'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎183r] (370/862)

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
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intrigue between Persia and Turkey till the nineteenth century. The
conflict had roots in religion too. The Ottomans championed a strict
orthodox Sunni revival of Islam. Their religious and legal system
was wholly orthodox, based on the Hanifite rite, and the general code
of law of Ibrahim Halevi (1470) revived the crusade against infidels
as the object of Ottoman power. But the Persian Safawid Empire
was Shia and made of Shiism a national religion. Yet its shrines and
holy cities were in Iraq, and the Shia population of south Iraq, in
cluding a Persian minority, naturally looked towards the Shahs.
Again, in the central Zagros, Sunni Kurdistan was divided between
the two empires and its leaders intrigued with both sides.
The ill-treatment of Shia pilgrims was a frequent cause of trouble
with Persia, and led to a great inroad in 1589 when Baghdad was
besieged, and only relieved by the Turkish general Jighalzada ‘the
Cicala’, famous in Iraq for his benefactions to both Shia and Sunni
shrines. About this time in Kurdistan Ottoman influence first pene
trated into the Persian zone of Ardalan, only to be decisively excluded
later by the Persian vassal Khan Ahmad Khan (1605-1625), agent
of Shah Abbas. In 1623 Shah Abbas invaded south Iraq and was
admitted to Baghdad by the remarkable treachery of its then ruler,
Bakr the Su Bashi, or Lieutenant of Police, a Janissary who had
seized the supreme power but failed to gain the approval of Istanbul.
A persecution of Sunnis ensued and Iraq, south of the Great Zab,
became for 15 years a Persian province, though Basra held out under
a local dynast, Afrasiyab (p. 259). After two Ottoman expeditions
had failed in 1626 and 1630 Iraq was recovered in 1638, when Sultan
Murad IV led his army in person, and the peace of 1639 became the
basis of frontier relations for the following centuries.
In the eighteenth century there was another great conflict. The
Safawids of Persia were broken by Afghan conquerors (1720-1729),
who in turn were overthrown by Nadir Quli, a Persian tribal leader
who was proclaimed Shah in 1736. Nadir was responsible for a re
markable attempt to end the Sunni-Shia schism by proposing that
the Ottoman Caliph should recognize the adherence of the Shias to
orthodoxy as a fifth rite called the Jafari, in addition to the four
orthodox rites (p. 252). But the troubles of Persia inspired both
Russia and Turkey to partition its territory between themselves. .
Turkish armies, led by the Mamluk Pashas of Baghdad (p. 259),
occupied Kermanshah and Hamadan (1723-1727), but were driven
out by Nadir Quli in 1730-1731. Then Nadir invaded Iraq itself.
Baghdad underwent a long and bitter siege (1733) from which it