The Ottoman Iraq (1532-1918)
When the Ottoman Empire was dismembered following
World War I and the boundaries of the 20th-century state
of Iraq were drawn, they bore little resemblance to those of the provinces
of Ottoman Iraq. Nor had the name Iraq been attached to
any of those provinces. Ottoman Iraq was roughly approximate to the
Arabian Iraq of the preceding era, but without clearly defined borders.
The Zagros Mountains, which separated Arabian Iraq from
Persian Iraq, now lay on the Ottoman-Iranian frontier, but that frontier
shifted with the fortunes of war. On the west and south, Iraq faded out
somewhere in the sands of the Syrian and Arabian
deserts.
The incorporation of Arabian Iraq into the Ottoman Empire
not only separated it from Persian Iraq but also reoriented it toward the
Ottoman lands in Syria and Anatolia,
with especially close ties binding the province (eyalet) of Diyar
Bakr to the Iraqi provinces. For administrative purposes, Ottoman
Iraq was divided into the three central eyalets of
Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra,
with the northern eyalet of Sharihzor, east of the
Tigris, and the southern eyalet of Al-Hasa, on the
western coast of the Persian Gulf. These provinces only roughly reflected
the geographic, linguistic, and religious divisions of Ottoman Iraq.
Most of the inhabitants of Mosul and
Shahrizor in the north and northeast were Kurds
and other non-Arabs. Pastures and cultivated fields
benefited from the plentiful rainfall and melting winter snows of this
largely mountainous region. The Tigris and
Euphrates rivers flowing through the central and southern plains
created an irregular belt of irrigated farmlands bounded by desert and
merging into the marshlands around the head of the Persian Gulf.
The people of the plains, marshes, and deserts were overwhelmingly
Arabic-speaking. Few Turkish speakers
were to be found outside of Baghdad, Kirkuk,
and some other towns. Centuries of political upheavals, invasions, wars,
and general insecurity had taken their toll on Iraq's population,
especially in the urban centers. Destruction and neglect of the irrigation
system had restricted settled agriculture to a few areas, the most
extensive of which were between the rivers north of Baghdad
and around Basra in the south. As much as half of the
Arab and Kurdish population in the
countryside was nomadic or semi nomadic. Outside the towns, social
organization and personal allegiances were primarily tribal, with many of
the settled cultivators having retained their tribal ties. Baghdad,
situated near the geographic centre, reflected within itself the division
between the predominantly Shi'ite south and the largely
Sunnite north. Unlike Anatolia and
Syria, Iraq's non-Muslim communities
were modest in size, but there was an active Jewish
commercial and financial element in Baghdad, and
Assyrian Christians were prominent in Mosul.
Absorbed piecemeal by the Ottoman sultans Selim I and
Süleyman I in the 16th century, this region on the
empire's eastern periphery was the battleground in recurrent struggles
between the Sunnite Ottomans and the Shi'ite rulers of Iran and was
subject to frequent Arab and Kurdish tribal disturbances. It was never as
thoroughly integrated into the empire or as directly administered by the
Ottomans as was the western half of the Fertile
Crescent. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the destruction, chaos,
and fragmentation that had beset the region in the preceding centuries,
the expansion of the vast Ottoman political and economic
sphere to include Iraq brought with it certain
advantages.
Under the watchful eye of Süleyman I's government,
local administration was reorganized; trade increased; the economic and
living conditions of most of the inhabitants improved; and the towns,
especially Baghdad, experienced some growth and new
building. The Ottomans at first attempted to rule the
Iraqi provinces directly, but in the 17th and 18th centuries a weakened
government in Istanbul was obliged to concede extensive
autonomy to the governors, and some areas were beyond the
reach of Ottoman authority for extended periods. This
trend was reversed in the 19th century when administrative centralization
and reorganization, undertaken by the Ottoman government
as part of a comprehensive reform and modernization program, were extended
to Iraq. The reassertion of direct rule by the sultan's
government did not, however, halt the increasing penetration of
Iraq by British and other European
interests.
