Isma'il Pasha (Arabic: إسماعيل باشا Ismā‘īl Bāshā; 12 January 1830 – 2 March 1895), also known as Ismail the Magnificent, was the Khedive of Egypt and ruler of Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of Great Britain and France.

Sharing the ambitious outlook of his grandfather, Muhammad Ali Pasha, he greatly modernized Egypt and Sudan during his reign, investing heavily in industrial and economic development, urbanization, and the expansion of the country's boundaries in Africa.

[citation needed] In 1867 he also secured Ottoman and international recognition for his title of Khedive (Viceroy) in preference to Wāli (Governor) which was previously used by his predecessors in the Eyalet of Egypt and Sudan (1517–1867).

The second of the three sons of Ibrahim Pasha, and the grandson of Muhammad Ali, Isma'il, of Albanian descent, was born in Cairo at Al Musafir Khana Palace.

After receiving a European education in Paris where he attended the École d'état-major, he returned home, and on the death of his elder brother became heir to his uncle, Sa'id, the Wāli and Khedive of Egypt and Sudan.

Sa'id, who apparently conceived his safety to lie in ridding himself as much as possible of the presence of his nephew, employed him in the next few years on missions abroad, notably to the Pope, the Emperor Napoleon III, and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Like all Egyptian and Sudanese rulers since his grandfather Muhammad Ali Pasha, he claimed the higher title of Khedive, which the Sublime Porte had consistently refused to sanction.

In 1874 he annexed Darfur, but was prevented from expanding into Ethiopia after his army was repeatedly defeated by Emperor Yohannes IV, first at Gundet on 16 November 1875, and again at Gura in March of the following year.

[11] This, together with rumours about rich raw material and fertile soil, led Isma'il to expansive policies directed against Ethiopia under the Emperor Yohannes IV.

In 1865 the Ottoman Sublime Porte ceded the African portion of the Habesh Eyalet (with Massawa and Suakin at the Red Sea as the main cities of that province) to Isma'il.

The Red Sea Province created by Ismail and his governor Munzinger Pasha was taken over by the Italians shortly thereafter and became the territorial basis for the Colony of Eritrea (proclaimed in 1890).

[12] The Khedive's northern Somali Coast territory was reached as far inland as Harar, although it was subsequently ceded to Britain in 1884 due to internal difficulties of Egypt.

When the Canal finally opened, Isma'il held a festival of unprecedented scope, most of it financed by the Cattaui banking house, from whom he borrowed $1,000,000, inviting dignitaries from around the world.

When he could raise no more loans, he sold the Egyptian and Sudanese shares in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 with the assistance of Yacoub Cattaui to the British government for £3,976,582; this was immediately followed by the beginning of direct intervention by the Great Powers in Egypt and Sudan.

[8] In December 1875, Stephen Cave and John Stokes were sent out by the British government to inquire into the finances of Egypt,[15] and in April 1876 their report was published, advising that in view of the waste and extravagance it was necessary for foreign Powers to interfere in order to restore credit.

[8] As the historian Eugene Rogan has observed, "the irony of the situation was that Egypt had embarked on its development schemes to secure independence from Ottoman and European domination.

Isma'il Pasha left Egypt and initially went into exile to Resina, today Ercolano near Naples, until 1885 when he was eventually permitted by Sultan Abdülhamid II to retire to his palace in Emirgan[17] on the Bosporus in Constantinople.