Muhammad Ali modeled Egypt’s army on British colonial rule in India

Evidence

The Pasha clearly had in mind the idea of creating a conscript army in which the soldiers would be firmly dominated by their officers. He once told a distinguished French visitor, “I have not done in Egypt except what the British are doing in India; they have an army composed of Indians and ruled by British officers, and I have an army composed of Arabs ruled by Turkish officers … The Turk makes a better officer, since he knows that he is entitled to rule, while the Arab feels that the Turk is better than him in that respect.” He added, however, that he was determined to forbid these Turkish-speaking immigrants from legally acquiring land in Egypt and “from becoming proprietors and creating for themselves a personal leverage over the population.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1327

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s interest in parallels between the Egyptian army and British imperial practice in India.
• SEED: Angle: how a 19th-century Muslim ruler explicitly borrowed British colonial military doctrine for a noncolonial army.

Related

• Mehmed Ali explicitly modeled his army on British colonial rule in India. (similarity 0.96)
• Mehmed Ali’s army model drew heavily on Ottoman precedent, not only French example (similarity 0.89)
• Mehmed Ali’s army drew equally from Ottoman as from French military models. (similarity 0.83)
• Muhammad Ali prized Egyptians mainly as cheap labor to replace costly British workers. (similarity 0.81)
• Egypt’s army in Mehmed Ali’s era was not a national force. (similarity 0.80)
• Ali founded his conscript army in 1820-1 to secure his rule against Istanbul (similarity 0.80)
• Mehmed Ali’s army founded Egyptian nationalism through control practices, not enlightenment. (similarity 0.80)
• Mehmed Ali’s army split officers and soldiers along Turkish-Arabic linguistic lines (similarity 0.80)
• Mehmed Ali rejected Napoleon’s army model in favor of Sultan Selim’s organization for Egypt (similarity 0.80)
• The army conscripted Egyptians by force to fight for Mehmed Ali’s dynasty (similarity 0.80)
• Mehmed Ali conscripted even self-maimed men into his army and projects (similarity 0.79)
• Mehmed Ali’s army was not aimed at Egyptian independence (similarity 0.79)
• Mehmed Ali’s army was a personal, dynastic force rather than a national one. (similarity 0.79)
• Within roughly a decade Egypt replaced Mamluk-style warriors with a trained modern army (similarity 0.79)
• Britain opposed Mehmed Ali over his Ottoman expansion, not his industries (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• British historians saw Mehmed Ali as echoing their own viceroys in India #expands (0.80) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1671