Part 40

In his reign (1463) there began the struggle between the Egyptian and the Ottoman sultanates which finally led to the incorporation of Egypt in the Ottoman empire. The dispute began with a struggle over the succession in the principality of Karaman, where the two sultans favoured rival candidates, and the Ottoman sultan Mahommed II. supported the claim of his candidate with force of arms, obtaining as the price of his assistance several towns in which the suzerainty of the Egyptian sultan had been acknowledged. Open war did not, however, break out between the two states in Khoshkadam's time. This sultan is said to have taken money to permit innocent persons to be ill-treated or executed. He died on the 9th of October 1467, when the Atabeg _Yelbai_ was selected by the Mamelukes to succeed him, and was proclaimed sultan with the title of _Malik al-Zahir_. This person, proving incompetent, was deposed by a revolution of the Mamelukes on the 4th of December 1467, when the Atabeg _Timurbogha_ was proclaimed with the title _Malik al-Zahir_. In a month's time, however, there was another palace revolution, and the new Atabeg _Kait Bey_ or _Kaietbai_ (January 31st, 1468) was proclaimed sultan, the dethroned Timurbogha being, however, permitted to go free whither he pleased. Much of Kait Bey's reign was spent in struggles with Uzun Hasan, prince of Diarbekr, and Shah Siwar, chief of the Dhu'l-Kadiri Turkomans. He also offended the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II. by entertaining his brother Jem, who was afterwards poisoned in Europe. Owing to this, and also to the fact that an Indian embassy to the Ottoman sultan was intercepted by the agents of Kait Bey, Bayezid II. declared war against Egypt, and seized Adana, Tarsus and other places within Egyptian territory; extraordinary efforts were made by Kait Bey, whose generals inflicted a severe defeat on the Ottoman invaders. In 1491, however, after the Egyptians had repeatedly defeated the Ottoman troops, Kait Bey made proposals of peace which were accepted, the keys of the towns which the Ottomans had seized being restored to the Egyptian sultan. Kait Bey endeavoured to assist his co-religionists in Spain who were threatened by King Ferdinand, by threatening the pope with reprisals on Syrian Christians, but without effect. As the consequence of a palace intrigue, which Kait Bey was too old to quell, on the 7th of August 1496, a day before his death, his son _Mahommed_ was proclaimed sultan with the title _Malik al-Nasir_; this was in order to put the supreme power into the hands of the Atabeg Kansuh, since the new sultan was only fourteen years old. An attempt of the Atabeg to oust the new sultan, however, failed. After a reign of little more than two years, filled mainly with struggles between rival amirs, _Malik al-Nasir_ was murdered (October 31st, 1498), and his uncle and vizier _Kansuh_ proclaimed sultan with the title _Malik al-Zahir_. His reign only lasted about twenty months; on the 30th of June 1500 he was dethroned by Tumanbey, who caused _Jan Belat_, the Atabeg, to be proclaimed sultan. A few months later _Tumanbey_, at the suggestion of Kasrawah, governor of Damascus, whom he had been sent to reduce to subjection, ousted Jan Belat, and was himself proclaimed sultan with the title _Malik al-'Adil_ (January 25th, 1501). His reign lasted only one hundred days, when he was displaced by _Kansuh al-Ghuri_ (April 20th, 1501). His reign was remarkable for a naval conflict between the Egyptians and the Portuguese, whose fleet interfered with the pilgrim route from India to Mecca, and also with the trade between India and Egypt; Kansuh caused a fleet to be built which fought naval battles with the Portuguese with varying results.

The Turkish conquest.

In 1515 there began the war with the Ottoman sultan Selim I. which led to the close of the Mameluke period, and the incorporation of Egypt and its dependencies in the Ottoman empire (see TURKEY: _History_). Kansuh was charged by Selim with giving the envoys of the Safawid Isma'il passage through Syria on their way to Venice to form a confederacy against the Turks, and with harbouring various refugees. The actual declaration of war was not made by Selim till May 1515, when the Ottoman sultan had made all his preparations; and at the battle of Merj Dabik, on the 24th of August 1515, Kansuh was defeated by the Ottoman forces and fell fighting. Syria passed quickly into the possession of the Turks, whose advent was in many places welcome as meaning deliverance from the Mamelukes. In Cairo, when the news of the defeat and death of the Egyptian sultan arrived, the governor who had been left by Kansuh, _Tumanbey_, was proclaimed sultan (October 17th, 1516). On the 20th of January 1517 Cairo was taken by the Ottomans, and Selim shortly after declared sultan of Egypt. Tumanbey continued the struggle for some months, but was finally defeated, and after being captured and kept in prison seventeen days was executed on the 15th of April 1517.

