Ismail Pasha essays

Ismail Pasha essays Interpretive Research Paper-Egyptian Ruling Elite The country I studied during this project was Egypt, and the character I was assigned to was Ismail Pasha, who was part of the Ruling Elite. Ismail was the son of Ibrahim Pasha, who took the throne after Said Pashas death. He ruled Egypt from 1863 to 1879. He began his rule halfway through the American Civil War, when Egypt experienced an immense growth in cotton trade, due to the unavailability of American cotton. Ismail did not control his money well. He was concerned with making Egypt seem attractive to surrounding countries and nations. Which would help migration to Egypt. His attempts included throwing magnificent parties on just about any occasion he could come up with. Although he was the darling of Europe, (social class profiles, 1) he did not handle his money responsibly. Ismail spent lavishly, and was very unwise about handling his financial affairs, thus leaving himself open for criticism. He was committed to the Suez Canal project, which he changed in two major ways: First of all, he constructed a freshwater canal, and second of all, he refused to provide an infinite amount of peasant labor. In 1866, he changed the manner in which the leaders successors were chosen in Egypt. This caused controversy between himself and the Sultan Abdulaziz around the time when the Suez Canal opened, in 1869. The two later reconciled, but it cost Ismail heavy expenditure, which did not help his already growing debt. The debt was eventually too much for Ismail to overcome, or even come close to paying back. He spent extravagantly, and borrowed the money he needed, but he could never pay it back. He desperately tried to relieve himself of the burden he carried, by several methods. He stopped paying interest on Egypt's loans, stopped paying his officials, and doubled the taxes on his people. But the debt was just too overwhelming. In...