"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎١‎٩‎٣] (١٧٨٢/١٣٤٨)

1193
Internal affairs, 1687—1730.
The slightness of the English official relations with Basrah during the
period and the general absence of accounts by private travellers leave us in
almost complete ignorance of the state of ""Iraq between 1687 and 1730.*
During a series of years, ending in 1091, Basrah appears to have been
occupied by the Persians ; this occupation must apparently have begun
during the period last described (1648—87), and it may have been a con
sequence of the retirement to Persia of Husain Pasha, the rightful
governor, on his expulsion from Basrah, as already related, by a younger
relation. No facts concerning the Persian administration of Basrah are
on record, but it is stated to have been favourable to trade. In 1691
the Persians withdrew from Basrah in consequence, it would seem, of a
severe epidemic of plague; and thereafter the town remained in a
politically derelict condition and partly deserted by the inhabitants until
1695, when the Ottoman Government resumed possession.
In 1702., when a certain Hasan Pasha was appointed for the second
time governor of Baghdad, the province of ■'Iraq and its dependencies was
in a miserable state of disorganisation. The Janissaries were masters of
the city of Baghdad, and the Arabs held the surrounding country ; security
of trade did not exist; and most of the local merchants had migrated
to Isfahan. The neighbouring district of Kurdistan was ruled by an
independent Pasha of the first class ; the governor of Mardin was appointed
direct from Constantinople ; and even Basrah was a Pashaliq altogether
separate from that of Baghdad, Hasan Pasha, who must have been a
man of strong character and who derived additional prestige from his
ability to intervene with advantage to Turkey in the distracted affairs
of Persia, succeeded in the course of his rule of 21 years in remedying
these evils. In the Baghdad Pashaliq he broke the power of the
Janissaries and the Arabs, re-establishing security of life and property;
he obtained the addition of Mardin to his own territories; and, by
persistently creating difficulties for the Pashas sent from Constantinople
to take charge of Basrah, he in the end secured that government for his
own son Ahmad. On his death, in 1723, he was succeeded by Ahmad,
who so recommended himself to the Porte by his conduct in Persian
# Hamilton {vide his New Account, Volume I, pages 75 to 88) appears to be the only
contemporaneous authority havinsr local knowledge. A list of the Pashas of Baghdad
is given, however, by Niebahr in his Voyage en Arable, Volume 11, pages 362-3.
Persian otcu-
paUon of
Basrah, end
ing 16H.
Administra
tion of
Baghdad and
amalgama
tion of the
Baghdad and
basrah
governments,
1702—23.