Fiscally centralized Egypt’s revenue growth from monopolies funded Mehmed Ali’s army

Evidence

By the time Mehmed Ali started to found this army in 1820 he had already been occupying the prestigious and lucrative post of governor of Egypt on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan for fifteen years. During this long period he had managed to tighten Cairo’s control over the provinces by fighting corruption in the local bureaucracy, by conducting a cadastral survey (1813–14) that was crucial in abolishing the tax farming system (iltizām) and in the cancellation of the immunities on agricultural land belonging to mosques and pious foundations (awqāf), and, most importantly, by getting rid in the infamous Massacre of the Citadel (1811) of the power of the military landlords, the Mamluks, who had been in effective control of the province for centuries in spite of Ottoman legal suzerainty. Centralization of political and administrative control was also enhanced by a rapid increase in agricultural productivity based on an expansion of the cultivated area and an increase in the area of perennial irrigation. Having done away with the power of middle-men in the shape of former multazims, religious men who were managing the awqāf, or the Mamluks, more and more revenue was funneled to Cairo and into the Pasha’s coffers. In addition, the Pasha introduced a wide-ranging policy of monopolies whereby staple goods as well as cash crops were to be sold only to government warehouses and at prices fixed by the Pasha. As a result of these measures annual revenue increased from 8 million francs in 1805 to 50 million francs in 1821,30 allowing the Pasha to undertake projects that were not even conceivable in the long period of Ottoman rule. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 71