The 16th-century conquest of Iraq and the regime imposed by Süleyman I
The 16th-century conquest of Iraq, Syria,
Egypt, and the Hejaz brought the holiest
cities of Islam, the most important of the pilgrimage
routes, and all the former seats of the caliphate under Ottoman
rule, thus reinforcing the dynasty's claim to supreme leadership within
the Sunnite Muslim world.
In Iraq, Ottoman rule represented the
victory of Sunnism. Although the Shi'ite notables of southern Iraq
continued to enjoy considerable local influence and prestige, they were
inclined to identify with Shi'ite Iran and to resent the Sunnite-dominated
Ottoman administration. Control of the trade routes
passing through the Red Sea and up the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers and from Iran to
Anatolia, Syria, and the
Mediterranean was an important element in the sultan's efforts to
ensure that east-west trade would continue to flow through his territories
despite the newly opened sea routes around Africa.
But, perhaps most importantly, Iraq served as a
buffer zone, a shield protecting Ottoman Anatolia
and Syria against encroachments from Iran
or by the intractable Arab and Kurdish
tribes. Süleyman's imposition of direct rule over
Iraq involved such traditional Ottoman
administrative devices as the appointment of governors and judges, the
stationing of Janissaries in the provincial capitals, and
the ordering of cadastral surveys. Timars (military
fiefs), however, were few except in some areas in the north. Although the
pasha of Baghdad was accorded a certain preeminence as
governor of the most important city in Ottoman Iraq (as was the governor
of Damascus in Syria), this in no way implied the unity
of the five eyelets.
The local despotisms in the 17th century
In the 17th century the weakening of the central authority of the
Ottoman government gave rise to local despotisms in the Iraqi
provinces as elsewhere in the empire. A tribal dynasty, the Banu
Khalid, ruled Al-Hasa as governors from the late
16th century to 1663; and in 1612 Afrasiyab, a military
man of uncertain origin, purchased the governorship of Basra,
which remained in his family until 1668. With the permission and even the
encouragement of these autonomous governors, British,
Dutch, and Portuguese merchants who were
already actively involved in Red Sea trade gained a
strong foothold in Basra.
An officer and faction leader of the Janissary
garrison in Baghdad, Bakr Su Bashi,
revolted in the early 17th century and negotiated with the Safavid
Shah 'Abbas I in order to strengthen his position. In the
ensuing struggle, the Ottomans managed to retain control
over Mosul and Shahrizor, but central
Iraq, including Baghdad, was under Safavid
rule from 1623 until Sultan Murad IV drove the
Iranians out again in 1638. Whereas the Safavid
occupation of Baghdad had been accompanied by the
destruction of some Sunnite mosques and other buildings and had resulted
in death or slavery for several thousand people, mostly Sunnites, many of
the city's Shi'ite inhabitants lost their lives when the Ottomans returned
to Baghdad.
The Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin (also called the Treaty of
Zuhab) of 1639 brought an end to 150 years of intermittent
warfare between the Ottomans and Safavids
and established a boundary between the two empires that remained virtually
unchanged into modern times. Ottoman sovereignty had been
restored in Baghdad, but the stability of central Iraq
continued to be disturbed by turbulent garrison troops and by Arab
and Kurdish tribal unrest. In the south, too, even though
the autonomous rule of the Afrasiyab dynasty was ended in
1668, Ottoman authority was soon challenged by the
powerful Muntafiq and Hawiza tribes of
desert and marsh Arabs. Iranians took advantage of this
disturbed state of affairs to infiltrate southern Iraq. Only after the
Ottomans suffered defeat in a European war and
negotiated the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699 was the sultan
able to dispatch troops to Iraq and recover Basra.
Developments in Iraq in the middle and late 17th
century reflected the disordered state of affairs in Istanbul.
