Ali Bey al-Kabir
Ali Bey al-Kabir was a mamluk who served as of Ottoman Egypt in 1760–1766 and 1767–1772. He was effectively the strongman of Egypt and in 1769 practically pursued independence from the Ottomans, minting coins in his own name, terminating the annual tribute to Constantinople and launching conquests of the Hejaz and Syria in 1770–1771. His rule ended following the insubordination of his most trusted general, Abu al-Dahab, which led to Ali Bey's downfall and death.
Origins
Ali Bey was born in Principality of Abkhazia. According to Pleshcheev and Fındıklılı Efendi, Ali Bey was of ethnic Abkhazian origin. The Encyclopedia of Islam adds that according to Ali Bey's contemporary biographer, Sauveur Lusignan, he was "supposedly" the son of a certain David, a Greek Orthodox priest. Lusignan notes that his name is Daut, which is the Abkhaz version of the name David. Another version is that he was of ethnic Georgian origin. According to Alexander Mikaberidze, Ali Bey's father was a priest in the Georgian Orthodox Church. He was kidnapped and brought to Cairo, the capital of Ottoman Egypt, in 1741, when he was around 13, and was sold into slavery. He was purchased by two Jewish customs agents who gave him to Ibrahim Ketkhuda in 1743. Ibrahim Ketkhuda was also of Georgian origin.Early career
Although the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1518–1519, the new rulers incorporated the remnant mamluk troops and officials into the governance systems of the newly-formed province of Egypt. The Ottoman sultan, wary of concentrating the full extent of Egypt's large military and economic resources into the hands of its governor, set up a complex system of government in the province to balance his power. While the governor, always chosen from the Ottoman imperial personnel, remained the sultan's chief executive in Egypt and held the high rank of pasha, the defterdar, or treasurer, who was typically a mamluk, was given extensive power over the economy, and held the next highest rank of sanjakbey, often abbreviated to 'bey'. The province had seven Ottoman army units, called, the most powerful of which was the janissaries. The remnant mamluks maintained a parallel military structure in the province that was initially loyal to the Ottoman rulers, who allowed them to continue importing and training new recruits, critical to the continuation of the mamluk tradition. By the early 18th century, the had become considerably weakened and dominated by the mamluk beys. The powerful offices of the defterdar, the, who wielded executive authority during the absence of the governor, the, who commanded the annual Muslim pilgrim caravan to Mecca, and the chief of the janissaries, were all held by mamluk beys.In 1711 a civil war broke between the two dominant mamluk factions of the country, the Faqariya and the Qasimiya, the former backed by the janissaries and the latter by the other Ottoman and a newly-emergent mamluk faction, the Qazdughliya. The Faqariya were trounced during the war, but the victorious Qasimiya splintered into a spent force of warring factions by the 1730s, enabling the rise of the Qazdughliya to power. Despite the internal bloodletting among the mamluks, the civil war had signaled the triumph of the mamluk beys over the Ottoman as the dominant military power in Egypt. For the remainder of the 18th century, the mamluk beys controlled Egypt's politics, but their incessant factionalism and internal strife allowed the Ottomans to maintain an important influence in provincial affairs. A testament to the newfound power and prestige of the mamluks in Egypt was the inauguration of a new title, , bestowed by the sultan on the preeminent mamluk bey.
Ali's master, Ibrahim Ketkhuda, had led the Qazdughli faction to victory over the Qasimiya in 1730 and in 1739, drove out the head of the Faqariya, Uthman Bey. By 1748, Ibrahim Ketkhuda and his partner in power, Ridwan Ketkhuda, head of the smaller Julfiyya mamluk faction, stabilized the country under their joint leadership. Moving up the ranks in Ibrahim Ketkhuda's mamluk household, Ali reached the rank of in 1749. were a rank below the beys, whom they expected to succeed in time, and were chosen among the favorite mamluks of their patron. In the early 18th century, there were thirty-six administrative offices open to, who numbered between sixty and seventy at that time. Their jurisdiction typically included a group of villages in a rural province and they were essentially the most powerful administrators in those parts of the countryside that were not controlled by the Bedouin tribes.
In 1753 or 1754, Ali was the, the second most important office in the mamluk beylicate of the 18th century. In the course of leading the caravan, he made daring attacks against the Bedouin tribes who dwelt in the desert regions through which the caravan route passed. He earned his popular Turkish nickname,, meaning 'he who catches clouds', an allusion to the Bedouin, who were as elusive as clouds. His less common, Arabic nickname, , was similarly a reference to his ferocity against the Bedouin. Upon his return from the Hajj, Ali attained the rank of bey. Ibrahim Ketkhuda died in November 1754, after which he was succeeded as head of the Qazdughli faction by Abd al-Rahman Ketkhuda, while Ridwan succeeded him as. Ridwan was ousted in May 1755, and by October, Uthman Bey al-Jirjawi became and Abd al-Rahman largely retired from politics. Ali became a bey during al-Jirjawi's reign.
