Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi Life At what age did he begin showing an interest in philosophical ideas? I don't know. Who influenced his philosophy? I don't know.
How did living in Basra affect his life?
How did living in Basra affect Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi's life?
Born in 718 to Azdi parents of modest means, al-Farahidi was from southern Arabia (modern day Oman). He later moved to Basra, Iraq in his youth. Originally of the Ibadi sect of Islam, the claim he became Sunni is unsubstantiated. He was one of the companions of Jabir ibn Zayd, the founder of ibadism. He is said to have lived a simple and pious life in Iraq; It was said his parents were converts to Islam, and that his father was the first to be named "Ahmad" after the time of Prophet Muhammad. His nickname, "Farahidi", differed from his tribal name and derived from an ancestor named Furhud (Young Lion); plural farahid. The descendants of his tribe are the modern-day Zahran tribe residing primarily in the Al Bahah Province of Saudi Arabia. While in Basra, he was a student of Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala'. Al-Farahidi notoriously refused lavish gifts from rulers, or to sink to malicious slander or rumor-mongering against intellectual rivals, unlike many of his contemporary Arab and Persian men of letters,. While in Basra, he made a living as a language teacher. He was said to have lived a pious and simple life, performing the pilgrimage to Mecca almost every year. Al-Farahidi lived in a small house made of reeds and once remarked that once he shut his door, his mind did not go beyond it. Although some of his students amassed wealth through their own teaching, most of al-Farahidi's income was from falconry and a garden he inherited from his father. Al-Farahidi's date of death has been listed as both 786 and 791 CE. His preoccupation with deep thoughts led to his death. It is said that one day, al-Farahidi was attempting to work out an accounting system in his head which would save his maidservant from being cheated out of money by a green grocer; he then absent-mindedly bumped into a pillar of a mosque he had wandered into and sustained a fatal fall. CANNOTANSWER
While in Basra, he made a living as a language teacher. He was said to have lived a pious and simple life,
Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (; 718 – 786 CE), known as Al-Farāhīdī,  or Al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra based on Iraq. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – Kitab al-'Ayn ( "The Source") – introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody), musicology and poetic metre. His linguistic theories influenced the development of Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu prosody. The "Shining Star" of the Basran school of Arabic grammar, a polymath and scholar, he was a man of genuinely original thought.

Al-Khalil, along with other Arab scholars in the Islamic Golden Age, were the first
forerunners in the field of Middle Age Statistics, which was essential to the development of modern Statistics. 

Al-Farahidi was the first scholar to subject the prosody of Classical Arabic poetry to a detailed phonological analysis. The primary data he listed and categorized in meticulous detail was extremely complex to master and utilize, and later theorists have developed simpler formulations with greater coherence and general utility. He was also a pioneer in the field of cryptography, and influenced the work of Al-Kindi.

Life
Born in 718 in Oman, southern Arabia, to Azdi parents of modest means, al-Farahidi became a leading grammarian of Basra in Iraq. In Basra, he studied Islamic traditions and philology under Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala' with Aiyūb al-Sakhtiyāni, ‘Āṣm al-Aḥwal, al-‘Awwām b. Ḥawshab, etc. His teacher Ayyub persuaded him to renounce the Abāḍi doctrine and convert to Sunni orthodoxy; Among his pupils were Sibawayh, al-Naḍr b. Shumail, and al-Layth b. al-Muẓaffar b. Naṣr. Known for his piety and frugality, he was a companion of Jābir ibn Zayd, the founder of ibadism. It was said his parents were converts to Islam, and that his father was the first to be named "Ahmad" after the time of Prophet Muhammad. His nickname, "Farahidi", differed from his tribal name and derived from an ancestor named Furhud (Young Lion); plural .  He refused lavish gifts from rulers, or to indulge in the slander and gossip his fellow Arab and Persian rival scholars were wont, and he performed annual pilgrimage to Mecca. He lived in a small reed house in Basra and once remarked that when his door was shut, his mind did not go beyond it. He taught linguistics, and some of his students became wealthy teachers. Al-Farahidi's main income was falconry and a garden inherited from his father. Two dates of death are cited, 786 and 791 CE. The story goes that it was theoretical contemplation that brought about his death. On the particular day, while he was deeply absorbed in contemplation of a system of accounting to save his maidservant from being cheated by the green grocer, he wandered into a mosque and there he absent-mindedly bumped into a pillar and was fatally injured.

