Thursday, February 10, 2011

Egypt: History factoids from the 1800's: Ruled by Albanians and Georgians

Given that Egypt is very much in the news some factoids about the rulers in the 1700's, Georgians and Albanians the Muhammad Ali dynasty and a French guy thrown into the mix.
Word games Pasha==Shah==Tzar


Ali Bey Al-Kabir (1728 — 8 May 1773)
Mamluk leader of Egypt from 1760 to 1772. Born in the region of Abkhazia in Georgia into a family of a Georgian priest[1], he was kidnapped and sold out in slavery in Cairo in 1743. He was recruited into the Mamluk force in which he gradually rose in ranks and influence, winning the top office of sheikh al-balad (chief of the country) in 1760. In 1768 Ali Bey deposed the Ottoman governor and assumed the post of acting governor. He stopped the annual tribute to the Sublime Porte and in an unprecedented usurpation of the Ottoman Sultan's privileges had his name struck on local coins in 1769 (alongside the sultan's emblem), effectively declaring Egypt's independence from Ottoman rule. In 1770 he gained control of the Hijaz and a year later temporarily occupied Syria, thereby reconstituting the Mamluk state that had disappeared in 1517.
If one is interested in history, you should read about the Mamluks, slaves who ruled country. I recall the first time I read about Mamelukes in Walter Scotts The Talisman. The Maluks were the force behind Saladin who used the Mamelukes to defeat the crusaders.

Muhammad Ali Pasha: (4 March 1769 – 2 August 1849).
Ottoman Turk, of Albanian origin, who became an Ottoman Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan.
Muhammad Ali was born in Kavala, in the Ottoman province of Macedonia (now a part of modern Greece) to Albanian parents, the son of a tobacco and shipping merchant named Ibrahim Agha.
He married Ali Agha's daughter, Emine Nosratli, a wealthy widow of Ali Bey.
Farouk I of Egypt
The great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ali Pasha, Farouk was of Albanian descent. His mother was a great grand daughter of Suleiman Pasha (born Joseph Anthelme Sève,) a Frenchman.
His sister was Princess Fawzia Fuad, first wife and Queen Consort of the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

3 comments:

  1. Did you Steal someone's work

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brilliant insight into history

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous said... February 11, 2011 9:51 PM
    Did you Steal someone's work

    Yes "stolen" from wiki. Links provided too.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete