
Mehmed Emin Pasha (born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer, baptized Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor Schnitzer; March 28, 1840 – October 23, 1892) was an
Ottoman physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
of
German Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...
origin,
naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
, and governor of the
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
ian province of
Equatoria
Equatoria is the southernmost region of South Sudan, along the upper reaches of the White Nile and the border between South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Juba, the national capital is the largest city in South S ...
on the upper
Nile
The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...
. The
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
conferred the title "
Pasha
Pasha (; ; ) was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman political and military system, typically granted to governors, generals, dignitary, dignitaries, and others. ''Pasha'' was also one of the highest titles in the 20th-century Kingdom of ...
" on him in 1886, and thereafter he was referred to as "Emin Pasha".
Life and career
Emin was born in
Oppeln (in present-day
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
),
Silesia
Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
, into a middle-class
German Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...
family, who moved to
Neisse
The Lusatian Neisse (; ; ; Upper Sorbian: ''Łužiska Nysa''; Lower Sorbian: ''Łužyska Nysa''), or Western Neisse, is a river in northern Central Europe. when he was two years old. After the death of his father in 1845, his mother married a
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
; she and her children were baptized
Lutherans
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 15 ...
. He was a student at the Kolegium Carolinum Neisse in
Nysa, Poland
Nysa ( or ''Neiße'') is a city in southern Poland on the Eastern Neisse ( Polish: ''Nysa Kłodzka'') river, situated in the Opole Voivodeship. With 43,849 inhabitants (2019), it is the capital of Nysa County. It comprises the urban portion of ...
, at the universities at
Breslau,
Königsberg
Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
, and
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, qualifying as a physician in 1864. However, he was disqualified from practice, and left Germany for
Constantinople
Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...
, with the intention of entering
Ottoman service.
Travelling via
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
and
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...
, he stopped at
Antivari in
Montenegro
, image_flag = Flag of Montenegro.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Montenegro.svg
, coa_size = 80
, national_motto =
, national_anthem = ()
, image_map = Europe-Mont ...
, found himself welcomed by the local community, and was soon practicing medicine. He put his linguistic talent to good use, as well, adding
Turkish,
Albanian, and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
to his repertoire of languages. He became the
quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have bee ...
officer of the port, leaving only in 1870 to join the staff of Ismail Hakki Pasha, governor of
northern Albania
Northern Albania () is one of the three NUTS-2 regions of Albania, along with Central Albania and Southern Albania (). It consists of the counties of Dibër, Durrës, Kukës, Lezhë and Shkodër.
Historically and in ethnography, Northern ...
;
in the service, he travelled throughout the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, although the details are little-known.
When Hakki Pasha died in 1873, Emin went back to Neisse with the pasha's widow and children, where he passed them off as his own family, but left suddenly in September 1875, reappearing in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
and then departing for
Khartoum
Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan.
Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...
, where he arrived in December. At this point he took the name "Mehemet Emin" (Arabic ''Muhammad al-Amin''), started a medical practice, and began collecting specimens of
plant
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...
s,
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, ...
s, and
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
s, many of which he sent to
museum
A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...
s in
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. Although some regarded him as a
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
, it is not clear if he ever actually converted.
Charles George Gordon
Major-general (United Kingdom), Major-General Charles George Gordon Companion of the Order of the Bath, CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, Gordon of Khartoum and General Gordon , was a British ...
(‘Gordon of Khartoum’), then governor of
Equatoria
Equatoria is the southernmost region of South Sudan, along the upper reaches of the White Nile and the border between South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Juba, the national capital is the largest city in South S ...
, heard of Emin's presence and invited him to be the chief medical officer of the province; Emin assented and arrived there in May 1876. Gordon immediately sent Emin on diplomatic missions to
Bunyoro and to
Muteesa I of Buganda to the south, where Emin's modest style and fluency in
Luganda
Ganda or Luganda ( ; ) is a Bantu language spoken in the African Great Lakes region. It is one of the major languages in Uganda and is spoken by more than 5.56 million Ganda people, Baganda and other people principally in central Uganda, includ ...
were quite popular.

After 1876, Emin made
Lado his base for collecting expeditions throughout the region. In 1878, the
Khedive of Egypt
The Khedivate of Egypt ( or , ; ') was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, established and ruled by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty following the defeat and expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte's forces which brought an end to the short-li ...
appointed Emin as Gordon's successor to govern the province, giving him the title of
Bey
Bey, also spelled as Baig, Bayg, Beigh, Beig, Bek, Baeg, Begh, or Beg, is a Turkic title for a chieftain, and a royal, aristocratic title traditionally applied to people with special lineages to the leaders or rulers of variously sized areas in ...
. Despite the grand title, there was little for Emin to do; his military force consisted of a few thousand soldiers who controlled no more than a mile's radius around each of their outposts, and the government in Khartoum was indifferent to his proposals for development. He showed himself to be a bitter foe of
slavery
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
.
In 1879 General Gordon gave
Frank Lupton command of a flotilla of river steamers to relieve Emin. When Lupton reached Lado almost two years later he found that Emin did not want to be relieved. He became Emin's deputy, in charge of the
Latuka district based at Tarangole.