Views
Al-Farahidi's eschewing of material wealth has been noted by a number of biographers. In his old age, the son of Habib ibn al-Muhallab and reigning governor of the Muhallabids offered al-Farahidi a pension and requested that the latter tutor the former's son. Al-Farahidi declined, stating that he was wealthy though possessing no money, as true poverty lay not in a lack of money, but in the soul. The governor reacted by rescinding the pension, an act to which al-Farahidi responded with the following lines of poetry:

"He, Who formed me with a mouth, engaged to give me nourishment till such a time as He takes me to Himself. Thou hast refused me a trifling sum, but that refusal will not increase thy wealth."

Embarrassed, the governor then responded with an offer to renew the pension and double the rate, which al-Farahidi still greeted with a lukewarm reception. Al-Farahidi's apathy about material wealth was demonstrated in his habit of quoting Akhtal's famous stanza: "If thou wantest treasures, thou wilt find none equal to a virtuous conduct."

Al-Farahidi distinguished himself via his philosophical views as well. He reasoned that a man's intelligence peaked at the age of forty – the age when the Islamic prophet Muhammad began his call – and began to diminish after sixty, the point at which Muhammad died. He also believed that a person was at their peak intelligence at the clearest part of dawn.

In regard to the field of grammar, al-Farahidi held the realist views common among early Arab linguists yet rare among both later and modern times. Rather than holding the rules of grammar as he and his students described them to be absolute rules, al-Farahidi saw the Arabic language as the natural, instinctual speaking habits of the Bedouin; if the descriptions of scholars such as himself differed from how the Arabs of the desert naturally spoke, then the cause was a lack of knowledge on the scholar's part as the unspoken, unwritten natural speech of pure Arabs was the final determiner. Al-Farahidi was distinguished, however, in his view that the Arabic alphabet included 29 letters rather than 28 and that each letter represented a fundamental characteristic of people or animals. His classification of 29 letters was due to his consideration of the combination of Lām and Alif as a separate third letter from the two individual parts.

Legacy
In the Arab world al-Farahidi had become a household name by the time he died, and become almost as mythic a figure as Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali in Arabic philology. He was the first to codify the complex metres of Arabic poetry, and an outstanding genius of the Muslim world. Sibawayh and Al-Asma'i were among his students, with the former having been more indebted to al-Farahidi than to any other teacher. Al-Nadim, the 10th century bibliophile biographer from Basra, reports that in fact Sibawayh's "Kitab" (Book), was a collaborative work of forty-two authors, but also that the principles and subjects in the "Kitab" were based on those of al-Farahidi. He is quoted by Sibawayh 608 times, more than any other authority. Throughout the Kitab Sibawayh says "I asked him" or "he said", without naming the person referred to by the pronoun, however, it is clear that he refers to al-Farahidi. Both the latter and the former are historically the earliest and most significant figures in the formal recording of the Arabic language.

Al-Farahidi was also well versed in astronomy, mathematics, Islamic law, music theory and Muslim prophetic tradition. His prowess in the Arabic language was said to be drawn, first and foremost, from his vast knowledge of Muslim prophetic tradition as well as exegesis of the Qur'an. The Al Khalil Bin Ahmed Al Farahidi School of Basic Education in Rustaq, Oman is named after him.

Works

Kitab al-'Ayn

Kitab al-Ayn was the first dictionary written for the Arabic language. "Ayn" is the deepest letter in Arabic, and "ayn" may also mean a water source in the desert. Its title, "the source", reflects its author's goal to derive the etymological origins of Arabic vocabulary and lexicography.

