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THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 259
Pasha and his Janissaries, the Sultan accepted the ringleader Afrasiyab
and after him his son Ali as Pashas of the ayalat. They succeeded
in controlling the tribesmen of the lower delta and in keeping the
Persians out of their territory (1624—1625). Firm government and
security brought great wealth to Basra: ‘the prince of Balsara is so
good a husband that he lays up 3 millions of livres a year,’ wrote a
traveller. But the last of the house, Husain (1650-1669), grew so
insubordinate that direct Turkish rule was restored by force of arms.
The Mamluk Pashas
In the eighteenth century the Sultan at Istanbul, distracted by
European wars, gradually lost control of Iraq. The great services
rendered by Hasan Pasha, Governor of Baghdad (1704-1723), and
his son Ahmad (1724-1747) in the wars with Persia enabled them
to found a dynasty which gradually usurped the authority of the
Sultan throughout Iraq and lasted for 127 years. Spasmodic inter
vention by Istanbul always ended with the restoration of the family.
The core of their power was in the ayalats of Baghdad and Basra,
but they also controlled and sometimes themselves held Mosul and
Kirkuk, and also Mardin north of the Jazira. Thus the geographical
unity of the country which is now Iraq tended to reassert itself. The
real strength of the dynasty lay in the administrative body which they
created, the ‘Chambers’ of Circassian slaves or Mamluks from
Georgia. These slaves, who were organized in grades for different
duties of household or state affairs, proved vigorous efficient adminis
trators and military officers. From their ranks came the successors of
Ahmad, usually related by marriage to him or to one another.
The most notable were Sulaiman, called Father of Night or Abu
Laila from the speed of his campaigns (1749-1762); Umr (1764-
1775) the weakest of the Mamluks; Sulaiman (1779-1802) surnamed
the Great (Buyuk), who won the fivefold pashalik in the siege of
Basra (p. 258); his son-in-law Ali (1802-1807); and Baud Effendi
(1817-1831), the last to hold the suzerainty of the five provinces.
These Pashas were the first government to attempt to cope with
the tribal problem. By alliances, by dividing tribe against tribe, and
by vigorous punitive expeditions, they kept some sort of order
between the desert and the sown. By similar methods they also
controlled the ruling families of Kurdistan and prevented any
dangerous unification of Turkish and Persian Kurds. But a great
part of their power was indirect, even in the towns. Local dynastic
families ruled in Amadia, Koi Sanjaq, and Ruwandiz, generation