The 1841 firman capped Egypt’s peacetime army at 18,000 men

Evidence

This firman stripped Egypt of the territorial possessions that it had managed to acquire during the preceding two decades and, of equal significance, reduced the size of its armed forces to 18,000 men during peacetime, only a small fraction of its original size. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 77