This is a study of the nature of Ottoman administration under Sultan Abdulhamid and the effects of this on the three provinces that were to form the modern state of Iraq. The author provides a general commentary on the late Ottoman provincial administration and a comprehensive picture of the nature of its interaction with provincial society. In drawing on sources of the Ottoman archives, bringing together and analyzing an abundance of complex documents, this book is a fascinating contribution to the field of Middle Eastern studies.
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The “four centuries” of Ottoman rule in Iraq were shaped by several factors: geographic, social, political, and economic. These factors determined the “destiny” of Ottoman Iraq from the very beginning, and remained constant even during the period under study. Iraq was an outlying region; it had a large Shi’i population; as a frontier region, it was vulnerable to invasion; it remained a tribal and economically poor country.
Iraq was conquered in stages by the Ottomans in the first half of the sixteenth century: Mosul was taken in c. 1516–17, Baghdad in 1534, and Basra between 1538 and 1546.1 Even before the Ottoman conquest, Iraq had lost its importance as a source of wealth, after the system of irrigation had been damaged during the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century; and a great part of the country had passed under the control of pastoral tribes and tribal confederations. From the start, Baghdad was placed under the direct control of Istanbul. It was regarded as a center for the defense of the frontier against Iran, and an important garrison was stationed there. Around Kirkuk (
ehrizor) and Sulaymaniyah, to the north, Kurdish families were appointed as local governors or tax collectors, in return for protecting the Iranian frontier, under the supervision of an Ottoman governor-general (Beylerbeyi) at Mosul. In the south, Basra kept its importance as a naval base for a while, until the Portuguese and Dutch threats in the Gulf receded by the end of seventeenth century. Basra also gradually lost its importance as a center of trade and commerce, after the trade of the Indian Ocean moved from the Gulf to the Red Sea.2
Like other outlying provinces which joined the Empire late, such as Egypt and the Yemen, Iraq was never fully integrated into the Ottoman administrative system, and the Porte did not maintain an all-embracing political control there. Its control was further weakened by periodic wars with Iran, which did not end until the early nineteenth century, and also by periodic Iranian occupations.3 Mosul alone was subjected to the tımar system, in which cavalry officers were given the right to collect and keep the tax on certain agricultural lands in return for military service in times of need; Baghdad and Basra were administrated as salyane provinces, in which the tax revenues were not distributed as tımars, but farmed out to the provincial governors, who delivered fixed annual sums, known as salyane, to the central treasury.4
Notwithstanding the absence of tımars, the bulk of the land in Baghdad and Basra was regarded as miri (state land); nonetheless, the land regime was complicated by old Islamic customs, including the extensive use of waqfs (religious endowments), and also by the destabilizing influences of widespread tribalism and endless wars with Iran. The provincial division of the region varied. Iraq was originally divided into three provinces (eyalet): Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul; however, the province of Mosul at times lost territory to Diyarbakır and
ehrizor, and a separate province, called the eyalet of Lahsa (al-Hasa), was formed in Najd in the second half of sixteenth century.5
In course of time, central authority grew weaker, a development which became apparent in the eighteenth century, especially in the Fertile Crescent. The vacuum of power was filled by local potentates, all owing allegiance to Istanbul: Georgian Mamluks in Baghdad, and the Jalilis, a local family, in Mosul. For about a century, from 1747 to 1831, Baghdad, with Basra, was ruled by successive Mamluk pa
as. The Jalilis took control of Mosul from 1726 onwards, but power in Sulaymaniyah was in the hands of the Kurdish Baban family, while other Kurdish districts fell under the control of local emirs.6
Not until the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1808–39) did central government set out to restore its authority over the provinces, and to produce a reformed and centralized system of provincial administration. The process was gradual. By 1820, the Porte had regained firm control over most of its Balkan and Anatolian provinces, and Baghdad’s turn came in 1831, when, taking advantage of the military weakness of Davud Pa
a, the Mamluk Vali of Baghdad (1817–31), Ali Rıza Pa
a, the Vali of Aleppo, entered the city without much resistance.7 In similar fashion, Mosul was restored to central authority in 1834. However, the subordination of the Kurdish Emirates around Diyarbakır and Rawanduz took several years more, the Babans of Sulaymaniyah submitting as late as 1850.
I
In the years immediately following the restoration of central authority at Baghdad, questions of security took precedence over reform. The authorities faced a number of local uprisings, and a standing threat from Muhammad Ali Pa
a of Egypt, who had wrested control of Syria from the Sultan in 1831–3. Not until the restoration of direct Ottoman rule in Syria in 1839, coinciding with the proclamation of the Tanzimat reform program by the new Sultan Abdülmecid (1839–61), was the way opened to a serious attempt to introduce reforms into Iraq.8 Even so, the new Tanzimat reforms could not be introduced everywhere at once, and Iraq, like many other provinces, had to wait its turn.9
As proclaimed in 1839, the Tanzimat reforms promised an overall reorganization in every institution of state and society, from more orderly tax collection to a fair and regular system of military conscription, and from reform in education to reform in the justice system. The proposed reforms were partially based upon European models, and initiated an unprecedented, if slow, process of institutional and cultural “westernization.” In another respect, too, they broke with Islamic and Ottoman tradition, by extending a promise of civil equality to the Empire’s non-Muslim subjects. In the provinces, the Tanzimat reforms envisaged a radical overhaul of provincial administration, and a considerable strengthening of central control. The assumption was that much of the misrule and inefficiency of provincial administration in the past had been due to the system that enabled most provincial officials to hold their positions autonomously, without real supervision or control by the central government, as long as they performed the services or paid the taxes required in return. Initially, therefore, the reforms set out to weaken the autonomy of the Valis (provincial governors-general), by giving many of their functions to other officials, appointed by and responsible to Istanbul. First, the financial independence of the Valis was limited, and the collection of taxes was given to civil tax collectors sent from Istanbul, and later to the military authorities. The second step was a reorganization of the administrative divisions in each province, using the traditional term sancak, but redrawing the boundaries to establish equal units of comparable population and wealth. The third step in reducing the autonomous power of the governors-general was to provide them, as well as the sub-governors at sancak level, with advisory councils containing representatives of the local population, generally influential notables and heads of religious communities. The final step was the reorganization of the army. In 1841, the army was divided into provincial commands, each led by a Mü
ir (Field Marshal), appointed by and responsible to the Serasker (War Minister) in Istanbul. This ended the Valis’ c...
