Four Centuries of Modern Iraq

Four Centuries of Modern Iraq

Stephen Hemsley Longrigg

Oxford at the Clarendon Press

Few lands of ancient renown have faded before the eyes of the later world to more obscurity than that spread over the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in the early sixteenth century. Successive inundations from the further East, with the rise and fall of a score of dynasties, had swept the old glories of the land into legend. The new things of the Renaissance, the new world of Columbus, the policies of brilliant monarchs in Europe wielding new powers of concentrated nations, left to the ‘Iraq but a feeble claim on the interest of the West. Few thought of Babylon, Nineveh, and Baghdad as sites in a living land; fewer had heard of the rare exchanges of diplomacy between the viceroys of ‘Iraq and the courts of Europe. The tales of travellers were scanty and unreal. Only the seafaring states of southern Europe cared for countries east of the Levant as the source, or routes to the source, of the silks ...

Contents

Preface / v
Note On Translıteratıon / xii

I. ‘Iraq And The Turkısh Conquest / 1
§ 1. The country in 1500 (1).
§ 2. Races and society (8).
§ 3. The recent past (12).
§ 4. The Persian occupation and the Turkish threat (16).
§ 5. Sultan Sulaiman (21).

II. The Sıxteenth Century / 2 7
§ 1. Hopes and fears for ‘Iraq as a Turkish province (27).
§ 2. Internal‘Iraq, 1534 to 1620(29).
§ 3. The fringes (38).
§ 4. The Government (46).

III. The Su Bashi And Sultan Murad / 51
§ 1. Bakr the Su Bashi, 1621 to 1623 (51). § 2. The second
Persian occupation (56). § 3. Hafidh Ahmad (58). § 4. A
respite and a second failure (63).
§ 5. Sultan Murad, 1638 (68).

IV. The Seventeenth Century / 75
§ 1. Character of‘Iraq history, 1639 to 1704 (75).
§ 2. The tribal map in the seventeenth century (77).
§ 3. Baghdad and its rulers, 1639 to 1704 (81).
§ 4. Northern ‘Iraq (95).
V. The Prınce of Basrah / 99
§ 1. The line of Afrasiyab (99).
§ 2. The Gulf, 1622 to 1700 (105).
§ 3. Decline of the House of Afrasiyab (108).
§ 4. The end of Husain Pasha (115).
§ 5. A generation of vicissitude (118).

VI. Battles of Giants / 123
§ 1. Hasan Pasha (123).
§ 2. The first campaigns: Sunni
against Sunni (128).
§ 3. Nadir Quli and the siege of Baghdad (134).
§4. The lame Deliverer (140).
§5. The end of the struggle (146).
§ 6. ‘Iraqin war-time, 1722 to 1747 (154).

VII. The Slaves / 163
§ 1. Abu Lailah (163).
§ 2. ‘Ali and ‘Umr (172).
§ 3. Baban and Persian (177).
§ 4. Homo homini lupus (180).

VIII. Sulaıman the Great / 187
§ 1, The siege and occupation of Basrah (187).
§ 2. Accession of the Great Pasha: the man and the times (195).
§ 3. Tribes and vassals, 1780 to 1802 (200).
§ 4. The Wahhabis (212).
§ 5. End of the Great Pasha (217).

IX. The Later Mamluks / 221
§ 1. Three short reigns (221).
§ 2. The Wahhabis, 1802 to 1810 (229).
§ 3. The Shahrizor, 1802 to 1813 (231).
§ 4. Sa'id Pasha (234).
§ 5. The last Mamluk (239).
§ 6. The raids from Karmanshah (242).

X. The End of an Epoch / 250
§ 1. A last glance at Mamluk ‘Iraq (250).
§ 2. The change of times (253). § 3. Act of man and act of God (262).
§ 4. The fall of Baghdad (267). § 5. ‘Ali Ridha (274).

XI.  FROM THE MAMLUKS TO MIDHAT PASHA . 277
§ 1. Imperial and foreign relations, 1831 to 1869 (277).
§ 2. The phenomena of Reform (280).
§ 3. Personalities of the period (282).
§ 4. The extension of direct rule (284).
§ 5. Tribal policy, 1838 to 1869 (288).
§6. The new communications (292).

XII. The Later Nıneteenth Century / 298
§ 1. Midhat Pasha (298).
§ 2. Expansion in Arabia (301).
§ 3. The new policy of Settlement (305).
§ 4 The Government of ‘Iraq at the close of the nineteenth century (312).
§ 5. Retrospect and Judgement (320).

Appendıces:
I. Sources of the present Work / 327
II. Genealogical Tables / 346
III. Contemporary Monarchs of Turkey and Persia / 350
IV. Islamic and Christian Chronology / 351

Glossary / 353

Index of Sources / 357
General Index / 361

FOREWORD TO THE NEW (1968) IMPRESSION

The original, and only previous, edition of this book was published 43 years ago, and has been out of print for at least the last 25 of these. The text, here re-printed without change, gives to its author the curious impression of being somebody else’s writing, faintly familiar or reminiscent, yet strange enough to be judged with an objectivity which, however rigorously intended, cannot be wholly free from paternal favour. I have done, in these past decades, a good deal of work in the field of modern middle-eastern history - my Iraq 1900 to 1950, published in 1953, is in fact a continuation of the present volume - but almost none dealing with the times or the course of events here recorded; other scholars have done and are doing more, particularly, I should say, on the post-1831 period of the nineteenth century, which is here less fully treated, for reasons given (p. 277), than the earlier centuries. As however, there is, it seems, a persistent if limited demand for my Four Centuries, especially in American, Arab and British universities, I am glad to see it replaced in circulation, even “warts and all”, and am gratified to feel that it has served some purpose and may, till superseded, continue to be useful.

