1830 - 1895
Modernizing viceroy of Egypt, reigning from 1863 until his deposition in July 1879.
Born in Cairo, Ismaʿil ibn Ibrahim was educated at the Qasr al-Ayni Princes' School established by his grandfather, Muhammad Ali Pasha, and at the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in France. He served briefly on the council for the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul and then chaired the corresponding vice-regal council in Cairo.
Upon succeeding his uncle, Muhammad Saʿid Pasha, in 1863, he started a policy of national modernization in Egypt by ordering the construction of factories, irrigation works, public buildings, and palaces. Many traditional Cairo and Alexandria neighborhoods and buildings were razed to facilitate the Europeanization of these cities. His reign marked the inauguration of many Egyptian cultural institutions, including the Cairo Opera House, the National Library (Dar al-Kutub), the Egyptian Museum, the Geographical Society, and various primary, secondary, and higher schools, such as Dar al-Ulum. The Suez Canal was completed during his reign; its 1869 inauguration occasioned a gala celebration attended by many European leaders.
Ismaʿil also established Egypt's system of provincial and local administration and convened the Majlis Shura al-Nuwwab, the country's first representative assembly. He reorganized the national and shariʿa (Islamic law) courts, established the mixed courts, created the postal service, and extended railroads and telegraph lines throughout Egypt. He sent explorers to the African interior and armies to complete Egypt's conquest of the Sudan. Egypt became more independent of the Ottoman Empire. Since Ismaʿil obtained the title of khedive (Persian for "little lord"), he gained permission to pass down his khedivate according to the European rules of succession and the right to contract loans without first obtaining permission from Istanbul. His industrial, military, and construction projects proved costly, and he indulged in other extravagances having no long-term value to Egypt, such as his many palaces and extensive luxuries that he bought for his wives and mistresses or bestowed upon Europeans he wished to impress.
At first, Ismaʿil paid for his program with revenues derived from the expanded output of Egyptian cotton, for which demand boomed during the American Civil War. Later, when European industrialists could buy cotton from other sources, Ismaʿil raised taxes and took loans from European bankers at increasingly unfavorable terms. Unable to repay them, he resorted to unorthodox financial measures - such as the 1871 Muqabala loan and the sale of his government's Suez Canal shares in 1875 - finally conceding to European control over Egyptian state revenues and disbursements through the 1876 Caisse de la Dette Publique.
In 1878 he surrendered much of his power to the dual control of a "European cabinet" that included English and French ministers. Financial stringencies ensued, leading to an uprising by Egyptian army officers who had been put on half-pay, causing the European cabinet to resign. European creditors and their governments suspected Ismaʿil of engineering the uprising to regain his absolute rule. In July 1879, their envoys in Constantinople persuaded the sultan to replace him with his eldest son, Tawfiq. Ismaʿil left Egypt and lived out his life in exile. Although ambitious for Egypt's development and his own reputation, his achievements were eclipsed by his fiscal misrule, which led in 1882 to the British occupation.
Bibliography
Hunter, F. Robert. Egypt under the Khedives, 1805 - 1879: FromHousehold Government to Modern Bureaucracy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984.
Schölch, Alexander. Egypt for the Egyptians! The Socio-PoliticalCrisis in Egypt, 1878 - 1882. London: Ithaca Press, 1981.
— ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT
