Mustafa Fazil

1829 - 1875

Egyptian prince and supporter of Young Ottomans.

Prince Mustafa Fazil was the son of Ibrahim Pasha ibn Muhammad Ali and brother of the Egyptian Khedive Ismaʿil. In 1845, Mustafa Fazil traveled from Egypt to Constantinople (now Istanbul), where he took up politics. He served on the Council of Tanzimat from 1857 to 1862, and as minister of education in 1862 and 1863. In 1866, Ismaʿil secured a change in succession from Sultan Abdülaziz, thereby excluding Mustafa Fazil from the Egyptian throne. Mustafa Fazil, apparently in revenge, bankrolled the movement of Young Ottomans, first in Constantinople, and later from Paris. His 1867 open letter to the sultan was widely reproduced for forty years as a manifesto for political reform.

Bibliography

Davison, Roderic H. Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856 - 1876. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.

— ELIZABETH THOMPSON