Tahir Pasha (Egypt)

Tahir Pasha or Thir Pasha (died 29 April 1818) was the Albanian commander of bashi-bazouks under Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha. He rebelled and assumed government of Cairo, becoming the acting Ottoman governor of Egypt on 6 May 1803. He was beheaded by a Janissary soldier within a month of acting as governor when he was unable to pay the troops their outstanding pay.

Ottoman Albanian troops were sent by the Ottoman sultan in 1801 to fight against the French invasion of Ottoman Egypt under Napoleon, which had occurred in 1798. Pasha was the commander of the Albanian troops sent by the Ottoman sultan in 1801 to fight against the French.

Although successful in ousting the French with significant help from the British, the Albanian troops, led by Muhammad Ali, chose to remain in Egypt and gain influence for themselves.

In accordance with the Treaty of Amiens, the British evacuated Alexandria in March 1803 leaving a power vacuum in Egypt.Muhammad Bey al-Alfi had accompanied the British to lobby them to help restore the power of the Mamelukes. In their attempts to return to power, the Mamelukes took Minia and interrupted communication between Upper and Lower Egypt.

About six weeks later, the legitimate Ottoman governor of Egypt Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha, finding himself in a financial bind and unable to pay all the troops under his command, attempted to disband his Albanian bashi-bazouks (or Arnauts) without pay in order to be able to pay his regular, Turkish, soldiers. The Albanians, led by Tahir Pasha, refused to disband, and instead surrounded the house of the defterdar (finance minister), who appealed in vain to Hüsrev Pasha to satisfy their claims. Instead, the Pasha commenced an artillery bombardment from batteries located in and near his palace on the insurgent soldiers who had taken the house of the defterdar, located in the Ezbekia. The citizens of Cairo, accustomed to such occurrences, immediately closed their shops and armed themselves. The tumult in the city continued all day, and the next morning a body of troops sent out by Hüsrev Pasha failed to quell it.

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