(8) _The Turkish Period._--The sultan Selim left with his viceroy Khair Bey a guard of 5000 janissaries, but otherwise made few changes in the administration of the country. The register by which a great portion of the land was a fief of the Mamelukes was left unchanged, and it is said that a proposal made by the sultan's vizier to appropriate these estates was punished with death. The Mameluke amirs were to be retained in office as heads of twelve sanjaks into which Egypt was divided; and under the next sultan, Suleiman I., two chambers were created, called respectively the Greater and the Lesser Divan, in which both the army and the ecclesiastical authorities were represented, to aid the pasha by their deliberations. Six regiments altogether were constituted by the conqueror Selim for the protection of Egypt; to these Suleiman added a seventh, of Circassians. As will be seen from the tables, it was the practice of the Porte to change the governor of Egypt at very short intervals--after a year or even some months. The third governor, Ahmad Pasha, hearing that orders for this execution had come from Constantinople, endeavoured to make himself an independent ruler and had coins struck in his own name. His schemes were frustrated by two of the amirs whom he had imprisoned and who, escaping from their confinement, attacked him in his bath and killed him. In 1527 the first survey of Egypt under the Ottomans was made, in consequence of the official copy of the former registers having perished by fire; yet this new survey did not come into use until 1605. Egyptian lands were divided in it into four classes--the sultan's domain, fiefs, land for the maintenance of the army, and lands settled on religious foundations.

Troubles with the army.

It would seem that the constant changes in the government caused the army to get out of control at an early period of the Ottoman occupation, and at the beginning of the 11th Islamic century mutinies became common; in 1013 (1604) the governor Ibrahim Pasha was murdered by the soldiers, and his head set on the Bab Zuwela. The reason for these mutinies was the attempt made by successive pashas to put a stop to the extortion called _Tulbah_, a forced payment exacted by the troops from the inhabitants of the country by the fiction of debts requiring to be discharged, which led to grievous ill-usage. In 1609 something like civil war broke out between the army and the pasha, who had on his side some loyal regiments and the Bedouins. The soldiers went so far as to choose a sultan, and to divide provisionally the regions of Cairo between them. They were defeated by the governor Mahommed Pasha, who on the 5th of February 1610 entered Cairo in triumph, executed the ringleaders, and banished many others to Yemen. The contemporary historian speaks of this event as a second conquest of Egypt for the Ottomans. A great financial reform was now effected by Mahommed Pasha, who readjusted the burdens imposed on the different communities of Egypt in accordance with their means. With the troubles that beset the metropolis of the Ottoman empire, the governors appointed thence came to be treated by the Egyptians with continually decreasing respect. In July 1623 there came an order from the Porte dismissing Mustafa Pasha and appointing 'Ali Pasha governor in his place. The officers met and demanded from the newly-appointed governor's deputy the customary gratuity; when this was refused they sent letters to the Porte declaring that they wished to have Mustafa Pasha and not 'Ali Pasha as governor. Meanwhile 'Ali Pasha had arrived at Alexandria, and was met by a deputation from Cairo telling him that he was not wanted. He returned a mild answer; and, when a rejoinder came in the same style as the first message, he had the leader of the deputation arrested and imprisoned. Hereupon the garrison of Alexandria attacked the castle and rescued the prisoner; whereupon 'Ali Pasha was compelled to embark. Shortly after a rescript arrived from Constantinople confirming Mustafa Pasha in the governorship. Similarly in 1631 the army took upon themselves to depose the governor Musa Pasha, in indignation at his execution of Kitas Bey, an officer who was to have commanded an Egyptian force required for service in Persia. The pasha was ordered either to hand over the executioners to vengeance or to resign his place; as he refused to do the former he was compelled to do the latter, and presently a rescript came from Constantinople, approving the conduct of the army and appointing one Khalil Pasha as Musa's successor. Not only was the governor unsupported by the sultan against the troops, but each new governor regularly inflicted a fine upon his outgoing predecessor, under the name of money due to the treasury; and the outgoing governor would not be allowed to leave Egypt till he had paid it. Besides the extortions to which this practice gave occasion the country suffered greatly in these centuries from famine and pestilence. The latter in the spring of 1619 is said to have carried off 635,000 persons, and in 1643 completely desolated 230 villages.

Rise of the Beys.

