Nationalist historiography needs Mehmed Ali as outsider to conjure the Egyptian nation into being

Evidence

In other words, having insisted that the Egyptian nation has always already existed and that “Egypt” refers to a conscious subject acting clearly towards independence, autonomy, sovereignty and dignity, but faced at the same time with the historical fact that the nation was not always manifesting itself in this manner, how then could the nation be forced to exhibit itself and to strive for its own independence and dignity? Herein lies the importance of Mehmed Ali for Egyptian nationalist historiography. He appears literally from nowhere to show Egyptians that they are really Egyptians and to force them, even against their own wishes and contrary to his own intentions, to fight for their own nation. In this sense his foreign origins paradoxically become an asset since they give him the necessary vantage point from which to see clearly with his penetrative gaze the suffering that his people were beseeching him to deliver them from. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1670