Isnad of Kitab al-'Ayn
In his "Kitab al-Fihrist" (Catalogue) ibn Ishaq al-Nadim recounts the various names attached to the transmission of Kitab al-'Ayn, i.e. the isnad (chain of authorities).  He begins with Durustuyah's account that it was al-Kasrawi who said that al-Zaj al-Muhaddath had said that al-Khalil had explained the concept and structure of his dictionary to al-Layth b. al-Muzaffar b. Nasr b. Sayyar, had dictated edited portions to al-Layth and they had reviewed its preparation together. Al-Nadim writes that a manuscript in the possession of Da'laj had probably belonged originally to Ibn al-'Ala al-Sijistani, who according to Durustuyah had been a member of a circle of scholars who critiqued the book. In this group was Abu Talib al-Mufaddal ibn Slamah, 'Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Karmani, Abu Bakr ibn Durayd and al-Huna'i al-Dawsi.

Other works
In addition to his work in prosody and lexicography, al-Farahidi established the fields of ʻarūḍ – rules-governing Arabic poetry metre – and Arabic musicology. Often called a genius by historians, he was a scholar, a theorist and an original thinker. Al-Nadim's list of al-Khalil's other works were:

Chanting; Prosody; Witnesses; (Consonant) Points and (Vowel) Signs; Death (or pronunciation or omitting) of the 'Ayn; Harmony.

Cryptography
Al-Farahidi's "Book of Cryptographic Messages", was the first book on cryptography and cryptanalysis written by a linguist. The lost work contains many "firsts", including the use of permutations and combinations to list all possible Arabic words with and without vowels. Later Arab cryptographers explicitly resorted to al-Farahidi's phonological analysis for calculating letter frequency in their own works. His work on cryptography influenced Al-Kindi (c. 801–873), who discovered the method of cryptanalysis by frequency analysis.

Diacritic system
Al-Farahidi is also credited with the current standard for Arabic diacritics; rather than a series of indistinguishable dots, it was al-Farahidi who introduced different shapes for the vowel diacritics in Arabic, which simplified the writing system so much that it has not been changed since. He also began using a small letter shin to signify the shadda mark for doubling consonants. Al-Farahidi's style for writing the Arabic alphabet was much less ambiguous than the previous system where dots had to perform various functions, and while he only intended its use for poetry it was eventually used for the Qur'an as well.

Prosody 
Al-Farahidi's first work was in the study of Arabic prosody, a field for which he is credited as the founder. Reportedly, he performed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca while a young man and prayed to God that he be inspired with knowledge no one else had. When he returned to Basra shortly thereafter, he overheard the rhythmic beating of a blacksmith on an anvil and he immediately wrote down fifteen metres around the periphery of five circles, which were accepted as the basis of the field and still accepted as such in Arabic language prosody today. Three of the meters were not known to Pre-Islamic Arabia, suggesting that al-Farahidi may have invented them himself. He never mandated, however, that all Arab poets must necessarily follow his rules without question, and even he was said to have knowingly broken the rules at times.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Rafael Talmon. Arabic Grammar in its Formative Age: Kitāb al-‘ayn and its Attribution to Halīl b. Aḥmad, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 25 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). Includes a thorough assessment of al-Khalil's biography.
Abdel-Malek, Zaki N. (2019)  Towards a New Theory of Arabic Prosody, 5th ed. (Revised),  Posted online with free access.

External links
The Al Khalil bin Ahmed Al Farahidi Center at the University of Nizwa
The Tajdīd Online Forum for Facilitating Arabic Studies  مُنتَدَى التَّجْديدِ:  المِنْـبَـرُ الإلكترونيُّ لِتَيْسِيرِ الدِّراساتِ العربـيَّةِ

718 births
786 deaths
8th-century Arabic poets
8th-century lexicographers
Scholars of the Abbasid Caliphate
Arab lexicographers
Arabists
Grammarians of Arabic
Grammarians of Basra
Lexicographers of Arabic
Medieval Arab mathematicians
Medieval Iraqi mathematicians
Medieval grammarians of Arabic
People from Basra
Philologists of Arabic
Phonologists
Poets of the Abbasid Caliphate
Pre-19th-century cryptographers
8th-century Omani people
Ahmed Rashwan (; born 1969) is an Egyptian film director, screenplay writer, and a film producer. His filmography includes a list of short, documentaries, and one long-feature film. Since his graduation from the Cairo Film Institute in 1994, he worked on promoting the Independent Cinema wave in Egypt, as an alternative path to overcome the sway of the mass marketed film production.

