Muhammad Ali deliberately restricted education to a small administrative elite

Evidence

In a letter to his son, Ibrahim, answering his request to open new schools and to admit more native Egyptians, the Pasha said that he had no intention of spreading education among the masses in Egypt. He told his son to look at what happened to European monarchs when they attempted to educate their poor. He added that he should satisfy himself with educating a limited number of people who could assume key positions in his administration and give up ideas about generalizing education. Even after founding these schools he was displeased because they were mostly full of Arabic-speaking Egyptian students. He wrote to Ibrahim while he was in Anatolia at the height of the war against the Ottomans telling him to try to attract (riza ile alɩnɩp) some Turks from areas around Adana, Maraş and Orfa and send them to schools in Egypt. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1549

Categorization

• SEED: Material for an essay reframing ‘enlightened’ modernization narratives of Mehmed Ali as elite-building rather than liberation.
• XREF: Contradicts the common praise of Muhammad Ali as a great educator that the passage itself notes — connects to debate over his ‘modernizing’ legacy.