Basra (Arabic: ٱلْبَصْرَة, romanized: al-Baṣrah) or Basrah is a port city in southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq border, the city is situated along the banks of the Shatt al-Arab that empties into the Persian Gulf. It is consistently one of the hottest cities on the planet, with summer temperatures regularly exceeding 50 °C (122 °F).
Built in 636 as a military camp, Basra played an important role as a regional hub of knowledge, trade and commerce during the Islamic Golden Age and is home to the first mosque built outside the Arabian Peninsula. It was a center of the slave trade in Mesopotamia, until the Zanj rebellion in 871. Historically, Basra is one of the ports from which the fictional Sinbad the Sailor embarked on his journeys. It has experienced numerous ruling shifts. In 1258, the city was sacked by the Mongols. Basra came under Portuguese control in 1526 and later fell under the control of the Ottomans as part of the Basra Eyalet, one of the provinces comprising Ottoman Iraq. During World War I, British forces captured Basra in 1914. It was incorporated into Mandatory Iraq, under the framework Mandate for Mesopotamia after 1921, which later became the independent Kingdom of Iraq in 1932.
Since Iraq's independence, the wars Iraq has fought have made Basra an active battlefield due to its strategic location. During the Iran–Iraq War, the city was heavily shelled and besieged by Iranian forces. As a result of the war, half of the city's population fled. It suffered extensive damage again during the Gulf War due to coalition attacks. In 1991 and 1999, Basra was the site of two uprisings against Saddam Hussein. On April 6, 2003, the city was occupied by the United Kingdom and United States-led coalition, becoming the first city to be captured during the invasion of Iraq, enduring further devastation. During the war, it fell under the control of Shia factions such as Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, who were later removed in 2008. Additionally, Basra was targeted by bombings in 2011 and 2012, and was impacted by the Islamist insurgency and the war with Islamic State from 2013 to 2017.
With its strategic location and abundant oil reserves, Basra has become one of the major industrial cities in the region. As the country’s only coastal region, along with its adjoining governorate, Basra serves as a crucial transport hub. After the Iraq war ended, Basra experienced a period of prosperity and development, with numerous reconstruction projects funded by foreign investments, including the Grand Faw Port, which have gained global attention. Today, the majority of its population consists of Arab Shia Muslims, with a large Sunni minority.
Etymology
The city has had many names throughout history, Basrah being the most common. In Arabic, the word baṣrah means "the overwatcher", which may have been an allusion to the city's origin as an Arab military base against the Sassanids. Others have argued that the name is derived from the Aramaic word basratha, meaning "place of huts, settlement".
History
Foundation by the Rashidun Caliphate (636–661)
The city was founded at the beginning of the Islamic era in 636 and began as a garrison encampment for Arab tribesmen constituting the armies of the Rashidun Caliph Umar. The original site, which was a military site, is still marked by the Imam Ali Mosque about 15 kilometers SW of modern Basra. While defeating the forces of the Sassanid Empire there, the Muslim commander Utba ibn Ghazwan erected his camp on the site of an old Persian military settlement called Vaheštābād Ardašīr, which was destroyed by the Arabs. While the name Al-Basrah in Arabic can mean "the overwatcher".
In 639, Umar established this encampment as a city with five districts, and appointed Abu Musa al-Ash'ari as its first governor. The city was built in a circular plan according to the Partho-Sasanian architecture. Abu Musa led the conquest of Khuzestan from 639 to 642, and was ordered by Umar to aid Uthman ibn Abi al-As, then fighting Persia from a new, more easterly miṣr at Tawwaj. In 650, the Rashidun Caliph Uthman reorganised the Persian frontier, installed ʿAbdullah ibn Amir as Basra's governor, and put the military's southern wing under Basra's control. Ibn Amir led his forces to their final victory over Yazdegerd III, the Sassanid King of Kings. In 656, Uthman was murdered and Ali was appointed Caliph. Ali first installed Uthman ibn Hanif as Basra's governor, who was followed by ʿAbdullah ibn ʿAbbas. These men held the city for Ali until the latter's death in 661.
Basra's infrastructure was planned. Why Basra was chosen as a site for the new city remains unclear. The original site lay 15 km from the Shatt al-Arab and thus lacked access to maritime trade and, more importantly, to fresh water. Additionally, neither historical texts nor archaeological finds indicate that there was much of an agricultural hinterland in the area before Basra was founded.