The energetic and effective reign of Murad IV was
followed by that of the incompetent Ibrahim I (1640-48),
known as "Deli (The Mad) Ibrahim," who was eventually
deposed and strangled and was succeeded by his six-year-old son
Mehmed IV (1648-87). The protracted crisis in the capital had an
unsettling effect everywhere in the empire, undoing the reforms of
Murad IV and bringing political and economic chaos.
The 18th-century Mamluk regime
The early 18th century witnessed important changes both in
Istanbul and in Baghdad. The reign of Sultan
Ahmed III was marked by relative political stability in
the capital and by extensive reforms--some of them influenced by European
models--implemented during the "Tulip Period" (Lale Devri,
1718-30) by Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha.
In Baghdad, Hasan Pasha (1704-24), the Ottoman
governor of Georgian origin sent from Istanbul,
and his son Ahmed Pasha (1724-47) established a
Georgian Mamluk (slave) household, through which they exercised
authority and administered the province. The Mamluks, or
in Turkish kölemen, were mostly Christian slaves from the
Caucasus who converted to Islam, were trained in a
special school, and were then assigned to military and administrative
duties. Hasan Pasha made himself indispensable to the
Ottoman government by curbing the unruly tribes and
regularly remitting tribute to the treasury in Istanbul,
and Ahmed Pasha played a crucial role in defending
Iraq against yet another Iranian
military threat. These pashas extended their authority beyond the eyelet
of Baghdad to include Mardin, 'Urfa,
and much of Kurdish Shahrizor, thus dominating the
northern trade routes and securing additional sources of revenue. They
also held sway over Basra and the trade lanes leading to
the Persian Gulf, Arabia, and
India. Mosul retained its separate provincial
status and from 1726 to 1834 was governed by members of the powerful
Jalili family. But, whereas the Jalilis,
whose relationship to the sultan had some characteristics of vassalage,
regularly made military contributions to Ottoman
campaigns beyond their provincial frontiers, the pashas of Baghdad
did not. The military forces at their disposal remained in Iraq,
guarding against tribal unrest and threats from Iran.
The collapse of Safavid power in 1722 saw first the
Afghans and later Nadir Shah (1736-47)
seize power in Iran, leading to a resumption of
hostilities in Ottoman Iraq. In 1733, before assuming the title of
shah, Nadir unsuccessfully besieged
Baghdad. He also failed to capture Mosul in
1742, and a settlement was reached in 1746 that confirmed the terms of the
Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin. The assistance provided by the
pashas of Baghdad and Mosul in
countering the Iranian threat further enhanced their
value in the eyes of the sultan's government and improved their position
in their respective provinces.
When Ahmed Pasa died in 1747, shortly after the death
of Nadir Shah, his Mamluks constituted a
powerful, self-perpetuating elite corps of some 2,000 men. After attempts
to prevent these Mamluks from assuming power failed, the
Ottomans were obliged to accept their rule. By 1750
Süleyman Abu Layla, son-in-law of Ahmed Pasha
and already governor of Basra, had reentered
Baghdad and been recognized as the first Mamluk
pasha of Iraq.
In the second half of the 18th century Iraqi political
history is largely the story of the autonomous Georgian Mamluk
regime. This regime succeeded in suppressing revolts, curbed the power of
the Janissaries, and restored order and some degree of
prosperity to the region. In addition they countered the Muntafiq
threats in the south and made Basra a virtual dependency
of Baghdad. Following the example set by the
Afrasiyabs in the preceding century, they encouraged
European trade by permitting the British East India
Company to establish an agency in Basra in 1763.
Their failure to develop a regular system of succession and the gradual
formation of several competing Mamluk households,
however, resulted in factionalism and instability, which proved
advantageous to a new ruler of Iran.
