The digging of the Maḥmūdiyya canal offers a graphic example of the degree to which the Pasha had managed to secure his control over the province of Egypt and is a testimony to his ability to undertake huge infrastructural projects that none of the Ottoman governors before him had managed to undertake. Started in April 1817, the project lasted for three years and was aimed at linking Alexandria to the western branch of the Nile. The ambitious project involved coercing thousands of men and women from all the provinces of Lower Egypt to work on it. During the month of March 1819 the number of laborers working on the project was said to have been as high as 300,000. After its completion the canal was 72 kilometers long and had cost 35,000 purses (around 7.5 million francs). Although contemporary reports stress the appallingly high rate of casualties (estimates range from 12,000 to 100,000) and the highly improvised manner in which the canal was excavated, still, the sheer size of the labor force involved as well as the cost and duration of the project testify to the ability of the Pasha's administration in Cairo to tap and control the human and material resources of his province.

Builds on: "Muhammad Ali's army forged the modern Egyptian nation through novel control practices."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 41