His uncle was in charge of Mahmud II's private treasury, secured him for palace service while he was young, and he then entered the Hassa regiment (1833–1834).

He served in a military capacity, as serasker, in Acre (1844–1845), Jerusalem (1845–1847; during which time he suppressed a serious Bedouin revolt), Tirnova (1847), and then Belgrade (1847–1848).

In 1850–51, Mehmed Emin served as governor of the Eyalet of Aleppo, at the end of which he was appointed müşir (field marshal), in the province of Syria.

Like many other prominent Ottoman statesmen of the Tanzimat period, Mehmed Emin Pasha rose from the Dragoman's office (Turkish: Tercüme Odası), largely Turkified by the 19th century, and climbing through the foreign office of the Ottoman Empire, held consecutive ambassadorial and governorship posts.

After his death, his first wife, Melek Hanım, née Marie Dejean (formerly the wife of Julius Michael Millingen), wrote her memoirs of the harem, in the 19th century context of that institution, as well as a controversial account of the high spheres of the Ottoman society, published in London in 1872, treating much the same period as the memoirs of Leyla Saz, written much later in the 1920s.