Overview
After Selim I’s victory over the Mamluks in 1517, Egypt became an Ottoman province. It was governed by a pasha sent from Istanbul, but real power was shared with — and increasingly captured by — the mamluk beys, who continued to be recruited and dominated the countryside and its revenue. Egypt supplied grain and revenue to the empire and remained a key node of the Red Sea coffee and spice trade, though the Atlantic and Cape routes eroded its share over time.
Key developments
In the eighteenth century the mamluk factions grew near-autonomous; Ali Bey al-Kabir even rebelled and briefly broke away in 1768–72. In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte’s French expedition occupied Egypt, defeating the mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids. British and Ottoman action forced the French out in 1801.
End and transition
The French withdrawal left a power vacuum. It ended in 1805, when Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman commander, was recognized as governor — the effective end of the old order and the start of a new era.