Tahir Pasha (Egypt)
Tahir Pasha was the Albanian commander of bashi-bazouks under Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha. He rebelled and assumed government of Cairo.[1]
Albanians under Tahir rise and seize Cairo from Hüsrev Pasha
In March 1803, the British evacuated Alexandria leaving a power vacuum in Egypt. Muhammad Bey al-Alfi (aka Alfi Bey) (1751–1807) had accompanied the British to lobby them to help restore the power of the Mamelukes. In their attempts to return to power, the Mamelukes took Minia and interrupted communication between Upper and Lower Egypt.
About six weeks later, the Ottoman governor of Egypt Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha, finding himself in a financial bind and unable to pay all the troops under his command, attempted to disband his Albanian bashi-bazouks (or Arnauts) without pay in order to be able to pay his regular, Turkish, soldiers.[2] The Albanians refused to disband, and instead surrounded the house of the defterdar (finance minister), who appealed in vain to Hüsrev Pasha to satisfy their claims. Instead, the Pasha commenced an artillery bombardment from batteries located in and near his palace on the insurgent soldiers who had taken the house of the defterdar, located in the Ezbekia. The citizens of Cairo, accustomed to such occurrences, immediately closed their shops and armed themselves. The tumult in the city continued all day, and the next morning a body of troops sent out by Hüsrev Pasha failed to quell it.
Tahir Pasha then repaired to the citadel, gaining admittance through an embrasure, and from there began a counter bombardment of the pasha's forces over the roofs of the intervening houses. Soon thereafter, Tahir descended with his guns to the Ezbekia and then laid close siege to the governor's palace. The following day, Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha fled with his women, servants, and regular troops to Damietta along the Nile.
Tahir then assumed the government, but within twenty three days encountered trouble due to inability to pay all of his forces. This time, it was Turkish troops who went without pay, and they in turn mutinied and assassinated Tahir Pasha. During the course of the mutiny, the governor's palace was burnt and plundered. A desperate, prolonged, and confusing conflict then ensued between the Albanians and Turks, with the divided Mameluks oscillating between the two factions or attempting to regain power on their own behalf.
Tahir was replaced as commander of the Albanians by Muhammad Ali, one of the regimental commanders. Fearing for his position from the Ottomans, he entered into an alliance with the Mameluke leaders Ibrahim Bey and Osman Bey al-Bardisi.
References
- ↑ The Encyclopædia Britannica, or, Dictionary of arts, sciences, and general literature 8. Adam & Charles Black. 1855. p. 490. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
- ↑ Inalcık, Halil. Trans. by Gibb, H.A.R. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Ed., Vol. V, Fascicules 79-80, pp. 35 f. "Khosrew Pasha". E.J. Brill (Leiden), 1979. Accessed 13 Sept 2011.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.