Growing ambition clashed with Mehmed Ali’s Ottoman identity and religious scruples

Evidence

The problem, however, was that the vali was too ambitious to be content with his position as a subservient vassal, and as time went on and as he grew stronger and stronger, he began to have aspirations of more independence from Istanbul. As is shown above, this inherent tension acquired momentum during the Greek debacle and surfaced in 1831 when he ordered his son to lead an expedition to invade Syria without the consent of the Sultan. Yet, as is shown above, he was still uncomfortable with his latest bold move and found it difficult to legitimate his shaky position. Given his outlook and background, it is only natural to expect him to hesitate when deciding to cast off the Ottoman garb altogether, not only because of the moral and religious issues involved in fighting the Muslim Sultan but also because by doing so he would seriously challenge the only world that he could associate with and felt, as it were, comfortable in. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 263

Categorization

• XREF: Explains the psychological constraint behind the 1831 Syrian invasion, relevant to the reader’s interest in how Egypt’s expansion was framed within the empire.