'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎185r] (374/862)

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
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cause by murdering the first envoy sent to displace him. The second,
Ali Ridha Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , came with an army (1830), but Mamluk resistance
was broken by an appalling outburst of plague, succeeded by flood,
which together ravaged Baghdad. After sporadic resistance Daud
surrendered. He was sent to Istanbul, where his immense learning
secured pardon and re-employment in Ottoman service (photo. 129).
The Arab Tribes
The breakdown of government in the Mongol period had enabled
the beduin tribes to encroach greatly upon the settled land and had
also permitted the entry of fresh tribes from Arabia. This process
still continued in the seventeenth century when the great tribe of
the Shammar entered Iraq from Nejd (1640) and fought for the
grazing lands held by the Anaiza and Muwali, west of the Euphrates.
The Muwali were broken and driven into Syria, but the Anaiza
eventually prevailed and thrust the Shammar across the Euphrates
into the Jazira. One branch, the Shammar Toqa, crossed the Tigris
and set up tents from the Diyala nearly to Kut. The Ubaid tribe was
thereby displaced and took grazing-grounds astride Jabal Hamrin.
Somewhat earlier, a group of smaller tribes on the lower Euphrates
below Samawa were united under the shaikhly house of A 1 Shabib
to form the Muntafiq. A new tribal dynasty founded by the Shaikh
Sadun about 1738 made them a major tribal power, which was often
in alliance with the Mamluk Pashas. On the lower Tigris also the
tribal map was taking shape. The Bani Lam, a new group founded
by the great Shaikh Hafidh, took the lands between Shaikh Saad and
Amara and restricted their kinsmen the Bani Rabia to an area north
of them around Kut. East of the Shatt al Arab in Persian Arabistan
the Chaab established themselves, built a fleet (1757-1760) and domi
nated the river, siding with Persian or Turk as seemed profitable.
The beduin tribes shared with the towns and the Pasha’s tax-
collectors the profits of the surviving caravan trade (p. 264). Politic
ally they were independent or nominal vassals, but the Mamluk
Pashas kept relative order, protecting towns and peasants from
beduin excesses. The Sunni tribes were always ready to assist in
wars against the Persians, and later against the Wahhabis. But the
Shia tribes, notably the Khazail shepherds in the region of Najaf,
were ever troublesome and sometimes pro-Persian.
The Wahhabis of Nejd
About 1800 the new religious and tribal movement of the Wah
habis threatened Iraq from Arabia. Their founder, Mohammed ibn