Mehmed Ali treated borrowed military laws as flexible guidelines, not fixed rules

Evidence

This chapter has argued that in thinking about ways of organizing his army Mehmed Ali saw no problem in borrowing both from the French and from the Ottomans and in fusing together both models to suit his interests and capabilities. He showed the same flexibility when it came to adapting what he borrowed to his own needs. It is this flexible approach that accounts for much of the discrepancy between the laws, regulations, and blueprints, on the one hand, and their implementation and execution, on the other. Rather than taking them as fixed rules not to be deviated from, the Pasha and his senior officials approached them only as guidelines to be applied as well as possible, which they also felt had to be contravened if they were faced with some pressing factors. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 951

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: how ‘weak institutionalization’ reads as pragmatism rather than failure — the gap between blueprint and practice as deliberate flexibility under constraints.