Early life
Rashwan was born October 23, 1969, in Alexandria, Egypt belonged to an Egyptian family, He Began his passion for cinema since childhood. Began his activities in cinema clubs since he was a student in high school, and then issued a film magazine with his friends from film enthusiasts in Alexandria.
In 1987, he joined the Faculty of Law and graduated in 1990. He then moved to Cairo and studied Cinema in Cairo Film Institute and graduated in 1994. He made a short film called “Zamzam” as his graduation film project.

Short films
Rashwan made 5 short films, 
 “ Habib's Birthday”Short fiction/video/1 4mins/1 (1993),
  “ Farah Dreams" short fiction, 20 min. 1994 Video ( Beta cam)(1994),
  “ Zamzam”  Short fiction/35mm/l2mins/1 (1994),
  “ Cross Roads” (1995),
  “The Morning After” (2002). 
 Cross Roads Short fiction, 8 min. . 1995 35mm 
  Musafa Khana Documentary/l6mm/9 mins/1 993 
  Without Make-up (written and directed by Hossam Nour EI-Deen) Short fiction/ video/ 19 min / 2003

Documentaries
Rashwan made 20 documentaries, starting with “ Musafir Khana” ( 1993), also he worked as director and executive producer for many documentaries produced by Aljazeera Channel.

Basra
After 5 years of searching about producer, Rashwan decided to filming his first feature film “Basra” (2008) and produced it as well as  Egyptian Independent film. Then he met the producer Haitham Hakki who enthused to complete the production of the film, and made the blow up for it from HD format to 35mm format .
“ Basra” had a lot of successes in the festivals, screened in 12 festivals and got 6 awards and 1 mention .

Festivals
 " BASRA" Mostra de Valencia Film Festival - Spain- October 8
  " BASRA" São Paulo International Film Festival - Brazil - October08
 " BASRA"  Cairo International Film Festival - Arab Competition - November 8
 " BASRA"  Pan African Film Festival (FESPACO) - Burkina Faso - March 9
 " BASRA" Cape winlands International Film Festival-South Africa-March 9
 " BASRA"  Sousse International Film Festival - Tunisia - March 9
 " BASRA"  15th National Film Festival - Cairo - Egypt - April 9
 " BASRA"  Arab Film Festival- Rotterdam - Holland - June 9
 " BASRA"  Beirut International Film Festival - Lebanon October 9
 " BASRA"  Arab film Festival - San Francisco - USA- October 9
 " BASRA"  Arab Film Festival - Brussels - Belgium - November 9

Awards
 Special jury award for my film " Inside People"  From The National Film Festival 1999,
 the script of (BASRA) has been awarded a prize at the scriptwriting workshop competition – Alexandria Film Festival 2003,
 the script of (BASRA)also has been awarded a grant from Global Film Initiative- USA. 2007.
 " BASRA"  awarded best cinematography ( Victor Credi) : Mostra de Valencia Film Festival – Spain- October 2008
 " BASRA"  awarded  Best Screenplay, Arab Competition, Cairo International Film Festival ( Shared with Palestinian film "   Laila's Birthday ")  November 2008
 " BASRA"  awarded  Best Director  (for first Film) in 15th  National Film Festival – Cairo  - Egypt – April 2009
 " BASRA"  awarded  3rd production award in 15th  National Film Festival – Cairo  - Egypt – April 2009
 " BASRA"  awarded  Best Actor ( Basem Samra) - Arab Film Festival- Rotterdam – June 9
 " BASRA"  awarded  Special   mention – supporting actress ( Fatma Adel ) - Arab Film Festival- Rotterdam – June 9
 " BASRA"  awarded  Jury award for Best long film – Arab Film Festival – Brussels – November 2009

References

External links

Basra page in IMDb

1969 births
Egyptian film directors
Living people The Safavid occupation of Basra (1697–1701) took place between 26 March 1697 and 9 March 1701. It was the second time that the important Persian Gulf city had fallen to the Iranian Safavid Empire.

