Ottoman attempts to eliminate the Mamluks preceded Mehmed Ali’s 1811 massacre.

Evidence

This dramatic incident is invariably highlighted in nearly every book that deals with the Pasha’s reign arguing, in effect, how he was thus successful in fulfilling a “dream that Egypt had had for seven centuries [sic].” However, it is important to remember that even in this incident Mehmed Ali was not as pioneering as first appears, and that there had been earlier and very similar attempts by the Ottomans to get rid of the Mamluks. The last such attempt took place after Mehmed Ali had arrived in Egypt. On 22 October 1801 Hüseyin Pasha, the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman navy (who had arrived with the new nizami troops to assist the British in evicting the French from the country) invited the leading Mamluk emirs to a banquet on board his flagship and confronted them with an imperial invitation to go with him to Istanbul. Seeing the “invitation” for what it was, the emirs attempted to escape the ship and in the ensuing struggle a large number of them were killed and others were arrested only to be rescued later by the British and allowed to flee to upper Egypt. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 432

Categorization

• XREF: Serves the reader’s goal of placing Egypt’s army founding within the wider Ottoman context rather than treating Mehmed Ali as a lone innovator.