page_title: Albanians in Egypt
section_title: Muhammad Ali Era
hierarchical_section_title: Albanians in Egypt / Muhammad Ali Era
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Egypt under Muhammad Ali Dynasty in English. Deutsch: Karte Ägyptens unter der Dynastie von Muhammad Ali, in mehreren Phasen, auf Englisch. Quellen: s. Diskussion in der de:Wikipedia:Kartenwerkstatt Putzger Historischer Weltatlas. Cornelsen Verlag 2001. dtv-Atlas Weltgeschichte, Band 2. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 2005.
context_page_description: The Albanian community in Egypt started by Ottoman rulers and military personnel appointed in the Egyptian province. A substantial community would grow up later by soldiers and mercenaries who settled in the second half of the 18th century and made a name for themselves in the Ottoman struggle to expel French troops in 1798–1801. Muhammad Ali who was of Albanian descent, was the ruler who had founded the New Kingdom of Egypt which lasted there until 1952. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many other Albanians settled into Egypt for economical and political reasons. With the fedayeen, Muslim Brotherhood, and the culminating Egyptian Revolution of 1952 the Albanian community in Egypt totally diminished and they settled in Western countries.
context_section_description: Muhammad Ali was an Albanian commander in the Ottoman army that was sent to drive Napoleon's forces out of Egypt, but upon the French withdrawal, seized power himself and forced the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II to recognize him as Wāli, or Governor of Egypt in 1805. His father, Ibrahim Agha, was from Korca, Albania, who had moved to Kavala. Demonstrating his grander ambitions, he took the title of Khedive; however, this was not sanctioned by the Sublime Porte.
  Muhammad Ali transformed Egypt into a regional power which he saw as the natural successor to the decaying Ottoman Empire. He constructed a military state with around four percent of the populace serving the army to raise Egypt to a powerful positioning in the Ottoman Empire in a way showing  various similarities to the Soviet strategies (without communism) conducted in the 20th century.  Muhammad Ali summed up his vision for Egypt in this way:
  I am well aware that the [Ottoman] Empire is heading by the day toward destruction. ... On her ruins I will build a vast kingdom ... up to the Euphrates and the Tigris.
  — Georges Douin, ed., Une Mission militaire française auprès de Mohamed Aly, correspondance des Généraux Belliard et Boyer (Cairo: Société Royale de Géographie d'Égypte, 1923), p.50
  At the height of his power, Muhammad Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha's military strength did indeed threaten the very existence of the Ottoman Empire as he sought to supplant the Osman Dynasty with his own. Ultimately, the intervention of the Great Powers prevented Egyptian forces from marching on Constantinople, and henceforth, his dynasty's rule would be limited to Africa, and Sinai. Muhammad Ali had conquered Sudan in the first half of his reign and Egyptian control would be consolidated and expanded under his successors, most notably Ibrahim Pasha's son Isma'il I.
caption: Egypt under Muhammad Ali Dynasty
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