Basra Eyalet

Eyālet-i Baṣrâ
Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire
← 1538–1862 →
Basra Eyalet in 1609
Capital		Basra
History
•	Established	1538
•	Disestablished	1862
Today part of		Iraq

Basra Eyalet (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت بصره; Eyālet-i Baṣrâ‎)^[1] was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. Its reported area in the 19th century was 9,872 square miles (25,570 km²).^[2] It had a Defterdar and Kehiya of the Chavushes but neither Alai-beg nor Cheribashi because there were no ziamets or Timars, the lands being all rented by the governor.^[3]

History

Basra had formerly a hereditary government (mulkiat), but it was reduced to an ordinary eyalet when conquered by Sultan Mehmed IV.^[3] In 1534, when the Ottomans captured Baghdad, Rashid al-Mughamis, the Bedouin emir who then controlled Basra, submitted to Ottomans.^[4] Basra became an Ottoman province in 1538,^[5] and an Ottoman governor was appointed by 1546.^[4] The eyalet was later subordinated to Baghdad during the Mamluk dynasty of Iraq, and was separated from Baghdad again from 1850 to 1862.^[6]

References

1. "Some Provinces of the Ottoman Empire". Geonames.de. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
2. The Popular encyclopedia: or, conversations lexicon 6. Blackie. 1862. p. 698. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
3. Evliya Çelebi; Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1834). Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century 1. Oriental Translation Fund. p. 90. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
4. Gábor Ágoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
5. "The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the Arab Gulf 1534-1581" (PDF). p. 2.
6. Reidar Visser (2005). Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism And Nationalism in Southern Iraq. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 19. ISBN 978-3-8258-8799-5. Retrieved 2013-06-27.