After the conquest of Egypt the Ottoman sultan Selim I left the country, leaving his viceroy Khair Bey with a guard of 5,000 janissaries, but otherwise made few changes in the administration of the country. The country was regraded as a vassal state, not a province, of the empire.
The history of early Ottoman Egypt is a competition for power between the Mamelukes and the representatives of the Ottoman Sultan. By the 18th century the importance of the pasha appointed by the Sublime Porte was superseded by that of the Mameluk beys.