ALI, known as ALI PASHA (1741-1822), Turkish pasha of Iannina, surnamed Arslan (the lion), was born at Tepeleni, Albania. His father, hereditary bey of Tepeleni, was killed by neighbouring chiefs when Ali was 14. His mother formed a brig and band to secure revenge and restitution. In the wild brigand school Ali proved an apt pupil, and recovered Tepeleni. He was then commissioned by the Turkish Government to chastise the rebellious pasha of Scutari, whom he defeated and killed. He was then appointed lieutenant to the derwend-pasha of Rumelia, with a commission for the suppression of brigandage, and seized the opportunity to enrich himself by levying a tax on the brigands for immunity, at the same time securing indemnity for the mal practice by judicious bribes at Constantinople. In 1788 he was made pasha of Iannina.
By a combination of cunning and severity Ali made himself all-powerful in central Albania, and began to contemplate the establishment of a sea power including Albania, Greece and Thes saly which should rival in the eastern that of the dey of Algiers in the western Mediterranean. For a brief period in 1797-98 it seemed that this might be accomplished with the help of the French, who had occupied the Ionian islands, and gave Ali per mission to suppress the "aristocratic" tribes of the coast. In the confused events which followed Ali abandoned his flirtation with France and French ideas, foreseeing the ultimate defeat of France. He retained the confidence of the sultan, who confirmed him in possession of the whole of Albania, and made him vali of Rumelia. In 1803 he was master of Epirus, Albania and Thessaly, while the pashaliks of Morea and Lepanto were in the hands of his sons Veli and Mukhtar. He held all the coastal towns which had once been Venetian, except Parga, which remained French in spite of a brief renewal of Ali's alliance with Napoleon in 1807. In 1814 the Pargiots rose against the French garrison, and handed it over to the British to save it from Ali, who had bought from the French commandant a promise of surrender. Ali now sent a mis sion to London, which was, in the end, successful. The Pargiots were compensated and removed to the Ionian islands, and the Turks took possession.
But Ali's fall was near. The Sultan Mahmud II. found a pre text in Ali's attempt to secure the murder of Pasha Bey in the precincts of the palace at Constantinople. Hurshid Pasha, the grand vizier, was entrusted with his deposition. After a polite interview with Hurshid, Ali was stabbed in the back as he left the tent.
Ali's court at Iannina was the centre of a sort of barbarous culture, in which astrologers, alchemists and Greek poets played their part, and was often visited by travellers. Amongst others, Byron came, and has left a record of his impressions in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," less interesting and vivid than the prose accounts of Pouqueville, T. S. Hughes and William M. Leake. Leake (iii. 2S9) reports a reproof addressed by Ali to the French renegade Ibrahim Effendi, who had ventured to remonstrate against some particular act of ferocity: "At present you are too young at my court to know how to comport yourself. . . . You are not yet acquainted with the Greeks and Albanians; when I hang up one of these wretches on the plane-tree, brother robs brother under the very branches: if I burn one of them alive, the son is ready to steal his father's ashes to sell them for money. They are destined to be ruled by me; and no one but Ali is able to restrain their evil propensities." This is perhaps as good an apology as could be made for his character and methods. To the wild people over whom he ruled, none was needed. He had their respect, if not their love ; he is the hero of a thousand ballads; and his portrait still hangs among the ikons in the cottages of the Greek mountaineers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Apart from the scattered references in the published Bibliography.-Apart from the scattered references in the published and unpublished diplomatic correspondence of the period, contem porary journals and books of travel contain much interesting material for the life of Ali. Of these may especially be mentioned Francois C. H. L. Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, a Constantinople en Albanie, etc. (1805) , of which an English version by A. Plumptre was published in 1815; ib. Voyage dans la Grece (182o, 1821) . Pouqueville, who spent some time as French resident at Iannina, had special facilities for obtaining first-hand information, though his emotionalism makes his observations and deductions at times somewhat suspect. Very interesting also are Thomas Smart Hughes, Travels in Greece and Albania (2nd ed. 183o) ; John Cam Hobhouse (Lord Broughton), A Journey through Albania, etc.... during the years 18o9—ro (1813 a new ed. 1855) ; William Martin Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (2845). See also Pouqueville's Hist. de la regeneration de la Grece, 1740-1824 (1824, 3rd ed., 1825) ; R. A. Davenport, Life of Ali Pasha, vizier of Epirus (1861) ; and the chapter by W. Alison Phillips on "Greece and the Balkan Peninsula," vol. x. chap. vi. of Cambridge Modern History.