'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎188r] (380/862)

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
265
Reformed Ottoman Administration, 1831-1914
After the surrender of the last Mamluk the Turks set to work to
establish direct control over all Iraq. One by one the valley lords
and dynasts of Kurdistan, at Amadia, Ruwandiz, Mosul, and in
Shahrizor, were broken and replaced by Turkish officials with
Turkish garrisons. The holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, long autono
mous and subject to misgovernment and mob rule, were chastised
and garrisoned, and a vigorous attempt was made to break the
independence of the tribes (p. 267). The administrative reforms of
Sultan Mahmud were expanded by the Tanzimat or Khatt-i-Sharif of
Sultan Abdul Majid (1840), a body of liberal reforms and institutions
based on European, and mainly French, principles of government
and general civilization. The Tanzimat reforms were not put into
effect till the government of Midhat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. (1869-1872), one of the
greatest Turkish statesmen of the nineteenth century, who in his
few years at Baghdad reorganized the administration in all depart
ments. The control of the provinces was effected by a new vilayet
system. Each vilayet or province was under a vali or governor-
general, responsible direct to Istanbul, and contained a number of
sanjaqs or districts each under a mutasarrif responsible to the vali.
Further subdivisions were qadhas and nahiyas under qaimmaqams and
mudirs respectively. The status of Mosul and Basra varied till about
1880. Thereafter there were three vilayets, Mosul, including Kirkuk
and Sulaimaniya as sanjaqs, Baghdad, and Basra. The growth of
municipal self-government was also encouraged, not without success;
each township had its elected president and council or baladiya for
the care of streets and public works, and though little was done
the glimmerings of civic pride appeared. Primitive forms of sanita
tion were introduced, and at Baghdad a public hospital was opened.
Education was not neglected; though it was most active in the
Christian and Jewish communities, official Turkish primary and
secondary schools had been opened by the end of the century. But
the educational scheme existed mainly on paper. Teachers were
untrained and of low moral character, so that Sunni parents refused
to patronize them, while Shias held totally aloof.
These reforms, such as they were, all tended to the ottomanization
of the country and the introduction of foreign Turkish methods and
officials. The administrative changes created a new bureaucratic
class of effendis, mostly Turkish in speech, race, and sympathy,
though Iraqis filled the lower grades; they had a superficial European