Baghdad Eyalet

Eyalet of Baghdad
Arabic: إِيَالَةُ بَغْدَاد
Ottoman Turkish: ایالت بغداد
Eyalet of Baghdad Arabic: إِيَالَةُ بَغْدَاد; Ottoman Turkish: ایالت بغداد
Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire; Under Safavid occupation (1624–1638)
1535–1864
	Flag
	; The Baghdad Eyalet in 1609
Capital	Baghdad
History
• Capture of Baghdad	1535
• Disestablished	1864
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Baghdad Province
	Mamluk Sultanate
Baghdad Vilayet
Today part of	Iraq

Baghdad Eyalet (Arabic: إِيَالَةُ بَغْدَاد, Ottoman Turkish: ایالت بغداد, romanized: Eyālet-i Baġdād)^[2] was an Iraqi eyalet of the Ottoman Empire centered on Baghdad. Its reported area in the 19th century was 62,208 square miles (161,120 km²).^[3]

History

Safavid shah Ismail I took the Baghdad region from the Aq Qoyunlu in 1508.^[4] After the Safavid takeover, Sunni Muslims, Jews and Christians became targets of persecution, and were killed for being infidels.^[4] In addition, Shah Ismail ordered the destruction of the grave of Abu Hanifa, founder of the Hanafi school of law which the Ottomans adopted as their official legal guide.^[4]

In 1534, Baghdad was captured by the Ottoman Empire,^[4] and the eyalet was established in 1535.^[5] Between 1623 and 1638, it was once again in Iranian hands. It was decisively recaptured by the Ottomans in 1638,^[4] whose possession over Iraq was agreed upon in the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab.

For a time, Baghdad had been the largest city in the Middle East. The city saw relative revival in the latter part of the 18th century under a largely autonomous Mamluk government. Direct Ottoman rule was reimposed by Ali Ridha Pasha in 1831. From 1851 to 1852 and from 1861 to 1867, Baghdad was governed, under the Ottoman Empire by Mehmed Namık Pasha. The Nuttall Encyclopedia reports the 1907 population of Baghdad as 185,000.