“My country is no longer a part of Africa; we are now a part of Europe”
– Ismail Pasha
The Muhammed Ali Pasha Dynasty
From 1805 to 1882, Muhammad Ali Pasha and his family reigned as governors, and later Khedives, of Egypt. Ali’s reign would be the beginning of a transformation in Egypt, marking its entrance into the modern world with drastic economic and military reforms. It would take the intervention of the Great Powers (France, Britain, and Russia) in 1832 to cut short both Ali’s conquest of the Ottoman Empire and his grand ambitions of modernisation.
For a brief period Ali was unfit to rule due to illness; his grandson, Abbas I, became governor in 1848, reversing many of Ali’s reforms. But with the ascension of Saïd Pasha to the throne, a new age of modernisation began. Saïd reintroduced many of his father’s reforms and invited foreigners to the state, culminating in the magnum opus of the age: the Suez Canal. His successor Ismail would bolster support for the cultural revolution that would follow.
In 1882, under Ismail’s son, Tewfik, Egypt would suffer its greatest humiliation – becoming a protectorate of the British Empire. Less than a century ago, Egypt was considered to be on its way to a modern, successful, independent state. Why then did the country finish the century in such a manner? A number of factors contributed to the decline of the Muhammad Ali dynasty, including the break from the Ottoman Empire with the land tax and legal reforms initiated by Said and Ismail, the various vanity projects of the Egyptian Renaissance including the building of the Suez Canal and the actions of various foreign leaders and foreign powers in the region.
Breaking with the Ottoman Empire: Tax and Legal Reforms
Following the murder of Abbas I in 1854 by two slaves in the Benha Palace, Saïd and Ismail Pasha took it upon themselves to continue the revolution that had begun decades prior. Both Saïd and Ismail recognised the need for independence from the Ottoman Empire to accomplish Ali’s grand plans and enacted several reforms to grant Egypt greater independence within the empire.
Saïd had shown great promise as an admiral and statesman and was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet at a young age. Early in his reign, Saïd began to reintroduce and reform many policies that his nephew had ceased, expanding upon those of his father to achieve a modern, independent Egypt that could compete with mainland Europe. With the Land Reform Act of 1855, he emulated European land tenure by permitting male descendants of peasants to inherit land. Although the act was initially ineffectual (peasants owned any little land in Egypt), the addition of the Ottoman Land Reform Act of 1858 helped to boost its efficacy. Enacted to increase tax revenue and impose greater control across the empire as a whole, it was adapted within Egypt to provide the opportunity for peasants to become landowners.
In addition to these land acts, Saïd abolished the agricultural monopoly system and granted full freedom of trade within Egypt to aid both his income and the landowners. As a result, the collapse of the state’s monopoly on Egyptian goods led to European merchants’ domination of external trade networks. Together, these reforms initially provided Egypt with greater financial stability, albeit at the cost of economic sovereignty. As late as the 1850s, these merchants still held great sway in Egypt, and, to gain their support, Saïd established them as a separate ‘caste’ from his subjects. He granted them special concessions, allowing them to be tried before European judges. His actions created a divide between Egyptians and European merchants and his increased dependence on the merchants to support the reforms led to further concessions. Elsewhere, Saïd would have success in reforming the judicial system; he was granted the privilege to appoint his own judges by the Sultan – a right previously reserved for the grand judge appointed by the Sultan himself. The judicial system was rife with corruption within the eyalets – the provinces of the Empire. With this privilege, Saïd was able to crack down on corruption in law courts across the state whilst distancing himself from the rest of the Empire and, in 1855, expanding on the Ottoman penal code of 1851. Saïd also reformed the military, which grew from 18,000 to 30,000 troops. Like his father, he recognised that political strength can be derived from a strong, disciplined army. Further, Saïd granted native Egyptians the ranks of officers, a privilege that had been reserved for Ottoman noblemen and foreigners. This reform would restructure the Egyptian army, reducing dependency on foreign guidance whilst retaining the modern tactics that these officers had supplied. Upon its passing, the reform allowed for a greater freedom of the Egyptian state as its military became more distanced from imperial influence.
The Vanity of the Egyptian Renaissance
Saïd’s successor, Ismail, carried forth Saïd’s vision on a grander scale, later earning the epithet “Ismail the Magnificent”. His early years saw great successes both for his personal prestige and for Egypt itself. A firman (‘edict’) in 1866 secured primogeniture for his dynasty (rather than the traditional agnatic seniority) securing his line of succession. In 1867, Ismail was granted the title of Khedive of Egypt, an honorific title but one which further cemented the legitimacy of the dynasty in Egypt.
There was a growing sentiment across the Ottoman elite in Egypt of the need for a new identity to separate the Egyptians from their Turkish overlords. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Arabic began to replace Turkish as the official language, and a desire for knowledge, both Arab and European, gripped the nation. Interest in foreign literature and culture led to Arabic translations of The Rubaiyat, Shakespeare’s Henry V, and works by Moliere. In the 1860s, the three men who spearheaded the renaissance were Mahmud Sami al-Barudi, a prominent poet and statesman, Ibrahim al-Muwelikhi, a writer and publicist, and Hussein al Matsafi, a literary historian.
In the 1860s, Civil War in the United States led to a cotton boom in Egypt as prices increased by 300%, peaking in 1864. This newfound wealth paved the way for Ismail’s transformative plans which included key infrastructure such as railways and telegraph lines. Ultimately, it would be the bank of Saxe Meiningen, the Anglo-Egyptian bank, and the Ottoman bank which would provide additional capital required to finish the projects.