Jirjawi was ousted by Husayn Bey al-Sabunji, who became and exiled Ali Bey to the village of Nusat in Lower Egypt as part of a purge of potential rivals. In November, Sabunji was overthrown in a plot led by Husayn Bey Kashkash, a prominent bey of Ibrahim Ketkhuda's household, who recalled Ali Bey from his exile. Another 'Ali Bey', known as 'al-Ghazzawi', who had also been a mamluk of Ibrahim Ketkhuda, was recalled from his exile as well and was chosen in the council of preeminent beys as the new. While Ghazzawi was leading the Hajj caravan in 1760, he attempted to assassinate Abd al-Rahman, who remained influential in his retirement. The plot was detected, after which Abd al-Rahman allied with Ali Bey, who wielded significant influence with the janissaries, to strengthen his position against Ghazzawi. In a council of the leading beys held in Ghazzawi's absence, Abd al-Rahman proposed that Ali Bey replace the acting, Khalil Bey al-Daftardar, to which the council agreed. Upon hearing the election of Ali Bey and a subsequent order to execute the conspirators who attempted to assassinate Abd al-Rahman, Ghazzawi took up exile in Gaza on his way back from the Hajj.
Chief of Egypt
First term
Although Ali Bey was officially, Abd al-Rahman, who lived in relative seclusion from daily politics, wielded actual power. Abd al-Rahman was neither a bey nor a mamluk, but a son of a mamluk, who were not favored in the mamluk system for advancement, and used Ali Bey as his political puppet. The limitation of his power by Abd al-Rahman, as well as by the Ottoman governor and the other mamluk beys, did not reconcile with Ali Bey's ambitions for total power. He resolved to eliminate his rivals, promote mamluks of his own household and engineer their appointments to powerful positions, and expand his sources of income. He began his thrust for power in 1763, when he exiled several officers of the janissaries from Alexandria and arrested for ransom four priests in Alexandria. The following year, he may have engineered the poisoning death of Egypt's incoming governor before he could assume office. In 1765 he exiled Abd al-Rahman to the Hejaz. In the meantime he was rapidly acquiring and promoting his mamluks, such that he had 3,000 mamluks and made eight of them beys by 1766.Exile in Gaza
Ali Bey's intensifying moves against the and fellow mamluk emirs and the empowerment of his own mamluks and tyrannical rule all brought about a check on his power by the Ottoman imperial government. It appointed a new governor, Hamza Pasha, with secret instructions to bring down Ali Bey. The governor invited Ali Bey's main mamluk rival, Husayn Bey Kashkash, back to Egypt from exile. Ali Bey made an abortive attempt to kill Husayn Bey by poisoning, but the plot was detected and prompted Husayn Bey and Hamza Pasha to retaliate by besieging Ali Bey in his palace. He was forced to step down as. Although he agreed to exile in Medina, he took refuge in Gaza, on Egypt's border. In Gaza, Ali Bey established contact with the Acre-based strongman of northern Palestine, Daher al-Umar, and gained the latter's support.Second term
Return to power
The tyrannical rule of Khalil Bey and Husayn Bey led to Hamza Pasha facilitating Ali Bey's return to Egypt to use him as a check on the ruling beys' power. On 6 September 1766, Ali Bey and his top mamluks appeared at the Cairo houses of the leading beys and demanded their restoration to the mamluk decision-making council. The council's members did not readmit them, but allowed them to stay in Egypt, with Ali Bey banished to Nusat, where he was to live off its revenues, and the others in his party sent to Upper Egypt, where the powerful Hawwara tribe was already hosting several mamluk exiles from the Qasimiya faction under Salih Bey. In February 1767, illicit communications between Ali Bey and his sympathizers in Cairo were detected, leading to the killings or exile of the sympathizers by the ruling beys and an order to exile Ali Bey to Jeddah. Around the same time, however, Hamza Pasha moved against the mamluks, per orders from Constantinople. Although several beys were slain and Husayn Bey was wounded, the mamluks prevailed against the governor, whom they deposed.The imperial government soon after sent a new governor, Rakım Mehmed Pasha, with orders to rein in the beys and prop up Ali Bey. Despite the threat he posed to them, Ali Bey was allowed by his mamluk rivals in power to join his mamluks in exile at Asyut in Upper Egypt. There, the leader of the Hawwara, Sheikh Humam, brokered an alliance between Ali Bey and Salih Bey. The two now rebelled against Husayn Bey and Khalil Bey by blocking traffic along the Nile River, preventing food supplies to Cairo from Upper Egypt, and stopping tax payments from the Upper Egyptian districts. After abortive expeditions from the ruling mamluks against Ali Bey and Salih Bey, the latter two launched their offensive, appearing before Cairo in autumn 1767. Rakım Mehmed Pasha, intent on toppling the beys, ordered the back to their barracks, thus depriving Husayn Bey and Khalil Bey of crucial military support. Without any actual fighting, Ali Bey and Salih Bey entered Cairo in October, while Khalil Bey and Husayn Bey left for Gaza. Rakım Mehmed Pasha recognized Ali Bey as and restored his subordinate beys to their former offices.