George Bethune English (March 7, 1787 – September 20, 1828) was an American adventurer, diplomat, soldier, and convert to Islam.
The oldest of four children, English was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was baptized at Trinity Church on April 1, 1787.
English addressed some of the criticisms and controversies caused by his first book in a second tract, "A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary," as well as in published responses to Unitarian leader William Ellery Channing's Two Sermons on Infidelity.
[3] George English subsequently went "out west" (then Ohio and Indiana Territory) where he briefly edited a frontier newspaper, and settled as a member of the puritanical Harmonie Sect.
Shortly after arriving in Egypt he resigned his commission, converted [6] to Islam and joined Muhammad Ali Pasha as the Topgi Bashi (chief of artillery) in an expedition up the Nile River against Sennar 1820, winning distinction as an officer of artillery.