco and shipping merchant named Ibrahim Agha, who also served as an Ottoman commander of a small unit in their hometown. Muhammad Ali was born in the Sanjak of Kavala (modern-day Kavala), in the Rumelia Eyalet, to an Albanian family from Korça. His dynasty would rule Egypt until the revolution of 1952 when King Farouk was overthrown by the Free Officers Movement led by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, establishing the Republic of Egypt.Įarly life Muhammad Ali's birthplace in Kavala, now in northeastern Greece. Faced with another European intervention, he accepted a brokered peace in 1842 and withdrew from the Levant in return, he and his descendants were granted hereditary rule over Egypt and Sudan. After a failed Ottoman invasion of Syria in 1839, he launched another invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1840 he defeated the Ottomans again and opened the way towards a capture of Constantinople. In 1831, Ali waged war against the sultan, capturing Syria, crossing into Anatolia and directly threatening Constantinople, but the European powers forced him to retreat. His attempt at suppressing the Greek rebellion failed decisively, however, following an intervention by the European powers at Navarino. Militarily, Ali recaptured the Arabian territories for the sultan, and conquered Sudan of his own accord. He also initiated a violent purge of the Mamluks, consolidating his rule and permanently ending the Mamluk hold over Egypt. Following Napoleon's withdrawal, Muhammad Ali rose to power through a series of political maneuvers, and in 1805 he was named Wāli (governor) of Egypt and gained the rank of Pasha.Īs Wāli, Ali attempted to modernize Egypt by instituting dramatic reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres. He was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from French occupation under Napoleon. At the height of his rule, he controlled Egypt, Sudan, Hejaz, Najd, the Levant, Crete and parts of Greece. Muhammad Ali (4 March 1769 – 2 August 1849) was the Ottoman Albanian governor and de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, considered the founder of modern Egypt.
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