The way Mehmed Ali organized the government of his province, Egypt, and the manner in which he reaped its potential wealth immediately threw into high relief the inefficiency and corruption of the central government in Istanbul. The developments and innovations that the Pasha introduced in Egypt were not only unprecedented in the Ottoman Empire; they also ushered in a new conception of government which was essentially interventionist rather than merely preservationist in nature. The new bureaucracy, the modern schooling system, the health system and above all the new model army that the Pasha founded in Egypt all pushed the realms of government into unchartered waters seldom navigated by an Ottoman government before.

XREF: Builds on earlier claims about Mehmed Ali's centralized Egypt rivaling Istanbul's provincial control and his state expansion. This highlight explicitly contrasts the Pasha's interventionist governance with the Ottomans' preservationist model. DEFINE: Introduces the interventionist-versus-preservationist distinction as a way of classifying government philosophy under Mehmed Ali.

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1544