Ottoman Iraq
Ottoman Iraq or Hıtta-i Irakiyye was the Ottoman name for the region of Iraq that was under their control. Historians often divide its history into five main periods. The first began with Sultan Süleyman I's conquest in 1534 and ended with the Safavid capture of Baghdad in 1623. The second lasted from the Ottoman reconquest in 1638 to the start of Mamluk self-rule in 1749. The third period, from 1749 to 1831, was marked by the Georgian Mamluk dynasty’s semi-autonomous governance. The fourth stretched from the Ottoman removal of the Mamluks in 1831 to 1869, when reformist governor Midhat Pasha took office. The fifth and final phase ran from 1869 until 1917, when British forces occupied Baghdad during the First World War.
Administratively, during the first period in the 16th century, Baghdad Eyalet encompassed much of the territory of modern Iraq. In the 17th century, the Ottomans had reorganized Iraq into four eyalets. However, from the late 17th century, a trend of administrative unification began, with Basra coming under Baghdad's control from around 1705 and Mosul and Shahrizor following after 1780 during the semi-autonomous Mamluk period. Following this unification, Mamluk rulers such as Sulayman the Great were described as governing “all of Iraq”, and the Ottomans themselves began referring to the region unofficially as “the land of Iraq”. By 1830, and possibly earlier, these were being collectively referred to in official Ottoman correspondence as the region of Iraq, as attested in a letter from Sultan Mahmud II. The four eyalets were later consolidated in the 19th century into the vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, which were treated as a single "Iraq Region".
For much of the early modern period, Iraq was a contested frontier in the Ottoman–Persian wars, with control over Baghdad frequently shifting between the two empires. During World War I, Iraq became the focus of fighting between the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire in the Mesopotamian campaign, culminating in the British occupation of Baghdad in 1917 and the establishment of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia in 1920.
Terminology and geography
In the 16th century, the Baghdad Eyalet encompassed districts such as İmadiye and Zâho in the north, Ane and Deyrü Rahbe in the west, Kerne in the south, and Kasr-ı Şirin in the east, according to imperial registers from 1558–1587. This is an administrative configuration that closely resembles the borders of modern Iraq. During the Mamluk period, the Ottomans unofficially referred to the territory of the Mamluks, from Basra to Shahrizor, as the "land of Iraq". From at least the early-19th century onward, official correspondence referred to these provinces collectively as the Iraq Region. Baghdad was described in Ottoman administrative discourse as the capital of the Iraq Region, overseeing the provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor. In an 1879 telegram, Mosul governor Feyzi Pasha appealed for tax relief by emphasizing Mosul's inclusion in the Iraq Region. Iraq was used to describe the unified administrative space encompassing the three vilayets.The Safavids claimed that Arab Iraq had always belonged to the kings of Iran, presenting it not as a conquered frontier but as a hereditary component of Iranian sovereignty unjustly seized by the Ottomans. Basra province, in Lower Mesopotamia, was sometimes considered outside Arab Iraq, lying on its border. Safavid sources referred to the Ottoman governor of Baghdad as the ruler of Arab Iraq. Safavid-controlled Arab Iraq has been described as consisting of the provinces of Baghdad and Diyarbakr. Safavid sources also treated control of the four shrine cities, also known as Al-Atabat Al-Aliyat, which they regarded as the heart of Arab Iraq, defined it regardless of Ottoman administrative divisions. The later Afsharid period saw Nader Shah's campaign in Iraq. His financial officer, Mohammad Kazem Marvi, recorded in 'Alam-ara-ye Nadiri the capture of spoils from “Kirkuk, Suleimaniyah, and others in the land of Arab Iraq”.
In the 19th century, the Qajars continued the narrative portraying Iraq's shrine cities as the heart of Iranian sovereignty. During this period, they adopted European colonial methods, drawing on works such as Pinnock’s classification of regions, cartography, travelogues, and court photography to strengthen their claims over Iraq. Qajar shahs adopted the title “Shah of the Two Iraqs. Court works such as Mirʾāt al-Buldān and Jam-i Jam, along with Nasir al-Din Shah’s travelogue and court photography, incorporated ancient sites such as the Taq Kasra at Ctesiphon and Babylon. These were used in an attempt to create an unbroken Iranian kingship stretching from the Achaemenids and Sasanians to the Qajars as a basis for their claim over Iraq. Unlike the Ottomans, who drew no distinction between Jazira and Arab Iraq, Qajar sources generally excluded Jazira, focusing their claims on southern Iraq rather than the lands north of Samarra.
History
1534–1623: First Ottoman period
Conquest of Iraq
Before Sultan Süleyman I personally entered Iraq, the foundation of the conquest was laid by Grand Vizier İbrahim Pasha, who departed from Istanbul in late 1533 and spent the winter in Aleppo preparing the advance. From this staging ground, İbrahim Pasha oversaw military logistics and gathered extensive intelligence from the eastern frontier. Among the most valuable correspondents was Süleyman Paşa, a former governor of Diyarbekir and then of Anatolia, who reported that Shah Tahmasb I of the Safavid Empire was likely wintering in Kum, deterred from movement by the threat of an Uzbek offensive under Ubeyd Han advancing from Merv. Confusion even extended to the Shah’s own court: Musa Sultan, the Shah’s brother-in-law stationed in Tabriz, was reportedly unable to confirm the Shah’s location. Meanwhile, Ottoman intelligence indicated that the Turkoman Tekelü Mehmed Han, an Qizilbash commander recently appointed as governor of Baghdad, had stocked the city with three to four years' worth of supplies and maintained a tenuous grip on local support. According to information gathered by Seyyid Ahmed Bey, the Bey of Mosul, a local Arab notable of northern Iraq, and Hüseyin Büşra, another Arab ally of the Ottomans, Tekelü Mehmed had alienated surrounding tribal elements and was unlikely to submit peacefully.Building on this intelligence, İbrahim Pasha advanced steadily into northern Iraq and eastern Anatolia, where he cultivated alliances across a mosaic of local powers: Kurdish, Arab, and Turcoman. Several prominent Kurdish emirs, including Emir Bey Mahmudi of Siyavan and Nur Ali Bey of Cerem, realigned from the Safavid camp to the Ottomans, handing over key fortresses such as Adilcevaz, Erciş, Bayezid, Siyavan, and Hoşab without armed resistance. In many of these regions, populated by a mix of Kurds, Turcoman tribes, Arabs, and Armenians, Ottoman troops were seen as liberators from Safavid-imposed Shi‘i control. Meanwhile, tribes loyal to the Ottomans, like that of Hüseyin Büşra, operating in the Kirkuk–Wasit corridor, actively supported the campaign through intelligence gathering and armed patrols. One of Büşra’s men even delivered a captured Qizilbash soldier to İbrahim Pasha’s headquarters. As areas fell under control, İbrahim Pasha quickly instituted Ottoman administrative rule, appointing local allies and trusted commanders as sancakbeyis, complete with fiscal salaries, while restoring Sunni religious practice, including the public khutba in Süleyman's name. By the time Sultan Süleyman joined the army in the summer of 1534, İbrahim Pasha had already neutralized much of the Safavid position in Iraq, setting the stage for the Ottoman entry into Baghdad later that year.
The broader campaign, known as the Campaign of the Two Iraqs, referring to Arab Iraq and Persian Iraq, was part of a long-term Ottoman frontier policy toward Persia, initiated in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaldiran. Following the advance into Kirkuk, where the army remained for 28 days, and the capture of Baghdad in 1534, the Ottomans established full control over Mosul, organizing it into an eyalet with six sanjaks, marking the beginning of sustained Ottoman rule over Iraq.