The eldest son of Khedive Ismāʿīl (Ismāʿīl Pasha), Tawfīq was distinguished from other members of his family by having engaged in study in Egypt rather than in Europe. He subsequently assumed a variety of administrative positions, including the head of the Privy Council and president of the Council of Ministers. The Ottoman sultan appointed Tawfīq khedive in 1879, when Ismāʿīl proved obstructive to the interests of the European powers.

Tawfīq enjoyed little domestic support and was thus forced to meet the demands of his political opponents. A group of military officers led by Aḥmad Urābī Pashaʿ gained increasing influence, and ʿUrābī was named minister of war in 1882. Great Britain was alarmed by the anti-European direction in which events were moving in Egypt, and a British fleet bombarded Alexandria in July 1882; this only increased ʿUrābī's popular support, and Tawfīq was forced to seek the protection of the British. That August the British invaded Egypt and returned Tawfīq to authority. From then on he was largely controlled by the occupation authorities, in particular by the British consul general, Sir Evelyn Baring (Cromer, Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of, Viscount Errington Of Hexham, Viscount Cromer, Baron Cromer Of Cromer) (later Lord Cromer (Cromer, Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of, Viscount Errington Of Hexham, Viscount Cromer, Baron Cromer Of Cromer)). Programs undertaken in Tawfīq's later years as khedive included a reorganization of the legal system, the formation of the General Assembly and the Legislative Council, and various agricultural and irrigation projects. He died unexpectedly following a sudden illness in Ḥulwān in 1892.