It is true that the administration of the Sudan was known as the Turkïya by generations of Sudanese, because the Sudan initially had been conquered by Turkish- speaking officers for Muhammad Alï (also known as Mehemet Alï), the Albanian Ottoman officer who was acting as a governor of Egypt for the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century. But the characterization of the administration as Turkish by people unfamiliar with the ethnic nuances of Egypt's population also disguises the fact that native-born, Arabic-speaking Egyptians participated in the colony's administration, more prominently as decades passed and the administration strengthened its roots.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 56