A History of the Middle East by Peter Mansfield, Nicolas Pelham

beys came out of hiding and attempted to reimpose their authority. At the same time, Sultan Selim III tried to oust them and restore direct control from Istanbul. But he failed, as the British who still occupied Alexandria took the side of the beys. When the British departed in 1803, they left a situation in which neither the Turkish governor nor the beys were strong enough to prevail, and two years of chaos and civil war ensued. The situation worsened when the Albanian Ottoman troops rebelled against the governor, and power shuttled between the sultan’s representatives, the uncontrollable soldiery and the beys (who were split into two factions).
    In the midst of this anarchy Muhammad Ali, the commander of one of the Albanian contingents which had landed with the Anglo-Ottoman expeditionary force in 1801, came to prominence as an ally of some of the Mamluke leaders against the nominal Ottoman governors. On 13 May 1805 the
ulama
(Muslim scholars), leading merchants and other notables who were regarded by the people of Cairo as their spokesmen and representatives, asked Muhammad Ali to be their ruler.
    Understandably, Sultan Selim was suspicious of Muhammad Ali’s intentions. There is little doubt that he helped to intensify the anarchy which led the Egyptians to appeal to him as their saviour. In an attempt to remove him from Egypt, the sultan had appointed him
wali
(governor-general) of Jeddah in Arabia. The Cairo notables, with the backing of the people, united to declare that they wanted Muhammad Ali to replace Khurshid Pasha, the existing Ottomangovernor. After a few more months of chaos, Sultan Selim bowed to reality and confirmed Muhammad Ali as
wali
of Egypt.
    In this way one of the remarkable figures of the nineteenth century came to control Egypt. His dynasty was to rule, either in reality or nominally, for a century and a half, until his great-great-grandson Farouk was ousted from the throne in 1952.
    Born on the Aegean coast of Macedonia, Muhammad Ali was the rare combination of a soldier and a political leader of genius. Although almost illiterate, he was no narrow-minded bigot. Having worked as a tobacco merchant in his youth, he was accustomed to dealing with non-Muslims and Europeans. His sharp intelligence was quick in absorbing new facts and analysing their importance. Ruthless, fiercely ambitious and capable of harsh cruelty, he could also charm, and foreign visitors, however exalted, would quail at his piercing gaze before remaining to admire.
    Muhammad Ali did not regard himself as an Egyptian or an Arab and he never spoke Arabic. But in 1805 he had already decided to make Egypt the basis of his power, and to do this he had to turn the Ottoman province into the nation-state which in a sense it had been in the time of the Pharaohs. Having done this, he came close to overthrowing the Ottoman Empire itself.
    His appointment as
wali
did not give him control of Egypt; the Mamluke beys still dominated the countryside outside Cairo, and Britain continued to intervene on their behalf. With a mixture of cunning and ruthlessness he set about the destruction of the Mamlukes; but first he had to deal with the British threat. In this he was helped by the fact that, while Britain and Russia were competing to force Selim into an alliance against France, the sultan had reconciled himself with Bonaparte. Selim still admired the heirs of the French Revolution, and French officers continued to train his artillery. No doubt he was also impressed by Bonaparte’s new victories over Austria. He recognized him as emperor of the French. Outraged, Britain and Russia stepped up their bullying pressure. In 1807 a British fleet under Admiral Duckworth sailed into the Sea of Marmara to demand the surrender of the Ottomanfleet, failing which, he said, he would burn the fleet and bombard Istanbul. With the help of Sebastiani, a French soldier/ambassador, the sultan organized his capital’s defences and drove the British fleet away.