The Ottoman Empire in Egypt

When speaking of Medieval Egyptian history, the subject of the Ottoman Empire is quite inevitable. The origins of the Ottoman Empire go back to the Turkish-speaking tribes who crossed the frontiers into Arab lands beginning in the 10th century. These Turkish tribes established themselves in Baghdad and Anatolia, but they were destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century.

In the wake of the Mongol invasion, petty Turkish dynasties called emirates were formed in Anatolia. The leader of one of those dynasties was Osman (1280-1324), the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Expansion

In the 13th century, his emirate was one of many; by the 16th century, it had become an empire, one of the largest and longest lived in world history. By the 14th century, the Ottomans already had a substantial empire in Eastern Europe.

In 1453 they conquered Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, which became the Ottoman capital and was renamed Istanbul. Between 1512 and 1520, the Ottomans added the Arab provinces, including Egypt, to their empire.

In 1517 Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire (aka Selim the Grim) conquered Egypt, defeating the Mamluk forces at Ar Raydaniyah, outside Cairo. The victorious Selim I left behind one of his most trusted collaborators, Khair Bey, as the ruler of Egypt. He kept his court in the citadel, the ancient residence of the rulers of the Medieval Egypt Ottoman Empire. Although Selim I did away with the Mamluk sultanate, neither he nor his successors succeeded in extinguishing Mamluk power and influence in Egypt.

Only in the first century of Ottoman rule was the governor of Egypt able to perform his tasks without the interference of the Mamluk beys (bey was the highest rank among the Mamluks).

The Mamluks Reply

During the latter decades of the 16th century and the early 17th century, a series of revolts by various elements of the garrison troops occurred. During these years, there was also a revival within the Mamluk military structure.

By the middle of the 17th century, political supremacy had passed to the beys. As the historian Daniel Crecelius has written, from that point on the history of Ottoman Egypt can be explained as the struggle between the Ottomans and the Mamluks for control of the administration and, hence, the revenues of Egypt, and the competition among rival Mamluk houses for control of the beylicate.

This struggle affected Egyptian history until the late 18th century when one Mamluk bey gained an unprecedented control over the military and political structures and ousted the Ottoman governor.

The Neo-Mamluk Beylicate

Most scholars of Egypt economic history now agree that the political and economic changes that occurred in the early nineteenth century had their origins in events that occurred in the latter half of the eighteenth century. At that time, political and military power was consolidated in the hands of the Mamluk Ali Bey al Kabir (1760-66) and his successor, Muhammad Bey Abu adh Dhahab (1772-75).

Before 1760 a balance of power and separate spheres of influence were maintained by the Mamluk beylicate and the Mamluks. The beylicate controlled the civil administration and derived its revenues from the rural tax farms. The Mamluks dominated the military and derived their revenues from the urban tax farms and the customs house.

In 1760 Ali Bey gained control of the military and drove the sultan's governor from the country. Ali Bey issued firmans (decrees) in his own name, redirected the state revenues to his own use, and attempted to recreate the medieval Mamluk Empire by invading Syria. In addition, he tried to strengthen commercial ties with Europe by encouraging trade and attempting to open the Port of Suez to European shipping.

Ali Bey ruled only briefly, but his successors, especially Muhammad Bey, continued his policies. These two beys effectively eliminated Ottoman control and repositioned the country at the center of a newly emerging network of international relationships that embraced the lands of the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea coast, and Europe.

Thus, Napoleon Bonaparte did not "open" an isolated Egypt to the West, nor was Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century the originator of the policies responsible for its transformation. Only Ali Bey's dramatic expulsion from the country and Muhammad Bey's premature death of a fever prevented them from using the authority they acquired to carry on those policies that are associated with Egypt's revival in the nineteenth century.