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In our timeline, Mohammad Ali effectively ran the Egypt Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire as his own private domain. He instituted reforms such as

  • Nationalizing all the land in Egypt
  • Creating state monopolies over the chief products of the country.
  • He set up a number of factories and began digging in 1819 a new canal to Alexandria, called the Mahmudiya (after the reigning sultan of Turkey) in a attempt to stimulate the enconomy.
  • Mohammad also developed the cultivation of cotton in the Delta in 1822 and onwards. By organizing the new industry, within a few years Muhammad Ali was able to extract considerable revenues.
  • Efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. To European merchants, on whom he was dependent for the sale of his exports, Muhammad Ali showed much favor, and under his influence the port of Alexandria again rose into importance. It was also under Muhammad Ali's encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed.[6]
  • Sultan Mahmud II was also planning reforms borrowed from the West, and Muhammad Ali, who had had plenty of opportunity of observing the superiority of European methods of warfare, was determined to anticipate the sultan in the creation of a fleet and an army on European lines.[6]
  • Before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, he had already expended much time and energy in organizing a fleet and in training, under the supervision of French instructors, native officers and artificers
  • Introducing steam engines to Egyptian industrial manufacturing
  • Boasting superior agriculture and transport network through the Nile.
  • Ensuring that the economic conditions existed for rapid industrialization in Egypt in the 1830s-40s.

Unfortunately, after his death, his successors drove Egypt to the point of unpayable debt to the European powers through the Suez Canal Company. As a result, Britain invaded Egypt and while it nominally continued to be part of the Ottoman Empire until 1914, it was for all intents and purposes, a British vassal state.

The Bani Khaalid were a powerful Arab tribal confederation which existed from the 15th to the 18th Century. During this time, they were able to expel the Ottomans from the interior of the Arabian Peninsula in 1570. Their territory, at it's extent, included areas from Iraq, Bahrain, all the way down to Qatar, as well as the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia. However, their power was shattered by the rise of the Saudi family, which resulted in the Ottoman forces crushing the Saudis and placing the Bani Khalid back in charge, though they were significantly weakened.

So, had Egypt not worked itself into debt to the Europeans and instead had industrialized to the point of becoming a crucial centre of industry for the Empire and had the Bani Khalid not been knocked off it's pedestal by the Saudis and instead, were allowed to rule the Arabian Peninsula, eventually modernizing alongside the Ottomans, would they have done better in World War I?
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