The main problem in exploring Egyptian history is its complexity. Every event or feature has roots through hundreds of years.
So when we would like to mention the state of Egypt before the French expedition and explain how it was Egypt at this time in 1798, we should go back to the year 1250 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Since this year ruled Egypt, a group of soldiers called “mamluks’ ‘ this call was given to a type of enslaved person who could fight because it was not allowed the enslaved person to share in battles, just nobles and elite people. This tradition was modified through Fatimids and then Ayyubids, and “the Mamluks’ showed a significant role in guarding the borders of Egypt against attacks from Europe and Asia. In return, they had privileges from Egypt’s king, such as collecting obligatory taxes from farmers and traders from the Mediterranean Sea or Red Sea who needed logistic services and security of their caravans. Through these issues, they had a high income and a lot of wealth since the prosperity of trade between India and Europe.
So they left so many beautiful mosques and religious schoolhouses in Cairo with a very high level of Islamic architecture since they were highly interested in art and Islamic art. Each ruler paid great attention to maintaining and constructing mosques and schools and helped the poor by building hospitals for them, but the change stood as the only stability in life, and mamluks between 1250 and 1517 were not the same from 1250 till 1517 !!!!!!!
In 1498, Portuguese voyager Vasco da Gama discovered the “Cape of good hope,” which affected Egypt very hard and did a tremendous revolutionary change generally on international trade, especially in Egypt.
Egypt lost one of its primary income sources, so there was a tremendous economic problem in Egypt. The mamluks needed to have the same money instead of earning money from traders. So the Mamluks had no choice but to change that since it was a matter of life or death, and they prepared weapons and war tools to fight with Portugals in the red sea. By the way, most of the chips in these battles were built in Egypt by Italian woods, which was supported to Egypt by inhabitants of Sicily, who also had a side effect of changing the trade road between India and Europe. Still, luck was against the Mamluks fleet army; however, they were very close to victory, but by the end, they were defeated and couldn’t change the fact of the new cape road.
Later on, in 1517, King Selim conquered Syria, Lebanon, Palestinian, and then Egypt. He wanted to guard his back after controlling Turkey. Hence, they invaded Egypt in a great battle in 1517. Still, he left the mamluks’ existence with the Egyptian pasha, the representative of the Ottoman king in Egypt, ruling Egypt parallel with him to get control over the whole of Egypt and its provinces.
They turned their direction to the farmers and wrote many decreases to obtain as much taxes as possible. It was usually higher than it should be without mercy; they collected obligatory taxes from farmers without caring about them and their lives.
So Egyptians started to hate those mamluks, suffering from their domain on everything in Egypt, and because of the lack of trade roads, they had no income except farmer’s taxes.
So on, every affair in Egypt went down: economy, politics, education, health, and even the population of Egypt.
It is vital to mention that the population of Egypt in 1517 was around 15 million. Still, in 1800, the people of Egypt were just 2,5 million, which reflects the low standard of Egypt.