Mahmud II’s interventionist reforms were inspired by Mehmed Ali’s Egyptian experiments

Evidence

Looked at from this perspective, the reforms of Mehmed Ali were closer to those of Mahmud II than to those of Selim III. While both sultans were trying hard to arrest the decline of the Empire basically by having tighter control over the provincial economic and administrative activities, Mahmud went much further than his predecessor in extending the aggressive hand of the government to control his subjects’ lives both in the central lands as well as in the provinces. In doing so he was certainly inspired by his vali’s “experiments” in Egypt. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1544

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in Ottoman-Egyptian relations and how provincial innovation fed back into central imperial reform.