Ismail was also keen for European culture to permeate Egypt, leading to a grand ‘Haussmannisation’ of Cairo. His new institutions were situated on the boundary between new and old city, including the construction of the grand Cairo Opera House in 1869 and the Egyptian National Library in 1870. Ismail would also commission Verdi to compose what would become one of his most renowned operas, Aida (first performed in Cairo). Despite all this, Ismail appears to have prioritised his economy – the manufacturing and agricultural industries.
The influx of capital brought more merchants to Egypt, including the newly founded Anglo-Egyptian Bank. But the end of the American Civil War also brought with it the cotton crash of 1866, leading to a sharp decrease in Egyptian income; Ismail relied on foreign loans to complete projects. In 1876 the treasury, laden with ~£68 million in debt, declared itself bankrupt. The Khedive inevitably announced his abdication in 1879. The modernisation efforts of Saïd and Ismail were hampered by financial mismanagement and vanity, but it was arguably their reliance on foreign powers and external capital injections which led to the troubles faced by the treasury.
The Suez Canal
One cannot discuss Egypt under the reigns of Saïd Pasha and Ismail the Magnificent without mentioning the Suez Canal. The canal was France’s grand plan to end Britain’s domination of the Cape trade and to open the floodgates to trade from the Orient. But to Saïd and Ismail, it would be the greatest Egyptian achievement since the Pyramids.
The initial driver was Ferdinand de Lesseps, a friend of Said Pasha on account of their shared love of pasta, who convinced Saïd to grant his company the rights to the construction of the canal and control of it for the following 99 years. Saïd would then sign his first concession to de Lesseps on 30th November 1854, agreeing to partially fund construction and contribute to the workforce – around 60,000 fellahin (‘agricultural labourers’) in total.
Construction of the canal began in 1859, and multiple financial loans and concessions had to be made (partially by Saïd but primarily by Ismail) to ensure that the project’s completion was within Egyptian control. For example, Ismail personally purchased 175,000 shares of a total 400,000. Once again, Egypt relied heavily on foreign investors and loans.
On the 17th of November 1869, the Suez Canal was officially opened, heralding a new age of global trade. Festivities were so high that Ismail even spent ~£1m on the opening ceremony and invited major world figures including Empress Eugenie.
The pride of Egypt was complete, but the façade of the modern state had begun to crack. The completion of the canal proved of little benefit to Egyptians bar those who held shares in the company. The canal company now had a strong grip over Egypt and despite having parted the desert and achieved the impossible, much of the profits now lay with France and Britain. The rivalry between these two countries would continue into the 1870s; the British government under Benjamin Disraeli paid £4 million to buy out Ismail, such was his desperate need for capital.
The Intervention of Foreign Powers
Ismail’s extravagant spending and poor economic management had doomed his country, which was declared bankrupt in 1876. Ismail would himself resign in 1879, having been strongly pressurised to do so by the British consulate, who now held significant power within the country. He would be replaced by his son Tewfik.
Tewfik’s rule as an independent Khedive lasted for three years, until the Franco-British occupation of the state and the beginning of the Veiled Khedivate with Sir Evelyn Baring, later Earl of Cromer, ruling as de-facto Governor-General. The grip that the British Empire now had on Egypt was absolute and had progressed slowly since the first wave of European merchants, culminating in full occupation. Therefore, it can be said that the true demise of Egypt was the ‘Scramble for Egypt’ between France and Britain.
Upon his death in 1895, Ismail Pasha was honoured in the New York Times with an obituary as the ‘Khedive that made Egypt’s ideas modern’. The reigns of Saïd and Ismail represent the struggles of a state in revolution leaning on countries more advanced than itself.
The great dream of modernisation that had stemmed from Muhammad Ali was thwarted by a combination of poor decisions made by Saïd and Ismail on reforms, the Egyptian renaissance and the Suez Canal in addition to the actions of foreign powers. But in an ironic twist, some of Ali’s reforms – modernisations and grand plans – would be accomplished upon Egypt becoming a protectorate of Great Britain. Egyptian ambitions of being prominent both in Europe and the world would be achieved, albeit at the expense of its liberty.
–
‘Abd al-Raziq, M. (1922). Arabic Literature Since the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 249-265.
Abdel-Malik, A. (1989). General History of Africa VI.
Baer, G. (1963). Tanzimat in Egypt–The Penal Code. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 21.
Cromer. (1908). Modern Egypt: Volume 1. Macmillan and Co., Limited.
Lutsky, V. B. (1969). The Financial Enslavement of Egypt. In Modern History of the Arab Countries. Retrieved from marxists.org.
Qamaruddin, M. (1977). Egypt under Said and Ismail Pasha. In M. Qamaruddin, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (pp. 677-668).
Reinkowski, M. (2014). Uncommunicative Communication: Competing Egyptian, Ottoman and British Imperial Ventures in 19th-Century Egypt. In Die Welts Des Islams (pp. 399–422).
Richmond, J. (1977). Egypt: 1798 – 1952. Metheun and Co., Limited.
Sa’id Pasha. (1998, July 20). Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Said-Pasha
Scham, S. A. (2013). The Making and Unmaking of European Cairo. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies, 313-318.
Siegfried, A. (1940). Suez and Panama. Jonathan Cape.
What Ismail Pasha did for Egypt. (1879). Scientific American, 89.