The Ottoman sultan was Egypt’s titular sovereign until 1914, but in the late 19th century some historians of Egypt found the terminus of Ottoman rule in the French invasion and inauguration of Muhammad `Ali’s government. This periodization was later canonized in Egyptian academia, so that Egypt’s Ottoman history was defined as beginning in 1517 and ending in 1798. However, the vagaries of Egypt’s relationship with Istanbul meant that this periodization was neither obvious nor uncontested. The purpose of this paper is to compare the evolving, discordant interpretations of Ottoman history presented in four works by notable Egyptian historians: al-Jabarti (ca. 1824), `Ali Pasha Mubarak (ca. 1889); Muhammad Farid (ca. 1912); and `Umar al-Iskandari and Salim Hasan (ca. 1919). The paper compares the historiography of three significant moments: (1) the Ottoman conquest; (2) the re-assertion of Mamluk power before 1800; (3) the accession of Muhammad `Ali. The paper investigates how the defeated Mamluk sultanate is related to Egypt’s identity in these works, and how the Ottomans are positioned in the flow of Islamic history. The paper reviews our authors’ reflections on the causes of Ottoman “decline”, and analyzes views of how Muhammad `Ali attained power, his legitimacy, and what his rule portended for Egypt. The documentation is found in the principal historical works of the authors: `Aja’ib al-athar fi al-tarajim wa al-akhbar (al-Jabarti); al-Khitat al-tawfiqiyya al-jadida (`Ali Mubarak); Tarikh al-Dawlah al-`Aliyah al-`Uthmaniyyah (Muhammad Farid); and Tarikh misr min al-fath al-`uthmani (Umar al-Iskandari, Salim Hasan). The historians differ radically on the relationship between the Mamluks and Egypt—oppressors vs. proto-nationalists—and in their assessment of the Ottoman conquest’s impact. There is no linear evolution of opinion prior to Egypt’s independence in 1922 nor a strict correlation between an Egyptian-nationalist orientation and attitudes toward the Ottoman state: `Ali Mubarak was a moderate nationalist but anti-Turk, while Muhammad Farid was an ardent nationalist but advocated Egypt’s organic bond with the Ottoman Empire. Broadly, one may distinguish between an appreciation of the Ottomans in their defense of Islam and implementation of justice (al-Jabarti and Farid), and a repudiation of the Ottoman period as Egypt’s “dark ages” (Mubarak, al-Iskandari & Hasan). However, al-Iskandari and Hasan’s book acceptance as a secondary school textbook represents the fixing of an historiographical orthodoxy that categorized Ottoman rule as alien, corrupt, and retrograde, a view that remains dominant in Egyptian popular consciousness.