Mahmud Nedim Paşa was appointed grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire for the first time in September 1871 following the death of his predecessor in that office, Mehmed Amin Ali Paşa. His first tenure lasted until the end of July 1872. His rise to power represented the rise of a current in Ottoman politics that had been suppressed in the 1860s, when Ali and Fuad dominated the Porte.

The conquest of the Mamluk sultanate by the Ottoman Empire brought into confrontation two centers in the history of Islamic civilization. One, Asia Minor and southeast Europe, was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The other, Egypt, had been the core of the Mamluk sultanate for 2½ centuries (1250–1517). Both states were dominated by Turkish-speaking elites based on the institution of military slavery. In both cases this slave-recruited manpower was the backbone of the army, and, to a lesser extent, of the administration.

One of the most resilient ideas introduced to the analysis of economic and political change under colonialism and imperialism is the “comprador” and, by extension, the “comprador bourgeoisie.” The comprador in essence embodies or internalizes the basic theoretical problem of the peripheral political economy: economic activity oriented primarily for the benefit of the other.1 By strict definition, compradors are native agents or partners of foreign investors who operate in some form in the local economy. However, in the theoretical context of assessing the possibilities for local industrial development, compradors represent forces that hinder change. As “agents of foreign imperialism,” they act “against the interest of the national economy.”2

The Egyptian economy has deteriorated since the early 1980s. In response to periods of economic crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and actors within the Egyptian government have been pushing President Hosni Mubarak to reform the economic system. Similar, but less obvious, efforts at reform are found throughout Egyptian society; private organizations are providing services–education, job training, health care, and day care–in the face of governmental unwillingness or inability to make these services available as promised