Ali Pasha of Gucia

Ali Pasha of Gusinje
Picture of Ali Pasha (sitting, first from the left) with Haxhi Zeka (sitting in the middle) and some other members of Prizren League
Birth name	Ali Hasan Shabanagaj
Born	1828 Gusinje, Ottoman Empire
Died	5 March 1888 Peć, Ottoman Empire (now Kosovo)
Buried at	Peć, Kosovo
Allegiance	Ottoman Empire League of Prizren (1878-1881)
Years of service	1845—1889
Rank	kaymakam of Gusinje (1845–?) mutesarrif of the Sanjak of İpek (1881–?) beylerbey (1881–?)
Battles/wars	Battle of Novšiće

Ali Pasha Shabanagaj (1828–1888) (Serbian: Али-паша Шабанагић, Ali-paša Šabanagić), was an Albanian military commander and one of the leaders of the League of Prizren. He governed, as an Ottoman kaymakam (sub-governor), an area in what is today eastern Montenegro around Plav and Gusinje. He was commonly known as Ali Pasha of Gusinje (Albanian: Ali Pashë Gucia, Serbian: Али-паша Гусињски, Ali-paša Gusinjski). He was the leader of the Albanian irregular troops of the League of Prizren against the Principality of Montenegro at the Battle of Novšiće.

Ali was born in 1828 in Gusinje, to landowner Hasan-bey Šabanagić. He finished Turkish-language school in medresa in Peć and military school in Istanbul. In 1845 Ali was appointed as kaymakam (sub-governor) of Gusinje, succeeding his father on this position. In the 1860s he supported the uprising of northern Albanian Muslim tribes against Tanzimat reforms which reduced their privileged status.

The League of Prizren was established with Ottoman support in 1878, after the Congress of Berlin decided to cede the towns of Plav and Gusinje, which were notably Muslim Albanian-inhabited, to the Principality of Montenegro. Ali Pasha was one of its founders and military commanders in the region of Plav and Gusinje. He was one of the commanders of irregulars mobilized by the League against the Montenegrin forces in the Battle of Novšiće and later against the forces of Ottoman Empire. In the early phases of the attack against Mehmed Ali Pasha he commanded the volunteer troops that blocked the routes from Đakovica to the Ottoman-Montenegrin border. He was also the leader of the Albanian troops of the League of Prizren against the Principality of Montenegro at the Battle of Novšiće.