Indeed, in an anecdote related by al-Baladhuri, al-Ahnaf ibn Qays pleaded to the caliph Umar that, whereas other Muslim settlers were established in well-watered areas with extensive farmland, the people of Basra had only "reedy salt marsh which never dries up and where pasture never grows, bounded on the east by brackish water and on the west by waterless desert. We have no cultivation or stock farming to provide us with our livelihood or food, which comes to us as through the throat of an ostrich." Nevertheless, Basra overcame these natural disadvantages and rapidly grew into the second-largest city in Iraq, if not the entire Islamic world. Its role as a military encampment meant that the soldiers had to be fed, and since those soldiers were receiving government salaries, they had money to spend.
Thus, both the government and private entrepreneurs invested heavily in developing a vast agricultural infrastructure in the Basra region. These investments were made with the expectation of a profitable return, indicating the value of the Basra food market. Although African Zanj slaves from the Indian Ocean slave trade were put to work on these construction projects, most of the labor was done by free men working for wages. Governors sometimes directly supervised these projects, but usually they simply assigned the land while most of the financing was done by private investors. The result of these investments was a massive irrigation system covering some 57,000 hectares between the Shatt al-Arab and the now-dry western channel of the Tigris. This system was first reported in 962, when just 8,000 hectares of it remained in use, for the cultivation of date palms, while the rest had become desert. This system consists of a regular pattern of two-meter-high ridges in straight lines, separated by old canal beds. The ridges are extremely saline, with salt deposits up to 20 centimeters thick, and are completely barren. The former canal beds are less salty and can support a small population of salt-resistant plants.
Contemporary authors recorded how the Zanj slaves were put to work clearing the fields of salty topsoil and putting them into piles; the result was the ridges that remain today. This represents an enormous amount of work: H.S. Nelson calculated that 45 million tons of earth were moved in total, and with his extremely high estimate of one man moving two tons of soil per day, this would have taken a decade of strenuous work by 25,000 men. Ultimately, Basra's irrigation canals were unsustainable, because they were built at too little of a slope for the water flow to carry salt deposits away. This required the clearing of salty topsoil by the Zanj slaves in order to keep the fields from becoming too saline to grow crops. After Basra was sacked in by Zanj rebels in the late 800s and then by the Qarmatians in the early 900s, there was no financial incentive to invest in restoring the irrigation system, and the infrastructure was almost completely abandoned. Finally, in the late 900s, the city of Basra was entirely relocated, with the old site being abandoned and a new one developing on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab, where it has remained ever since.
Umayyad Caliphate: 661–750
The Sufyanids held Basra until Yazid I's death in 683. The Sufyanids' first governor was Umayyad ʿAbdullah, a renowned military leader, commanding fealty and financial demands from Karballah, but poor governor. In 664, Mu'awiya I replaced him with Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan, often called "ibn Abihi" ("son of his own father"), who became infamous for his draconian rules regarding public order. On Ziyad's death in 673, his son ʿUbayd Allah ibn Ziyad became governor. In 680, Yazid I ordered ʿUbayd Allah to keep order in Kufa as a reaction to Husayn ibn Ali's popularity as the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. 'Ubayd Allah took over the control of Kufa. Husayn sent his cousin as an ambassador to the people of Kufa, but ʿUbaydullah executed Husayn cousin Muslim ibn Aqil amid fears of an uprising. ʿUbayd Allah amassed an army of thousands of soldiers and fought Husayn's army of approximately 70 in a place called Karbala near Kufa. ʿUbayd Allah's army was victorious; Husayn and his followers were killed and their heads were sent to Yazid as proof.
Ibn al-Harith spent his year in office trying to put down Nafi' ibn al-Azraq's Kharijite uprising in Khuzestan. In 685, Ibn al-Zubayr, requiring a practical ruler, appointed Umar ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Ma'mar Finally, Ibn al-Zubayr appointed his own brother Mus'ab. In 686, the revolutionary al-Mukhtar led an insurrection at Kufa, and put an end to ʿUbaydullah ibn Ziyad near Mosul. In 687, Musʿab defeated al-Mukhtar with the help of Kufans who Mukhtar exiled.
