Muhammad Sharif Pasha

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Muhammad Sharif Pasha (1826-1887) (Arabic: محمد شريف باشا) was an Egyptian statesman. He served as Prime Minister of Egypt three times during his career. His first term was between April 7, 1879 and August 18, 1879. His second term was served from September 14, 1881 to February 4, 1882. His final term was served between August 21, 1882 and January 7, 1884.

Sharif was a Circassian who filled numerous administrative posts under Said Pasha and Ismail Pasha. He was of better education than most of his contemporaries, and had married a daughter of Colonel Sèves, the French non-commissioned officer who became Suleiman Pasha under Mehemet Ali.

As minister of foreign affairs he was useful to Ismail, who used Sharif's bluff bonhomie to veil many of his most insidious proposals. Of singularly lazy disposition, he yet possessed considerable tact; he was in fact an Egyptian Lord Melbourne, whose policy was to leave everything alone.

Sharif's favorite argument against any reform was to appeal to the Pyramids as an immutable proof of the solidity of Egypt financially and politically. His fatal optimism rendered him largely responsible for the collapse of Egyptian credit which brought about the fall of Ismail.

Upon the military insurrection of September 1881 under Arabi Pasha, Sharif was summoned by the khedive Tawfiq to form a new ministry. The impossibility of reconciling the financial requirements of the national party with the demands of the British and French controllers of the public debt, compelled him to resign in the following February.

After the suppression of the Arabi rebellion he was again installed in office (August 1882) by Tawfiq, but in January 1884 he resigned rather than sanction the evacuation of the Sudan. As to the strength of the Mahdist movement he had then no conception. When urged by Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) early in 1883 to abandon some of the more distant parts of the Sudan, he replied with characteristic light-heartedness: "Nous en causerons plus tard; d'abord nous allons donner une bonne racleé a ce monsieur" (We'll talk about that later, first we're going to give this gentleman (i.e. the Mahdi) a good thrashing). Hicks Pasha's expedition was at the time preparing to march on El Obeid.

Sharif died in Graz, Austria, on April 20, 1887.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Preceded by: Muhammad Tawfiq Pasha	Prime Minister of Egypt 1879	Succeeded by: Riyad Pasha
Preceded by: Riyad Pasha	Prime Minister of Egypt 1881–1882	Succeeded by: Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi
Preceded by: Raghib Pasha	Prime Minister of Egypt 1882–1884	Succeeded by: Nubar Pasha