Mohamed Sherif Pasha

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Infobox officeholder Mohamed Sherif Pasha GCSITemplate:Citation needed (February 1826 – 20 April 1887) (Template:Langx) was an Egyptian statesman.<ref name="ArthurGold">Template:Cite book</ref> He served as Prime Minister of Egypt three times during his career. His first term was between 7 April 1879 and 18 August 1879. His second term was served from 14 September 1881 to 4 February 1882. His final term was served between 21 August 1882 and 7 January 1884.

Biography

Sherif, who was a Turk from Kavala in the Ottoman Empire (now in northern Greece),<ref name="ArthurGold"/> filled numerous administrative posts under Sa'id Pasha and Isma'il Pasha. He was better educated than most of his contemporaries, and had married Nazli al-Faransawi Hanim, a daughter of Colonel Joseph Anthelme Sèves, the French non-commissioned officer who became Suleiman Pasha under Mehmet Ali, and wife Maria Myriam Hanem.<ref name=EB1911>{{#if: |

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  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}</ref> They were the maternal grandparents of Queen consort Nazli of Egypt and Regent Sherif Sabri Pasha.<ref name="EBE">Template:Cite book</ref>

As minister of foreign affairs he was useful to Ismail, who used Sherif'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.<ref name=EB1911/>

Sherif'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.<ref name=EB1911/>

Upon the military insurrection of September 1881 under Urabi Pasha, Sherif 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.<ref name=EB1911/>

After the suppression of the Urabi Revolt he was again installed in office (August 1882) by Tawfiq, but in January 1884 he resigned rather than sanction the evacuation of the Sudanese regions of the Khedivate of Egypt. 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 raclée à ce monsieur" (We'll talk about that later, first we're going to give this gentleman (i.e. the self declared Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad) a good thrashing). Hicks Pasha's expedition was at the time preparing to march on El Obeid.<ref name=EB1911/>

Sherif died in Graz, Austria-Hungary, on 20 April 1887.

References

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