The revolt of Muhammad Ahmad that began in 1881 had cut Equatoria off from the outside world by 1883, and the following year,
Karam Allah marched south to capture Equatoria and Emin. In 1885, Emin and most of his forces withdrew further south, to
Wadelai near
Lake Albert.
Cut off from communications to the north, he was still able to exchange mail with
Zanzibar
Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small Island, islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. ...
through
Buganda
Buganda is a Bantu peoples, Bantu kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Baganda, Baganda people, Buganda is the largest of the List of current non-sovereign African monarchs, traditional kingdoms in present-day East Africa, consisting of Ug ...
. Determined to remain in Equatoria, his communiques, carried by his friend
Wilhelm Junker, aroused considerable sentiment in Europe in 1886, particularly acute after the death of Gordon the previous year.
The
Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, led by
Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author, and politician famous for his exploration of Central Africa and search for missi ...
, undertook to rescue Emin by going up the
Congo River
The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third-largest river in the world list of rivers by discharge, by discharge volume, following the Amazon Ri ...
and then through the
Ituri Forest, an extraordinarily difficult route that resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the expedition. Precise details of this trek are recorded in the published diaries of the expedition's non-African "officers" (e.g., Major
Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, Captain
William Grant Stairs, Mr.
Arthur Jephson, and
Thomas Heazle Parke, surgeon of the expedition). Stanley met Emin in April 1888, and after a year spent in argument and indecision, during which Emin and Jephson were imprisoned at
Dufile by troops who mutinied from August to November 1888, Emin was convinced to leave for the coast. The bulk of his forces remained near
Lake Albert until 1890, when
Frederick Lugard took them with him to Kampala Hill, where they participated in the
Battle of Kampala Hill. Stanley and Emin arrived in
Bagamoyo in 1890. During celebrations, Emin was injured when he stepped through a window he mistook for an opening to a balcony. Emin spent two months in a hospital recovering, while Stanley left without being able to bring him back in triumph.

The introduction of
sleeping sickness
African trypanosomiasis is an insect-borne parasitic infection of humans and other animals.
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as African sleeping sickness or simply sleeping sickness, is caused by the species '' Trypanosoma b ...
in Uganda was attributed to the movement of Emin and his followers. Prior to the 1890s, sleeping sickness was unknown in Uganda, but the
tsetse fly
Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies) are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Gloss ...
was probably brought by Emin from the Congo territory.
Emin then entered the service of the
German East Africa Company and accompanied
Dr. Franz Stuhlmann on an expedition to the lakes in the interior, but was killed by two
Arab slave traders at Kinena Station in the
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...
,
near
Nyangwe
Nyangwe is a town on the right bank of the Lualaba River, in the Maniema Province in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (territory of Kasongo). In the second half of the 19th century, it was an important Swahili–Arab hub for tra ...
, on 23 or 24 October 1892.
Legacy
He added greatly to the
anthropological
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, wh ...
knowledge of
central Africa
Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries accordin ...
and published valuable
geographical
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
papers.
[ In 1890 he was awarded the ]Founder's Medal
The Founder's Medal is a medal awarded annually by the Royal Geographical Society, upon approval of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, to individuals for "the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery".
Foundation
From ...
of the Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
.
Taxon named in his honor
Emin Pasha is commemorated in the scientific name of an East African species of leptotyphlopid snake, Emin Pasha's worm snake '' Leptotyphlops emini'', and an East African species of ''Passer
''Passer'' is a genus of Old World sparrow, sparrows, also known as the true sparrows. The genus contains 28 species and includes the house sparrow and the Eurasian tree sparrow, two of the most common birds in the world. They are small birds wi ...
'' sparrow, the chestnut sparrow
The chestnut sparrow (''Passer eminibey'') is a species of passerine bird in the Old World sparrow, sparrow family (biology), family Passeridae. It is the smallest member of the sparrow family, at about long. The breeding male has deep chestnu ...
''Passer eminibey''.[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael (2003). ''Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds''. London: Christopher Helm. 400 pp. . ("Emin Bey", p. 119).] He is also honoured in both the specific name and common name of Emin's shrike (''Lanius gubernator''), the specific name means governor.
See also
* Emin Pasha Relief Expedition
References
External links
*
*
* A.J. Mounteney Jephson, ''Diary'', Edited by Dorothy Middleton, Hakluyt Society
The Hakluyt Society is a text publication society, founded in 1846 and based in London, England, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of historic voyages, travels and other geographical material. In addition to its publishin ...
1969
Emin Pasha's family genealogy
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emin, Pasha
1840 births
1892 deaths
19th-century physicians from the Ottoman Empire
Pashas
Zoological collectors
Converts to Lutheranism from Judaism
German Lutherans
Silesian Jews
German people in German East Africa
German emigrants to the Ottoman Empire
Kolegium Carolinum Neisse alumni
Physicians from the Province of Silesia
People from Opole
19th-century Lutherans
19th-century Jews from the Ottoman Empire