I was especially in ill favour because I had refused to allow my men to be taken from their military duty and put to dig the Tewfikieh Canal, which it was the practice to make them do without extra pay. Plans were made to involve me in some street quarrel with the view to my assassination, but through the love of my soldiers I always escaped. All officers who were not Circassians were in danger, and all were alarmed. It was thus that Ali Fehmy, who was a fellah born, though through his wife connected with the Court, came to join us, for he feared he, too, would be superseded. * He was Colonel of the 1st Regiment of Guards, and stationed at Abdin; * I was at Abbassiyeh with the 3rd Regiment, and Abd-el-Aal Helmi was at Toura. * Ali Roubi
Matters came to a crisis in January, 1881. I had gone to spend the evening with Nejm ed Din Pasha, and there were at his house some pashas talking over the changes Osman Rifki had in hand, and I learned from them that it had been decided that I and Abd-el-Aal should be deprived of our commands, and our places given to officers of the Circassian class. At the same moment a message arrived for me from my house to say that Ali Fehmy had come there with Abd-el-Aal and was awaiting me. So I went home and I found them there, and from them I learned the same evil news. We therefore took council what was to be done. Abd-el-Aal proposed that we should go in force to Osman Rifki's house and arrest or kill him, but I said, "No, let us petition first the Prime Minister, and then, if he refuses, the Khedive." And they charged me to draw the petition up in form. And I did so, stating the case, and demanding the dismissal of Osman Rifki, and the raising of the army to 18,000 men, and the decreeing of the promised Constitution.