 Until the 1952 revolution, Egypt was dominated by an elite made up of interrelated families of Turkish, Circassian and Albanian origin known to historians as the Turco-Circassian elite who owned most of the land, upon which the "fellahen" (Egyptian peasants) toiled upon as tenant farmers.The Turco-Circassian aristocracy made up less than 1% of the population, but owned 3/4 of all the farmland in Egypt.Egypt under the rule of the Mohammad Ali dynasty was characterized by some of the starkest income disparities in the world as the rich in Egypt tended to be extremely rich while the poor tended to be extremely poor.