Tusun Pasha

Tusun Pasha was an Ottoman-Egyptian prince and military commander, the son of Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt and Amina Hanim. Born in 1794, he was entrusted at a young age with command in the Ottoman-Saudi War, through which Muhammad Ali sought to restore Ottoman authority in the Hijaz and defeat the first Saudi state. Tusun’s forces campaigned along the Red Sea and in western Arabia, recovering the holy cities of Mecca and Medina after early setbacks.

The Arabian campaign was difficult and expensive, and Tusun alternated military operations with negotiation as Egyptian forces pushed inland. A settlement with Abdullah bin Saud in 1815 temporarily reduced hostilities, though the war later resumed under Tusun’s brother Ibrahim Pasha. Tusun returned to Egypt and died unexpectedly in 1816, still only in his early twenties. He was the father of Abbas I, who later ruled Egypt, and Muhammad Ali subsequently commemorated his dead son in the dynastic memory of his regime.

Rosemary Sutcliff’s Blood and Sand follows the Scottish soldier Thomas Keith after his capture in Egypt and conversion to Islam, eventually placing him in the service of Tusun Pasha. Keith accompanies Tusun’s campaign against the Wahhabis in Arabia and later serves at Medina, so the prince’s military expedition provides the historical structure for the final stage of Keith’s extraordinary career.