Abaza family

[18][19] However, these numbers are thought to be highly unreliable as no local censuses of Circassian communities exist due to a general "lack in demographic data on minorities in Egypt".

[22][note 1] David E. Millis writes of the Abaza family's marriage with the al-Ayed clan reporting that the latter's history in Egypt is of 1400 years.

[23] He states al-Ayed trace "their origin back to the Yemenese contingents of the initial Islamic conquerors of Egypt [639-642 AD]... [and] the ancient tribal confederation of Judham".

[26] The non-Abaza patriarch who married the Abazin matriarch was Sheikh Muhammed al-Ayedi (Egyptian Arabic: الشيخ محمد العايدي).

[33][3] Reuven Aharoni in his historical study of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty discusses the Abaza family's rise.

The provincial elites were "given lands" integrating the new system with existing "local interests" and documents that "one instance of this" was the Abaza family.

[26] Relatively rare in this exalted long-form, it derives from the ancient honorific title 'Sheikh' given to a variety of people including the heads of sufficiently influential families or tribes regardless of ethnic origin.

[26] It has been argued that Ismail Pasha Abaza was a precursor and "rehearsal" for Ahmed Urabi Pasha, the revolutionary Egyptian leader, due to his "[having] the first positive and effective political role [in anti-occupation politics] ...[with] great importance and relevance to the burgeoning national movement" and by having influential and "good relations with [royal ruler] Khedive Abbas Helmi" of Egypt.

Additionally, Ismail Pasha Abaza "believed he could secure national rights" through negotiation with the British and went to England to attempt this.

[45][46] In her lengthy scholarly ethnographic study of her family's feudal estate she is explicit about her experience of how ordinary farmers treated members of the family writing critically that she was "astonish[ed] at ...[a] peasant’s extraordinarily subservient behavior to a fifteen-year-old girl... no peasant in older times was allowed to stare at the ladies of the da’ira [the estate], or even to confront them face to face... all the ladies of the da’ira had to be addressed in the masculine as a sign of their superiority.

The family has also held governorships many times in both the monarchical and current periods, especially in the Nile delta but also including the likes of Cairo and the Suez Canal Zone.

[62][63] Forbes lists Hussein Abaza as one of the top Arab CEOs in the world, for heading the Commercial International Bank.

[64] Another family member, Hussein Mohammed Abaza serves as an international consultant for sustainable development and green economy in the Egyptian government and as an advisor to the Minister of the Environment.

In the 2015 parliamentary elections, three members of the Abaza family won seats in the House of Representatives and this was criticized by some in the media referring to their win as "dynastic heredity".

In modern times media has critically remarked that "no parliamentary elections since the reign of Muhammed Ali was free of the Abazas".

Initially the public prosecutor who ordered the arrest and is himself married to an Abaza, instituted travel bans on figures associated with the regime and its final cabinet.

[73] In 2014, the family sued Sada Elbalad TV for the creation of a children's cartoon named 'Abaza', and the program was forced off the air.