"Entering Baghdad"when Suleiman the Magnificent seized the capital of Iraq from the Safavid state

487 years have passed since the anniversary of the entry of the city of Baghdad and its official annexation under the umbrella of Ottoman rule by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, during his military campaign against the Safavids on the eastern borders between 1533 and 1536, which was known at the time as the "Iraqi Campaign".

After it was a beacon of science and civilization during the days of the Abbasid state, conditions began to deteriorate in Baghdad after it fell to the Mongols in 1258, and its decline and backwardness increased with the fall under the rule of the Safavid state, which was preoccupied with a long conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which was enjoying its best eras.

As a continuation of his father’s wars against the Safavid state, which was continuing to threaten the stability and security of the Ottoman Empire, and under the influence of the Battle of Chaldiran, in which the Safavids were defeated in 1514 by Sultan Selim I, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534 led a great army towards the borders of his eastern state in order to put an end to the Shah’s provocations Tahmasp and overthrow his kingdom.

However, the weather conditions at that time prevented him from achieving the legal mission, so he decided to go to Mosul via Shahrazour to spend the winter period and return after that to confront Shah Tahmasp.

As soon as the Turkish army approached Baghdad, the Safavid garrison fled and left it defenseless, which enabled the Turks to enter the city and seize it without much resistance. Immediately after entering the city of Baghdad on November 28, 1534, the qani declared Baghdad an Ottoman state, appointed an Ottoman governor for it, and ordered the reconstruction of the shrines and irrigation canals that the Safavids had demolished before they fled.

Following the death of Sultan Selim I in 1520 and the ascension of his young son Suleiman to the throne in the Ottoman Empire, hopes were renewed for the Safavid state and its ruler Shah Ismail, who took advantage of the fact that Suleiman the Magnificent was busy with the missions of Belgrade and Rhodes, which led to the acceleration of his propaganda activities in Anatolia against the Ottomans and raiding the borders of The Ottoman Empire in eastern Anatolia.

Following the repeated Safavid attacks, the legal decided to fight the Safavids in order to end the Iranian issue and ensure the security of the eastern borders, especially after the killing of Shah Ismail in 1524 and his son Tahmasp I, who was still a child, but he was forced to postpone the campaign he planned due to developments on the European front.

It should be noted that one of the other main reasons that led to the legal exit in the Iraq campaign was Tahmasp’s killing of the governor of the city of Baghdad, Zulfikar Khan, who not only refused to participate in the Safavid campaigns against the Ottoman lands, but pledged allegiance to the Ottomans and sent the keys of the city to Istanbul in 1529, which increased tension between The two countries pushed Al-Qanuni to lead his army in a military campaign that lasted for more than a year.

The road to Baghdad

After ensuring the security of the borders of his kingdom in Europe for a certain period of time with the peace reached with the Habsburgs in 1533, Suleiman the Magnificent immediately began preparing and preparing to launch his campaign against the Safavids. to the front at the end of October 1533.

Ibrahim Pasha arrived in Aleppo in December 1533 and spent the winter there, and then moved to Diyarbakir in May 1534 heading towards Tabriz, which he easily captured on August 6, 1534.

For his part, the Magnificent left Uskudar on June 14, 1534, and on the way visited the tomb of Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi in Konya, and then entered Tabriz on September 28, 1534 following the Kayseri-Sivas-Urzincan road.

Throughout the campaign, the Safavids did not fight a direct field war with the Ottomans, who had superior firearms, and preferred to destroy the places where the Ottoman army passed and to launch surprise raids only. Despite the arrival of the Ottoman army to the Sultanate under difficult conditions, they were unable to find the trace of Shah Tahmasp I, which prompted them to move towards Baghdad despite the difficult terrain and harsh climatic conditions.

Baghdad: an Ottoman province

With the approach of the Ottoman army to the city of Baghdad, the Safavid garrison led by Teklo Muhammad Khan left the city and fled to Shiraz, and Baghdad was captured easily and without resistance on November 28, 1534, and as soon as Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent entered it, he declared Baghdad an Ottoman state and appointed an Ottoman governor to be attached to it Ottoman soldiers to protect it from any treachery of the Safavids.

Although the conquest of Baghdad was to save the Sunnis from the danger of the Safavids who imposed the Shiite sect, the Ottomans did not attack the Shiites of Baghdad and did not abuse them. On the contrary, they treated them well and honored them.

The legal also ordered the rebuilding of the Sunni shrines that were demolished by the Safavids, the most important of which is the shrine of Imam Abu Hanifa al-Numan, the owner of the well-known jurisprudence school, which was demolished by the Safavids and desecrated his remains. He also did not fail to visit the graves of the "Shiite imams". He also recommended the construction of a dam for the city of Karbala (which is predominantly Shiite) to protect it from flooding, and he expanded the canal known as Al-Hussainiya to bring water continuously, so the area was planted around the holy shrines of Shiites with orchards and wheat fields.