Kavala’s topography is  revealing of its long and rich history. The Byzantine walls surrounding the old Ottoman town at the top of which stands an impressive Byzantine castle are a reminder of the strategic importance the town played for the Byzantine Empire. The famous Via Egnatia linking the old Rome, via the Adriatic through Mecedonia and Thrace, to the new Rome, i.e. Constantinople, runs literally through town. Just a few kilometers further north is the famous archaeological site of ancient Philipi, where the fate of the Roman Empire was decided in 42 BCE and where nearly a century later St Paul halted to build the first Christian church in Europe. And as if these Roman, Christian and Byzantine pasts are not impressive enough, Kavala also witnessed an important phase of its history when in 1387 the Ottoman Sultan Murad I incorporated it into his empire. The long Ottoman era left its mark on the topography of the town most notably by the impressive aqueduct supplying the city with fresh water and by the large mosque in the city center and which is now the Church of St Nicholas, both built by Ibrahim Pasha, Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent’s grand vizier.

It was in this town in Rumelia, as the European part of the Ottoman Empire was known, that Mehmed Ali was born in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. How this man ended up across the Mediterranean in Egypt, how he established himself as ruler for nearly half a century of that important Ottoman province and how he founded there a dynasty that ruled for a hundred years after his death is a fascinating story. Known in Ottoman historiography as Kavalal? Mehmed Ali Pasa, and usually referred to in Egyptian historiography under the Arabic spelling of his name, Muhammad ‘Ali, and dubbed the ‘founder of modern Egypt’, Mehmed Ali is one of the most remarkable men in modern Islamic history, and his life story offers an insight into an intriguing chapter of the history of modern Egypt. Moreover, the policies he pursued as ruler of Egypt constituted one of the most dangerous threats facing the Ottoman Empire during its long history.