Ali Pasha Mubarak (Arabic: على مبارك, born 1823 or 1824- died on 14 November 1893) was an Egyptian public works and education minister during the second half of the nineteenth century.

[1] Ali Mubarak is known for his contribution in the reconstruction of Cairo's landscape and for founding Egypt's modern educational system.

[2] The situation of his family would indicate that Ali Mubarak would pursue a career as a religious figure for his rural community.

[3] He studied in Paris for two years and directly after that in Metz at the school of application of artillery and engineering [fr] (French: École d'application de l'artillerie et du génie).

After taking his owed salary from funds collected by the local official, Ali Mubarak was imprisoned for theft.

Ali Mubarak believed the school to be poorly organized with insufficient accommodations for the student body.

[2] At the new school, Ali Mubarak was able to focus more of his attention on his studies as opposed to the military drills taught at Qasr al-Ayni.

[2] Ali Mubarak is highly regarded because he was one of the first native born, Arabic-speaking, Muslim Egyptians to hold a prestigious government position.

[7] In his government career, Ali Mubarak served as the minister heading the Egyptian government school system, the Egyptian railroads, and design and implementation of ambitious urban construction programs in Cairo, and the design and establishment of major irrigation projects.

[2] After their review of the teachers and engineers, Abbas commissioned the three men to create an economic plan for the government education system.

[2] When Ismail ascended to rule Egypt in 1863, Ali Mubarak was one of the first men called to help reorganize the government systems.

[2] Ali Mubarak worked for a period of time supervising the construction of building, bridges, and dams before returning to the Department of Education.

One of his successful projects was the development of schools for students and military officers to learn European theories and histories of warfare.

During the late 1800s, Ali Mubarak played a major role in creating the outlines for the modern city layout of Cairo.

By the end of the nineteenth century Egypt was still considered to be a part of the Ottoman Empire, however, it was more directly ruled and influenced by the British.

Shortly after he arrived back in Egypt, Ismail gave Ali Mubarak the head position in the Ministry of Public Works.

[8] He saw the development that Cairo experienced in the second half of the nineteenth century as positive progress while criticizing the state of the city when it was under Ottoman rule.

Streets, buildings, and squares were not adequately taken care of resulting in copious amounts of dust and odors overtaking many parts of the city.

As more intellectuals studied Egypt's ancient history and wrote and spoke about it, the past became a source for nationalistic sentiments.

The work that Ali Mubarak and his colleagues undertook laid the foundations for territorially defined Egyptian nationalism in the twentieth century.

[8] Ali Mubarak published work in a number of magazines, journals, and books and covered topics from science, education, justice, translations, and political commentaries.

[8] Throughout the twenty volumes, Mubarak illustrates the interconnectedness of history and geography and uses the relationship between the two to create a national identity for Egypt.

[8] In al-Khitat, Ali Mubarak emphasizes his belief that with knowledge comes technical progress and material affluence which in turn produced "self-respect, patriotic pride, and deference to authority.

With the reforms undertaken by the Egyptian government during the nineteenth century, Ali Mubarak thought that it was only to be expected that al-Azhar modernized as well.

Ali Mubarak highly regarded the spiritual lessons offered by al-Azhar but believed that the lack of structure in the university fostered undisciplined behavior, immorality, pride and pettiness and the structure needed to be reformed to recreate and mold the moral identity and personality of the modern state of Egypt.

[8] Ali Mubarak's primary concern regarding al-Azhar was its lack of appearance of being a modern educational institution.

Ali Mubarak encouraged institutions to teach information produced by Europe and give students the opportunity to become productive and important members of Egyptian society.