1864 - 1933

Egyptian official, cabinet minister, and politician who served as prime minister three times between 1919 and 1930.

Descended from a family of large landowners and related to the Muhammad Ali royal family, Adli split from the popular Wafdist movement, led by Saʿd Zaghlul, beginning in 1919. Adli became prime minister in 1921, but the Wafd undercut his efforts to negotiate an independence treaty with Britain. After Britain unilaterally declared Egypt independent (but with significant restrictions) in 1922, Adli's supporters - large landlords and a handful of reformist intellectuals - formed the Liberal Constitutionalist Party. The Wafd won the parliamentary elections in 1926, but the British regarded Zaghlul as an extremist and refused to let him return to the prime ministry. Adli therefore headed a coalition cabinet with the Wafd. Forced to maneuver between the Wafd, the British, and the palace, neither Adli nor his party ever felt at home in the world of mass politics.

Bibliography

Deeb, Marius. Party Politics in Egypt: The Wafd and Its Rivals, 1919 - 1939. London: Ithaca Press, 1979.

— DONALD MALCOLM REID

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.