Egyptian scholarship framed expansion as defensive protection of reform against the Sultan

Evidence

That Mehmed Ali was fighting for the independence is so blindly taken for granted by most Egyptian historians that while basing their argument on the need for Egypt to get rid of the “Ottoman yoke,” the same right is denied other provinces that were also supposedly suffering under Ottoman suzerainty. These arguments with strong imperialist overtones are best represented in recent studies by two Egyptian historians. The first is J. ‘Ubaid’s study of Mehmed Ali’s expansion into Greece. In it he argues that the reason why Mehmed Ali expanded out of Egypt was to protect the economic and military reforms that he had succeeded in introducing in Egypt “with the help of its people” and his wariness of the Sultan’s attempts to depose him. He was thus, ‘Ubaid continues, constantly looking for guarantees that would entrench his position in Egypt, “guarantees that could only be secured if he extends his control [not only] over Egypt but also to Syria, the Arabian coast [of the Red Sea], and Iraq, if possible. The reason [for annexing these areas] is that they complement each other economically, making the task of defending them militarily easier.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 197

Categorization

• QUESTION: Ubaid’s strategic-economic rationale (Syria, Arabian coast, Iraq complement each other) is worth chasing against the actual campaign record later in the book.
• XREF: This nationalist historiography mirrors the moral-panic and settler-colonial debates seen elsewhere — how a postcolonial nation reframes imperial expansion as liberation. — connects to: Moses’ allies framed his defense as protecting the state’s heritage. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4571