Karim Khan Zand ended the anarchy after Nadir
Shah's assassination and from 1765 ruled over most of
Iran from Shiraz. Like the Mamluk
rulers of Iraq, he was interested in the economic returns
derived from fostering European trade in the Persian
Gulf. His brother, Sadiq Khan, took Basra
in 1776 after a protracted and stubborn resistance directed by its
Mamluk governor, Süleyman Aga, and held it until
Karim Khan's death in 1779. Süleyman
then returned from Shiraz, where he had been held
captive, and in 1780 was given the governorship of Baghdad,
Basra, and Shahrizor by Sultan
Abdulhamid I. Known as Büyük (The Great)
Süleyman Pasa, his rule (1780-1802) is generally acknowledged to
represent the apogee of Mamluk power in Iraq.
He imported large numbers of Mamluks to strengthen his
own household, curbed the factionalism among rival households, eliminated
the Janissaries as an independent local force, and
fostered trade and agriculture. His attempts to control the Arab Bedouin
were less successful, and Wahhabi incursions from Arabia
into Al-Hasa and along the fringes of the desert,
climaxing in the sack of the Shi'ite shrine Karbala' in
1801, added to his difficulties.
The fall of the Mamluks and the consolidation of British interests
Britain's influence in Iraq had
received a major boost in 1798 when Süleyman Pasha gave
permission for a permanent British agent to be appointed
in Baghdad. This increasing European
penetration and the restoration of direct Ottoman rule,
accompanied by military, administrative, and other reforms, are the
dominant features of 19th-century Iraqi history. The last Mamluk
governor of Iraq, Da'ud Pasha (1816-31), turned
increasingly to Europe for weapons and advisers to equip
and train his military force and endeavored to improve communications and
promote trade; in this respect he resembled his contemporary in
Egypt, Muhammad 'Ali Pasha. But, whereas
Muhammad 'Ali's Egypt drew closer to France, it
was Great Britain that continued to strengthen its
position in the Persian Gulf and Iraq.
The fall of Da'ud can be attributed in part to the
determination of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) to curtail
provincial autonomy and restore the central authority of his government
throughout the realm. Da'ud's removal, however, was
facilitated by opposition within Iraq to the
Mamluk regime and, more immediately, by the floods
that devastated Baghdad in 1831 and the plague
that decimated its population in the same year. The Mamluks
had always been obliged to share power, to one extent or another, with
groups of local notables--tribal sheikhs in the countryside and
urban-based groups associated with the garrison troops, the bureaucracy,
the merchants, or the religious elite. The last of these included not only
high-ranking legal officials and scholars but also the heads of
Sufi orders, the prominent noble (ashraf)
families, and the custodians of the great religious shrines--both Sunnite
and Shi'ite. Nor were the Mamluk pashas of
Baghdad ever so independent of the sultan's government as it has
sometimes been made to appear. Da'ud was not the first to
be deposed by force. They usually paid tribute and, through their
representatives in the capital, frequently distributed "gifts" to high
officials in the palace and at the Sublime Porte who might assist in
securing their reappointment.
The arrival of a new Ottoman governor in
Baghdad in 1831 signaled the end of the Mamluk
period and the beginning of a new era in Iraq. Direct
rule was gradually imposed over the region. The Jalilis
of Mosul submitted in 1834; the Baban
family of As-Sulaymaniyah followed suit in 1850 when
Ottoman forces subjugated the Kurdish area; and by the
1850s the independent power of the Shi'ite religious elites of
Karbala' and An-Najaf had been curtailed. To
exercise some control in the tribal areas, the Ottomans
continued to rely upon the traditional methods of intervening in the
competition for tribal leadership, making alliances, pitting one tribal
group against another, and occasionally using military force. While the
Arab and Kurdish tribes remained a problem, the reforms set in motion by
the Ottomans did affect the tribal structure of
Iraq and alleviate the problem to some extent.
The governorship of Midhat Pasha (1869-1872)
The most dramatic and far-reaching changes in Iraq are
associated with the introduction of the new Ottoman
provincial system and the governorship of Midhat Pasha
(1869-72). Midhat was one of the chief architects of the Ottoman
Vilayet Law of 1864, and he had applied it with great success in
the Tuna vilayet (Danubian province) before arriving in
Baghdad in 1869 with a handpicked corps of advisers and
assistants.
