The new Egyptian officer corps was recruited from mamluks and Turkish speakers

Evidence

At the same time the nucleus of the officer corps was being formed by training a number of mamluks of Mehmed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha in addition to a number of mamluks donated by key officials. These mamluks were sent to Upper Egypt to be trained where two special schools were built for them, one in Aswan and the other in Farshūṭ slightly to the north of Aswan. As a rule Mehmed Ali’s slaves were trained in the Aswan school, while Ibrahim Pasha’s mamluks were trained in Farshūṭ. In addition to these mamluks other young Turkish-speaking soldiers from the old army were sent to the Farshūṭ school for training, although the mamluks were given priority over them when it came to assigning the graduating cadets their new officer ranks. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 447