Ali Bey Al-Kabir, born in 1728, in western Georgia (present Abkhazia) to a Georgian monk and his wife, had been kidnapped by Turkish soldiers in 1741, sold two years later in Cairo, and had gradually risen in influence, winning the top office of sheikh al-balad (chief of the country) in 1760.

Ali Bey had deposed the Ottoman governor in 1768 and assumed the post of acting governor.

He had stopped the annual tribute to Istanbul and in an unprecedented usurpation of the Ottoman Sultan's privileges, had had his name struck on local coins in 1769 (alongside the sultan's emblem), effectively declaring Egypt's independence from Ottoman rule.

He gains control of the Hejaz in 1770.