Muhammad Ali of Egypt

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Muhammad Ali (4 March 1769 – 2 August 1849) was an Ottoman viceroy who became the de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, and is widely considered the founder of modern Egypt. A governor of Albanian origin, Ali extended his control from Egypt to include Sudan, Hejaz, the Levant, Cyprus, Crete and parts of Greece at the height of his rule in 1840, and transformed Cairo from a mere Ottoman provincial capital to the center of an expansive empire. Born in a village in Albania, when he was young he moved with his family to Kavala in the Rumelia Eyalet, where his father, an Albanian tobacco and shipping merchant, served as an Ottoman commander of a small unit in the city. Ali was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from French occupation following Napoleon's withdrawal. He rose to power through a series of political maneuvers, and in 1805 he was named Wāli (governor) of Egypt and gained the rank of Pasha. As Wāli, Ali attempted to modernize Egypt by instituting...

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