Marsh Arabs
Culture | Active
820 CE to 2215 CE
The Marsh Arabs (Arabic: Arab al-Ahwār "Arabs of the Marshlands"), also known as the Maʻdān, though the latter is often considered as a derogatory term in modern days, are inhabitants of the Tigris-Euphrates marshlands in the south and east of Iraq and along the Iranian border.
Comprising members of many different tribes and tribal confederations, such as the Āl Bū Muḥammad, Ferayghāt, Shaghanbah and Banī Lām, the Maʻdān have developed a unique culture centered on the marshes' natural resources.
Many of the marshes' inhabitants are displaced when the wetlands are drained during and after the 1991 uprisings in Iraq.
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Both the Ottomans and the Safavids use Sunni and Shia Islam respectively to mobilize domestic support.
Thus, Iraq's Sunni population suffers immeasurably during the brief Safavid reign (1623-38), while Iraq's Shias will be excluded from power altogether during the longer period of Ottoman supremacy (1638-1916).
The Sunnis during the Ottoman period gain the administrative experience that will allow them to monopolize political power in the twentieth century.
The Sunnis are able to take advantage of new economic and educational opportunities while the Shias, frozen out of the political process, remain politically impotent and economically depressed.
The frequent conflicts with the Safavids have sapped the strength of the Ottoman Empire by the seventeenth century and have weakened its control over its provinces.
Tribal authority once again dominates in Iraq.
The nomadic population swells with the influx of Bedouin from Najd, in the Arabian Peninsula.
Bedouin raids on settled areas become impossible to curb.
The large and powerful Muntafiq tribal confederation takes shape in the interior, under the leadership of the Sunni Saadun family of Mecca.
The Shamman—one of the biggest tribal confederations of the Arabian Peninsula—enter the Syrian desert and clash with the `Anazzah confederation.
A new tribal confederation, the Bani Lam, takes root on the lower Tigris near Al Amarah.
The Kurdish Baban Dynasty emerges in the north and organizes Kurdish resistance.
The resistance makes it impossible for the Ottomans to maintain even nominal suzerainty over Iraqi Kurdistan (land of the Kurds).
Between 1625 and 1668, local shaykhs rule Al Basrah and the marshlands, home of the Madan (Marsh Arabs).
The powerful shaykhs basically ignore the Ottoman governor of Baghdad.
The reemergence in Iraq of the Mamluks, who begin asserting authority apart from the Ottomans in the early eighteenth century, temporarily reverses the cycle of tribal warfare and of deteriorating urban life in Iraq that had begun in the thirteenth century with the Mongol invasions.
Extending their rule first over Basra, the Mamluks eventually control the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys from the Persian Gulf to the foothills of Kurdistan.
The Mamluks are able administrators for the most part, and their rule is marked by political stability and by economic revival.
The greatest of the Mamluk leaders, Sulayman Pasha the Great (1780-1802), makes great strides in imposing the rule of law.
The last Mamluk leader, Dawüd Pasha (1816-31), initiates important modernization programs that include clearing canals, establishing industries, training a twenty-thousand-man army, and starting a printing press.
Iraq's Mamluk period ends in 1831, when a severe flood and plague devastates Baghdad, enabling the Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II, to reassert Ottoman sovereignty over Iraq.
Ottoman rule is unstable; Baghdad, for example, will have more than ten governors between 1831 and 1869.