By the 18th century the importance of the pasha was quite superseded by that of the beys, and two offices, those of Sheik al-Balad and Amir al-Hajj, which were held by these persons, represented the real headship of the community. The process by which this state of affairs came about is somewhat obscure, owing to the want of good chronicles for the Turkish period of Egyptian history. In 1707 the Sheik al-Balad, Qasim Iywaz, is found at the head of one of two Mameluke factions, the Qasimites and the Fiqarites, between whom the seeds of enmity were sown by the pasha of the time, with the result that a fight took place between the factions outside Cairo, lasting eighty days. At the end of that time Qasim Iywaz was killed and the office which he had held was given to his son Isma'il. Isma'il held this office for sixteen years, while the pashas were constantly being changed, and succeeded in reconciling the two factions of Mamelukes. In 1724 this person was assassinated through the machinations of the pasha, and Shirkas Bey, of the opposing faction, elevated to the office of Sheik al-Balad in his place. He was soon driven from his post by one of his own faction called Dhu'l-Fiqar, and fled to Upper Egypt. After a short time he returned at the head of an army, and some engagements ensued, in the last of which Shirkas Bey met his end by drowning; Dhu'l-Fiqar was himself assassinated in 1730 shortly after this event. His place was filled by Othman Bey, who had served as his general in this war. In 1743 Othman Bey, who had governed with wisdom and moderation, was forced to fly from Egypt by the intrigues of two adventurers, Ibrahim and Ridwan Bey, who, when their scheme had succeeded, began a massacre of beys and others thought to be opposed to them; they then proceeded to govern Egypt jointly, holding the two offices mentioned above in alternate years. An attempt made by one of the pashas to rid himself of these two persons by a _coup d'état_ signally failed owing to the loyalty of their armed supporters, who released Ibrahim and Ridwan from prison and compelled the pasha to fly to Constantinople. An attempt made by a subsequent pasha in accordance with secret orders from Constantinople was so far successful that some of the beys were killed. Ibrahim and Ridwan escaped, and compelled the pasha to resign his governorship and return to Constantinople. Ibrahim shortly afterwards fell by the hand of an assassin who had aspired to occupy one of the vacant beyships himself, which was conferred instead on 'Ali, who as 'Ali Bey was destined to play an important part in the history of Egypt. The murder of Ibrahim Bey took place in 1755, and his colleague Ridwan perished in the disputes that followed upon it.

'Ali Bey.

'Ali Bey, who had first distinguished himself by defending a caravan in Arabia against bandits, set himself the task of avenging the death of his former master Ibrahim, and spent eight years in purchasing Mamelukes and winning other adherents. He thereby excited the suspicions of the Sheik al-Balad Khalil Bey, who organized an attack upon him in the streets of Cairo, in consequence of which he fled to Upper Egypt. Here he met one Salh Bey, who had injuries to avenge on Khalil Bey, and the two organized a force with which they returned to Cairo and defeated Khalil, who was forced to fly to Tanta, where for a time he concealed himself; eventually, however, he was discovered, sent to Alexandria and finally strangled. The date of 'Ali Bey's victory was 1164 A.H. (A.D. 1750), and after it he was made Sheik al-Balad. In that capacity he executed the murderer of his former master Ibrahim; but the resentment which this act aroused among the beys caused him to leave his post and fly to Syria, where he won the friendship of the governor of Acre, Zahir b. Omar, who obtained for him the goodwill of the Porte and reinstatement in his post as Sheik al-Balad. In 1766, after the death of his supporter the grand vizier Raghib Pasha, he was again compelled to fly from Egypt to Yemen, but in the following year he was told that his party at Cairo was strong enough to permit of his return. Resuming his office he raised eighteen of his friends to the rank of bey, among them Ibrahim and Murad, who were afterwards at the head of affairs, as well as Mahommed Abu'l-Dhahab, who was closely connected with the rest of 'Ali Bey's career. He appears to have done his utmost to bring Egyptian affairs into order, and by very severe measures repressed the brigandage of the Bedouins of Lower Egypt. He appears to have aspired to found an independent monarchy, and to that end endeavoured to disband all forces except those which were exclusively under his own control. In 1769 a demand came to 'Ali Bey for a force of 12,000 men to be employed by the Porte in the Russian war. It was suggested, however, at Constantinople that 'Ali would employ this force when he collected it for securing his own independence, and a messenger was sent by the Porte to the pasha with orders for his execution. 'Ali, being apprised by his agents at the metropolis of the despatch of this messenger, ordered him to be waylaid and killed; the despatches were seized and read by 'Ali before an assembly of the beys, who were assured that the order for execution applied to all alike, and he urged them to fight for their lives. His proposals were received with enthusiasm by the beys whom he had created. Egypt was declared independent and the pasha given forty-eight hours to quit the country. Zahir Pasha of Acre, to whom was sent official information of the step taken by 'Ali Bey, promised his aid and kept his word by compelling an army sent by the pasha of Damascus against Egypt to retreat.

