In 1894, Alï Pasha Sharïf repeat- edly called for the dismissal of Schaefer, the head of the Slave Trade Bureau, and the dissolution of all its branches around the country. He protested the inflated salaries of its officials and what he claimed was a lack of need for such internal policing, as slavery was no longer an issue in Egypt. So it was with great irony and fanfare that Alï Pasha Sharïf himself was arrested and, along with three other prominent members of the pasha class, charged with illegally buying six Sudanese slave women from a caravan that had crossed the Libyan desert in August of 1894.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 692