When Muhammad Alï assumed control of Egypt as walï, or viceroy, for the Ottoman Empire in 1805, the conditions that had enabled a merchant- voyager like Muhammad al-Tunisï to explore a more personal geography in the Sudan changed drastically. Muhammad Alï's ambition to expand the boundaries of the Ottoman province of Egypt fit a pattern of expansionism established by previous Ottoman governors, such as Alï Bey al-Kabïr in the eighteenth century. Unlike his predecessors, however, Muhammad Alï sought more than the quasi autonomy that came from occupying neigh- boring countries and controlling their trade routes through Egypt. As Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot describes it, Muhammad `Alï took Egypt steps toward seceding from the Ottoman Empire and becoming an independent empire on its own.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 178