The Porte was not able at the time to take active measures for the suppression of 'Ali Bey, and the latter endeavoured to consolidate his dominions by sending expeditions against marauding tribes, both in north and south Egypt, reforming the finance, and improving the administration of justice. His son-in-law, Abu'l-Dhahab, was sent to subject the Hawwarah, who had occupied the land between Assuan and Assiut, and a force of 20,000 was sent to conquer Yemen. An officer named Isma'il Bey was sent with 8000 to acquire the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and one named Hasan Bey to occupy Jidda. In six months the greater part of the Arabian peninsula was subject to 'Ali Bey, and he appointed as sherif of Mecca a cousin of his own, who bestowed on 'Ali by an official proclamation the titles Sultan of Egypt and Khakan of the Two Seas. He then, in virtue of this authorization, struck coins in his own name (1185 A.H.) and ordered his name to be mentioned in public worship.

His next move turned out fatally. Abu'l-Dhahab was sent with a force of 30,000 men in the same year (A.D. 1771) to conquer Syria; and agents were sent to negotiate alliances with Venice and Russia. Abu'l-Dhahab's progress through Palestine and Syria was triumphant. Reinforced by 'Ali Bey's ally Zahir, he easily took the chief cities, ending with Damascus; but at this point he appears to have entered into secret negotiations with the Porte, by which he undertook to restore Egypt to Ottoman suzerainty. He then proceeded to evacuate Syria, and marched with all the forces he could collect to Upper Egypt, occupying Assiut in April 1772. Having collected some additional troops from the Bedouins, he marched on Cairo. Isma'il Bey was sent by 'Ali Bey with a force of 3000 to check his advance; but at Basatin Isma'il with his troops joined Abu'l-Dhahab. 'Ali Bey intended at first to defend himself so long as possible in the citadel at Cairo; but receiving information to the effect that his friend Zahir of Acre was still willing to give him refuge, he left Cairo for Syria (8th of April 1772), one day before the entrance of Abu'l-Dhahab.

At Acre 'Ali's fortune seemed to be restored. A Russian vessel anchored outside the port, and, in accordance with the agreement which he had made with the Russian empire, he was supplied with stores and ammunition, and a force of 3000 Albanians. He sent one of his officers, 'Ali Bey al-Tantawi, to recover the Syrian towns evacuated by Abu'l-Dhahab, and now in the possession of the Porte. He himself took Jaffa and Gaza, the former of which he gave to his friend Zahir of Acre. On the 1st of February 1773 he received information from Cairo that Abu'l-Dhahab had made himself Sheik al-Balad, and in that capacity was practising unheard-of extortions, which were making Egypt with one voice call for the return of 'Ali Bey. He accordingly started for Egypt at the head of an army of 8000 men, and on the 19th of April met the army of Abu'l-Dhahab at Salihia. 'Ali's forces were successful at the first engagement; but when the battle was renewed two days later he was deserted by some of his officers, and prevented by illness and wounds from himself taking the conduct of affairs. The result was a complete defeat for his army, after which he declined to leave his tent; he was captured after a brave resistance, and taken to Cairo, where he died seven days later.

After 'Ali Bey's death Egypt became once more a dependency of the Porte, governed by Abu'l-Dhahab as Sheik al-Balad with the title pasha. He shortly afterwards received permission from the Porte to invade Syria, with the view of punishing 'Ali Bey's supporter Zahir, and left as his deputies in Cairo Isma'il Bey and Ibrahim Bey, who, by deserting 'Ali at the battle of Salihia, had brought about his downfall. After taking many cities in Palestine Abu'l-Dhahab died, the cause being unknown; and Murad Bey (another of the deserters at Salihia) brought his forces back to Egypt (26th of May 1775).

Isma'il Bey now became Sheik al-Balad, but was soon involved in a dispute with Ibrahim and Murad, who after a time succeeded in driving Isma'il out of Egypt and establishing a joint rule (as Sheik al-Balad and Amir al-Hajj respectively) similar to that which had been tried previously. The two were soon involved in quarrels, which at one time threatened to break out into open war; but this catastrophe was averted, and the joint rule was maintained till 1786, when an expedition was sent by the Porte to restore Ottoman supremacy in Egypt. Murad Bey attempted to resist, but was easily defeated; and he with Ibrahim decided to fly to Upper Egypt and await the trend of events. On the 1st of August 1782 the Turkish commander entered Cairo, and, after some violent measures had been taken for the restoration of order, Isma'il Bey was again made Sheik al-Balad and a new pasha installed as governor. In January 1791 a terrible plague began to rage in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, to which Isma'il Bey and most of his family fell victims. Owing to the need for competent rulers Ibrahim and Murad Bey were sent for from Upper Egypt and resumed their dual government. These two persons were still in office when Bonaparte entered Egypt.