Midhat transformed the face of Baghdad
by ordering the demolition of a section of the old city wall to allow room
for rational urban expansion. He established a tramway to
suburban Kazimayn, a public park, a
water supply system, a hospital,
textile mills, a savings bank, paved and
lighted streets, and the only Tigris River
bridge built in the city until the 20th century. Several
new schools were opened, modern textbooks
were printed on the press that Midhat
founded, and Iraq's first newspaper, Az-Zawra',
began publication. To develop the economy, he promoted regular
steamer service on the Tigris and
Euphrates and shipping in the Persian
Gulf, set up ship repair yards at Basra,
began dredging operations on the Shatt al-'Arab,
made some minor improvements in the irrigation system,
and expanded date production in the south.
Municipalities and administrative councils
were established in accordance with the new vilayet regulations, and
military conscription was enforced.
But perhaps the most fundamental changes resulted from Midhat's
attempt to apply the Ottoman Land Law of 1858, which
aimed at classifying and regularizing land tenure and registering land
titles to individuals who would be responsible for paying the applicable
taxes. His objectives were to pacify and settle the tribes, encourage
cultivation, and improve tax collection. However, the traditional system
of tribal and communal landholding and the fear that land registration
would lead to greater government control, heavier tax burdens, and
extension of military conscription to the tribal areas--combined with
inefficient and inequitable administration--limited the effectiveness of
the reform and produced unintended results. Most land was registered not
in the names of individual peasants and tribesmen but rather in the names
of tribal sheikhs, urban-based merchants, and former tax farmers. Some
tribal leaders became landlords, tying them more closely to the
Ottoman administration and widening the gap between them and
their tribesmen. Other sheikhs refused to cooperate. A combination of
developments stemming from the reforms begun by Midhat Pasha
resulted in a decline of nomadism in Iraq; the proportion of
nomads fell from about 35 percent of the population in 1867 to
approximately half that figure by the end of the Ottoman
period.
As vali of Baghdad and commander of the
Ottoman 6th Army, Midhat's authority extended
north to include Mosul, Kirkuk, and
As-Sulaymaniyah as well as Basra and
Al-Hasa in the south. He personally led an inspection
tour to Kuwait and Al-Hasa and, taking
advantage of divisions within the Sa'udi family, sought
to reassert Ottoman sovereignty over the Wahhabi
dominions in Najd. His success in the latter effort was
ephemeral, as were many of the projects begun by Midhat.
Nevertheless, his brief rule set in motion developments that profoundly
changed virtually every aspect of life in Iraq and tied
it more closely to Istanbul than ever before.
Mid-19th-century Ottoman reforms
The military reforms undertaken by Mahmud II after
the destruction of the Janissary corps in 1826 were
gradually extended to Iraq. The Iraqi Janissary
regiments were reorganized and, together with new troops sent from the
capital and soldiers recruited locally as military conscription was
applied in various parts of Iraq, formed what later
became the Ottoman 6th Army. So many Iraqis opted for a
military career that by the end of the 19th century they formed the most
numerous group of Arab officers in the Ottoman army. Most
were Sunnites from modest families, educated in military schools set up in
Baghdad and other provincial cities by the
Ottoman government. Some were then admitted to the military
academy in Istanbul; among them were Nuri as-Sa'id
and Yasin al-Hashimi, who became leading figures in the
post-World War I state of Iraq.
Apart from the military schools and the traditional
religious schools, a number of primary
and secondary schools were opened by the government and
by foreign Roman Catholic, Protestant,
and Jewish missionary organizations. Graduates of the
government schools were expected to enter the provincial bureaucracy, and
most did so. Some members of local notable families, among them the
Jalilis of Mosul and the Babans
of As-Sulaymaniyah, chose careers in administration, but
it was Turkish speakers from Kirkuk and
descendants of the Caucasian Mamluks who were especially
well represented in the bureaucratic ranks. The highest administrative
posts, however, were filled by appointees from Istanbul.
