Say Muhammad Ali comes out of the Second Ottoman-Egyptian war with all his territorial gains or san Crete and Adana with either De-facto independence or De jure Independence from the Ottoman empire
How large could Muhammad Ali's empire get over the decades
Wouldn't Ethiopia or other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa be possible for future expansion,Also can't Egypt take advantage of the 1878 Russo-Turkish war to grab Libya or Iraq?Not bigger with this PoD. Great Powers will not really tolerate a new power.
It can get bigger... but not with this PoD.
Wouldn't Ethiopia or other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa be possible for future expansion,Also can't Egypt take advantage of the 1878 Russo-Turkish war to grab Libya or Iraq?
Would all of Eritrea be possible ?Ethiopia was tried but the landscape is too hard and populous to control. The area is as big as the biggest area of the Holy Roman Empire. You can already imagine how big it is.
Wouldn't control of the Levant make Egypt equal to or stronger then the OttomansThe Ottomans are stronger.
They did allow Russia to expend the Balkan countries in 1878And besides, the Great Powers will meddle in it.
Would all of Eritrea be possible ?
Eritrea was already Egyptian
Wouldn't control of the Levant make Egypt equal to or stronger then the Ottomans
In the 1840s yes. In 1878 they have no strength to beat the Ottomans militarily or diplomatically
They did allow Russia to expend the Balkan countries in 1878
Russia is a Great Power and Egypt is not. Russian expansion was greatly reduced and pretty much non existent in the Balkans after Bulgaria did not desired to be a Russia Vassal as the Russians expected.
Mind, the Austrians and Russians explicitly sided with the Ottomans over Mohammed Ali. They wanted land at the expense of the Ottomans but a total collapse was not in their interests either (hence their support of the Ottomans in the Oriental Crisis of 1840). That's not to mention the British, who would never suffer the Turkish Straits falling into Russian hands.This is not the most realistic scenario by any means, but it would be an interesting one. I imagine a scenario wherein the Ottoman Empire collapses with a bang -- provinces far from the capital would break away from Constantinople as a new house struggles to establish itself, with Austria, Russia, Greece, and others scrambling to grab pieces of the pie, as the Alawiyya dynasty struggles to fight off surviving members of the Ottoman dynasty, all during or just after the campaigns of Napoleon.
Mind, the Austrians and Russians explicitly sided with the Ottomans over Mohammed Ali. They wanted land at the expense of the Ottomans but a total collapse was not in their interests either (hence their support of the Ottomans in the Oriental Crisis of 1840). That's not to mention the British, who would never suffer the Turkish Straits falling into Russian hands.
You'd need different leadership of Russia and/or Austria, at minimum, with different goals in mind to get such a situation.
I have never heard this but it is an intriguing idea to play with, what would you all envision resulting out of this?I've heard that the Ottoman dynasty came dangerously close to extinction in 1808. If this happens and the empire collapses under the Giray successors, Muhammad Ali Pasha could easily emerge as a new regional strongman. The Europeans might be more willing to support Egypt if it's the strongest option for stability in the region.
I have never heard this but it is an intriguing idea to play with, what would you all envision resulting out of this?
I'm not super knowledgeable about the Ottomans at this time, but here are the results that stand out as possible.I have never heard this but it is an intriguing idea to play with, what would you all envision resulting out of this?
Depending on how far you want to go, Muhammad Ali could have internally dismantled the Ottoman dynasty, and claimed the Caliphate of Constantinople for himself. Muhammad Ali's rise to power in Egypt was part of a larger struggle between the Ottoman dynasty and regional Janissary magnates, which would eventually conclude with the complete reorganisation of the Ottoman military with the Nizam-i-Cedid, and civil society with the Tanzimat. In Serbia, the rule of hereditary Janissary nobles would be overthrown by the First Serbian Revolt, for example.
If the Janissaries saw the Sultanate as a big enough threat to their existence as a class (which would be purged during the Auspicious Incident), it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that they might revolt and replace the House of Osman with the House of Muhammad-Ali. Historically, successful Janissary revolts tended to place more compliant Ottoman princes on the throne, but if tensions ran high enough, if wouldn't be the first time nobles and military leaders conspired to overthrow a monarchy.
What would actually be required to claim the Caliphate? Is it simply might makes right or are there specific criteria that would be required to get most subjects and state apparatus to accept the claim as legitimate (religious or otherwise)?
Essentially, you're the Caliph if the Ummah recognises you as the Caliph. "Caliph" ("Khalifah") literally means "successor," because the Caliph is supposed to be the secular successor to the Prophet.
In practice, yes, might-makes-right is a part of it -- if the claim is disputed, then yeah, war is one way people have settled it. Often, though, the "caliphate" has been claimed by several Muslim countries simultaneously (e.g., the Umayyads of Cordoba and the Abbasids of Baghdad both used the title of "Caliph," though the latter recognised the former as a subordinate "Emir.")
It's kind of like claiming the legacy of the Roman Empire, and styling yourself as "Emperor."
I'm pretty sure there's also the notion that the Caliph has a duty to protect the holy cities, but I'm not 100% sure about that.
So whether in this scenario or another, if the Ottomans faced a collapse for some reason, and some other local ruler (whether Muhammad Ali's, or the Sharif of Mecca, or the Al-Azms etc) managed to conquer a big chunk of the empire, at what point would they claim the Caliphate? When they have taken Mecca? Or Mecca + Constantinople?
I think they would need the Ottoman Caliphate, one way or another, to become a non-entity.
The Abbasids took the caliphate from the Umayyads by killing off the Umayyad dynasty.
The Ottomans forced the Abbasid Caliph to surrender the title after they conquered the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517.
The Sharif of Mecca proclaimed himself the Caliph after the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished by the Turkish Republic.
The Saudis, who wanted a Westphalian sovereign nation-state, conquered the Hejaz and chose not to claim the Caliphate, as it would make them accountable to the Ummah beyond their borders.
ISIS has claimed the Caliphate, but they haven't been recognised by most of the Ummah (which they justify on the theologically unsound grounds that to not recognise their caliphate is heresy, which is...the opposite of how things are supposed to work. The Caliph is accountable to the Ummah, not vice versa, but whatever.)
Either way, given that claiming the Caliphate is disputing the political authority of the Ottomans, Muhammad Ali would have to be in a position that the Ottomans would surrender their authority to him, or not be around to dispute it after he claimed it.
I don't know how many people recognised the Sharifian Caliphate. I do know that the Sharif, feeling betrayed by Britain and France, was interested in asserting the sovereignty of the Hashemite dynasty in Mandatory Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. I also know that the Khalifat Movement was a thing among Indian Muslims, and was sort of a predecessor to the Pakistan Movement. But the Sharifian Caliphate barely lasted more than a year before the Saudi Emirate conquered it, and proclaimed themselves "kings" (malik) of a Saudi Kingdom rather than Caliphs of Islam. Britain and France, who were none too keen on the Hashemites asserting independence from the League of Nations Mandates, were willing to turn a blind eye.What happened when the Sharif of Mecca proclaimed himself? How many people recognized him? What reasons did people give for not recognizing him?
What would be needed for the Ottomans to surrender the title? I imagine they would hate whoever had destroyed their empire. What's in it for them?