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan reconquered Basra in 691, and Basra remained loyal to his governor al-Hajjaj during Ibn Ashʿath's mutiny (699–702). However, Basra did support the rebellion of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab against Yazid II during the 720s.
Abbasid Caliphate and its Golden Age: 750–1258
In the late 740s, Basra fell to as-Saffah of the Abbasid Caliphate. During the time of the Abbasids, Basra became an intellectual center and home to the elite Basra School of Grammar, the rival and sister school of the Kufa School of Grammar. Several outstanding intellectuals of the age were Basrans; Arab polymath Ibn al-Haytham, the Arab literary giant al-Jahiz, and the Sufi mystic Rabia Basri. The Zanj Rebellion by the agricultural slaves of the lowlands affected the area. In 871, the Zanj sacked Basra. In 923, the Qarmatians, an extremist Muslim sect, invaded and devastated Basra.
From 945 to 1055, the Iranian Buyid dynasty ruled Baghdad and most of Iraq. Abu al Qasim al-Baridis, who still controlled Basra and Wasit, were defeated and their lands taken by the Buyids in 947. Adud al-Dawla and his sons Diya' al-Dawla and Samsam al-Dawla were the Buyid rulers of Basra during the 970s, 980s and 990s. Sanad al-Dawla al-Habashi (c. 921–977), the brother of the Emir of Iraq Izz al-Dawla, was governor of Basra and built a library of 15,000 books.
The Oghuz Turk Tughril Beg was the leader of the Seljuks, who expelled the Shiite Buyid dynasty. He was the first Seljuk ruler to style himself Sultan and Protector of the Abbasid Caliphate.
The Great Friday Mosque was constructed in Basra. In 1122, Imad ad-Din Zengi received Basra as a fief. In 1126, Zengi suppressed a revolt and in 1129, Dabis looted the Basra state treasury.
A 1200 map "on the eve of the Mongol invasions" shows the Abbasid Caliphate as ruling lower Iraq and, presumably, Basra.
The Assassin Rashid-ad-Din-Sinan was born in Basra on or between 1131 and 1135.
Mongol rule and thereafter: 1258–1500s
In 1258, the Mongols under Hulegu Khan sacked Baghdad and ended Abbasid rule. By some accounts, Basra capitulated to the Mongols to avoid a massacre. The Mamluk Bahri dynasty map (1250–1382) shows Basra as being under their area of control, and the Mongol Dominions map (1300–1405) shows Basra as being under Mongol control. In 1290 fighting erupted at the Persian Gulf port of Basra among the Genoese, between the Guelph and the Ghibelline factions.
Ibn Battuta visited Basra in the 14th century, noting it "was renowned throughout the whole world, spacious in area and elegant in its courts, remarkable for its numerous fruit-gardens and its choice fruits, since it is the meeting place of the two seas, the salt and the fresh." Ibn Battuta also noted that Basra consisted of three-quarters: the Hudayl quarter, the Banu Haram quarter, and the Iranian quarter (mahallat al-Ajam). Fred Donner adds: "If the first two reveal that Basra was still predominantly an Arab town, the existence of an Iranian quarter clearly reveals the legacy of long centuries of intimate contact between Basra and the Iranian plateau."
The Arab Al-Mughamis tribe established control over Basra in the early fifteenth century, however, they quickly fell under influence of the Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu, successively. The Al-Mughamis' control of Basra had become nominal by 1436; de facto control of Basra from 1436 to 1508 was in the hands of the Moshasha. In the latter year, during the reign of King (Shah) Ismail I (r. 1501–1524), the first Safavid ruler, Basra and the Moshasha became part of the Safavid Empire. This was the first time Basra had come under Safavid suzerainty. In 1524, following Ismail I's death, the local ruling dynasty of Basra, the Al-Mughamis, resumed effective control over the city. Twelve years later, in 1536, during the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1532–1555, the Bedouin ruler of Basra, Rashid ibn Mughamis, acknowledged Suleiman the Magnificent as his suzerain who in turn confirmed him as governor of Basra. The Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire exercised a great deal of independence, and they even often raised their own troops. Though Basra had submitted to the Ottomans, the Ottoman hold over Basra was tenuous at the time. This changed a decade later; in 1546, following a tribal struggle involving the Moshasha and the local ruler of Zakiya (near Basra), the Ottomans sent a force to Basra. This resulted in tighter (but still, nominal) Ottoman control over Basra.