As secular reforms were implemented and the role of
the state expanded in the 19th century, Iraqi religious
notables and office-holders--both Shi'ite and
Sunnite--suffered a relative loss of status, influence, and
wealth. Meanwhile, Ottoman civil administrators and army
officers, virtually all of whom were Sunnites,
came to constitute a political elite that carried over into post-1918
Iraq.
Along with new military, administrative, and educational institutions,
the communications network was expanded and modernized. Steamships
first appeared on the Tigris and Euphrates
in 1835, and a company was later formed to provide regular service between
Basra and Baghdad. To handle the
increasing volume of trade, the port facilities of Basra
were developed. In the 1860s telegraph lines linked
Baghdad with Istanbul, and in the 1880s
the postal system was extended to Iraq.
Roads were improved and new ones were built.
Railroad construction, however, did not come until the
Germans built the Baghdad-to-Samarra' line just
before World War I.
The end of Ottoman rule
In the last decades of Ottoman rule, changes in
administrative boundaries once more split Ottoman Iraq
into three parts. For most of this period, both
Basra (together with the subprovince [sanjak] of Al-Hasa)
and Mosul (and its dependent sanjaks of Kirkuk
and As-Sulaymaniyah) were vilayets independent of the
central province of Baghdad.
In spite of the European commercial and consular
presence in Iraq, it remained more isolated from
European influences than the Arab lands adjacent to the
Mediterranean. Iraq had relatively few
Christians, and those few had had little exposure to foreign
ideas. The prosperous Jewish community usually avoided
politics but tended to be favorably disposed toward the Ottoman
government. The tribal sheikhs and Shi'ite notables still couched their
opposition in traditional terms, and many Turkish and
Caucasian families enjoyed official status and other
rewards as provincial administrators. Finally, a great majority of the
population was illiterate. Thus it is hardly surprising that Arab
nationalism had made little impact upon Iraq
before World War I. In Syria, Arab nationalist
and separatist organizations appeared after the
Young Turk Revolution of 1908. In Iraq, however,
there was scant nationalist opposition to Ottoman rule,
although some Iraqi Arab officers in the Ottoman
army joined the secret Al-'Ahd society, which is reported
to have advocated independence for the sultan's Arab
provinces.
It was the British, whose interests in the
Persian Gulf and the Tigris-Euphrates region had
grown steadily since the late 18th century, who ultimately brought an end
to the Ottoman presence in Iraq. In the
years just before World War I, the close ties between the
governments of the kaiser in Berlin and
the Young Turks in Istanbul were
particularly troublesome to Great Britain. When
Germany was awarded a concession to extend its railway
line through Anatolia to Baghdad and
acquired mineral rights to the land on both sides of the
proposed route, heightened fear of German competition in
Iraq and the Persian Gulf evoked strong
protests from London. Soon afterward, the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company began production on the Iranian
side of the gulf, and there were indications that
oil might be found elsewhere in the area. In 1912 a group
representing British, German, and
Dutch interests formed the Turkish Petroleum
Company which, on the eve of the war, was given a concession to
explore for oil in the vilayets of Mosul and
Baghdad. In view of these developments and because they feared
that the Ottomans might be persuaded by the
Germans to undertake military action against them, the
British had already made plans to send an expedition from
India to protect their interests in the Persian Gulf
before the Ottoman Empire entered the war in early
November 1914. After war was declared, a British
expeditionary force landed at the head of the gulf and on Nov. 22, 1914,
entered Basra. In a campaign aimed at taking
Baghdad, the British suffered a defeat at Kut al-'Amarah
in April 1916, but a reinforced British army marched into
Baghdad on March 11, 1917. An administration staffed
largely by British and Indian officials
replaced the Ottoman provincial government in
occupied Iraq, but Mosul remained in
Ottoman hands until after the Armistice of Mudros
(Oct. 30, 1918), which brought an end to the war in the Middle
East.