June 1968 / S.H.L.

PREFACE

The territory whose history during the four latest centuries forms the subject of this book is that—with differences in detail only—of the Turkish provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basrah in their final form. The propriety with which the name ‘Iraq can be thus applied may, indeed, be disputed; during most of the period itself it was not in general use with this significance, and it has been used at times to denote a quite different territory; but no more convenient name suggests itself, and none more readily intelligible to a public now well accustomed to it as the name of the present kingdom of ‘Iraq.

Had there existed a reasonably adequate history of the country in modern times—from the early sixteenth to the close of the nineteenth century—the present writer would not have entered the field. As it is, nothing of the kind has been published in English, and in other European languages, but a single unsatisfying monograph; while the published—and, as far as has been ascertained, the manuscript—writings of western Asia contain no work whose mere translation would fill the gap. The ancient and medieval records of the ‘Iraq have long since received and still receive from archaeologists and historians the care due to a very cradle of man’s civilization, to a centre of the earliest great Empires, to lands trodden by great captains of Greece and Rome, to the scene, for many generations, of the glories of ‘Abbasid Islam ; but this ancient fame has singularly failed to attract a glance of curious sympathy at the subsequent vicissitudes and sufferings of the same country. The long age of poverty, confusion and neglect that followed the Mongol inroad has repelled the historians alike of Hammurabi and of Cyrus, of Seleucus and Khasrau and Harun. Darkness of varying depth falls over ‘Iraq history from the hour when the light of the Khalifate was extinguished until the present century. From the conquest by Hulaku, indeed, to the birth of Safawi Persia much that is relevant may be found recorded among the obscure histories of Mongol, Tartar, and Turkoman; into these the present historian has not entered. He has confined himself to the latest and least studied period.

But his excuse for pages so many and so often tedious lies not only and not principally in the long-faded splendours of antiquity. He deals with lands great in extent, important by their position, once marvellously and still potentially wealthy: with constant natural and social conditions which, whether unique or not, are well worthy of study as a background of history: with a country whose most recent past has involved the lives and fortunes of thousands of our countrymen, and whose future is to-day a problem exciting the keenest—too often the most ignorant—controversy. On this last ground the writer ventures to hope that the appearance of these pages may be opportune—that they may, by their contribution of the actual relevant facts of history, be welcome to such as value these as a basis for their opinions.

In themselves, meanwhile, the records of ‘Iraq since the days of Sulaiman the Magnificent contain striking figures too long debarred from a place in history, incidents barren neither in dramatic nor in historic interest, and materials to illumine a neglected subject, the Asiatic provinces of the Sultan’s empire in zenith and decline. The historian of Arabia must turn here for an aspect of the nomad tribes, the fierce Revivalists, of his deserts and oases : the historian of Persia for the scene of an age-long religious and imperial bitterness between Heresy and Tradition, where renowned champions of both empires gained and regained Hamadan, the Kurdish valleys, and Baghdad : the historian of the Kurds (yet to appear) for the dealings of his southern valley-states with their suzerains and with each other: the student of British enterprise for the first humble establishments of her trade with Basrah, and its slow increase to diplomatic and economic dominance.

The writer who thus ambitiously hopes to interest historian, statesman and orientalist has faced his task under conditions of much preoccupation, of exacting climate, of remoteness from libraries. He cannot hope to conceal the shortcomings of an editio princeps. He has felt, however, that his rare fortune of access to the oriental sources, his advantage of help from local scholars, his long residence in ‘Iraq (necessarily bringing knowledge of conditions, topography, and languages) obliged him to attempt a work attractive (and indeed possible) to few. He would welcome its early supersession by a work from abler hands, to which his own researches will lie ready.

The generous help of many ‘Iraqi friends—in provision of manuscript materials, loan of rare Turkish works, and secretarial services—cannot here be fully acknowledged. It would, however, be improper to omit the names of Hamdi Beg Baban (member of the famous family so often mentioned in the narrative), of Ya'qub Effendi Sarkis, of Mahmud Beg ul Shawi, of Hasan Beg of Hillah, of Daud Beg ul Haidari, and of Shaikh Ahmad ul Basha'yan. Valuable notes on the later history of particular localities have been contributed by Haji ‘Adhar of Basrah, Haji Shukri Beg of Hillah, Hamid Khan of Najf, ‘Abdu’l Majid Beg Ya‘qubizadah of Kirkuk, and by numerous others in lesser degree. The secretarial help of Zahad Effendi, ‘Abdu’l Jabbar Effendi, and Yusif Malik has greatly lightened the task of compilation.

S. H. L.

Baghdad,
February 1925

Stephen Hemsley Longrigg

Four Centuries of Modern Iraq

Oxford at the Clarendon Press

Oxford at the Clarendon Press
Four Centuries of Modern Iraq
By Stephen Hemsley Longrigg

Oxford at the Clarendon Press
1925

S.B.N. GB: 576.03578.5
Republished in 1968 by
Gregg International Publishers Limited
I Westmead, Farnbororough, Hants., England
Printed in Lebanon