The Ottoman Dilemma in Handling the Shi‘i Challenge in Nineteenth-Century Iraq

Abstract

The establishment of the Safavid dynasty in Iran in 1501 resulted in continuous rivalry and friction between the Ottomans and Safavids over the control of the Baghdad area, where six of die Twelver Shi‘a Imams were buried. Baghdad was crucial for the Safavids for two reasons. First, they claimed to be descendants of the Prophet, through the Seventh Imam Musa al-Kazim (d. 799).¹ Second, and more important, they adopted the Twelver Shi‘a as the state religion of Iran. They hence laid claim to Baghdad as a means to justify a political and religious authority based on Shi‘i Islam and to oppose the Ottoman claim of being the sole defenders of Sunni Islam. As a result, Baghdad and its environs remained a battlefield between Ottomans and Safavids for centuries. Sunni-Shi‘i tensions in Iraq continued to cloud the relations between the Ottomans and the new Qajar dynasty of Iran (1896–1925) diroughout the nineteenth century, and even affected relations between modern Iraq and Iran. In this chapter, I will seek to examine the challenges posed by the Shi‘is in the nineteenth-century province of Baghdad — challenges that the Ottomans identified with those posed by the Shi‘is in Iran — as well as the unsuccessful Ottoman efforts to curb the spread of the Shi‘a in the province.