Basra, located in present-day Iraq, had already been under Safavid control from 1508 to 1524, when it was lost upon Shah ("King") Ismail I's death. In the ensuing period, the Ottomans, rivals of the Safavids, managed to establish nominal rule over the city. De facto rule of Basra remained in the hands of the local Arab Al-Mughamis tribe, a branch of the Banu'l-Muntafiq. In 1596, the Ottoman governor of Basra, Ali Pasha, sold his office to a local named Afrasiyab. Over the next  years, Basra was considered a hereditary eyalet under Afrasiyab and his descendants.

The Safavid attempts to retake Basra in 1624, 1625, and 1628–1629 proved unsuccessful, through a combination of Portuguese interference, pressing concerns on other fronts and, finally, Shah Abbas the Great's () death. Basra continued to be pulled towards the Safavids due to geographical and economic reasons. Issues related to pilgrimage, uneasy Ottoman relations with the rulers of Basra, and unrest in the southern part of Ottoman-held Iraq continued to irk the Safavids and prompt Safavid involvement in southern Iraq. When the Safavids were given the opportunity to regain territory in Iraq under Shah Suleiman I () however, they did not act. For instance, in 1667, when the Ottomans conducted a punitive expedition to Basra, its ruler Husayn Pasha of the Afrasiyab dynasty evacuated the city's population to Safavid territory and offered control of Basra to the Safavids. Shah Suleiman I dismissed Husayn Pasha's pleas as he did not want to antagonize the Ottomans.

In 1690, plague and famine led to tribal unrest among the Muntafiqs in southern Iraq. In 1695, the local Arab tribal leader Shaykh Mane ibn Mughamis led his tribesmen in a revolt against the Ottomans. Shaykh Mane and his men gained control of Basra with the support of 5,000 members of the Moshasha, a Muslim Shi'i sect. In 1697, members of the Moshasha loyal to Farajollah Khan, the Safavid-appointed governor of Arabestan Province, defeated Shaykh Mane and his men, ousting them from the city. The Safavid government realized that Shaykh Mane and his men were keen to retake Basra and wanted to attack nearby Hoveyzeh, the capital of Arabestan Province. This time the Safavids under Shah Sultan Husayn () reacted by sending a force led by Ali Mardan Khan to Basra. On 26 March 1697 troops sent by the Safavid government took control of the city. However, the Safavids were concerned about the weakened state of their military and did not want to disrupt the peace with the Ottomans. This, in combination with continued pressure by Shaykh Mane and his tribesmen on Basra, eventually led the Safavids to decide to return Basra to Ottoman control. On 9 March 1701, the Safavid forces withdrew from Basra, and on 10 March the Ottomans retook control of the city.

Background

Geopolitical significance of Basra
Basra was of particular geopolitical importance in the 16th and 17th centuries, being on the border between the rival (Sunni) Ottoman and (Shi'ite) Safavid empires, on the frontier of the Arabian Desert, and having a pivotal role in the growth of the Indian Ocean trade. As a result, possession of Basra was contested between the Ottomans and Safavids. Although the two empires claimed jurisdiction over the city at various times, their authority was nominal for the most part, with de facto control being in the hands of local governors who ruled under Safavid or Ottoman suzerainty. During this period, large parts of present-day Iraq were made unsafe by the depredations of the semi-nomadic and "fiercely independent" Arab (in the south) and Kurdish tribes (in the north), who attacked passing caravans. The weather in the south, in the Sawad, was harmful to health with plagues and killer epidemics contributing to turbulent periods in Basra's history. Nevertheless, Basra became an important traffic hub for the Persian Gulf area, both for merchants and for pilgrims en route to Mecca and Medina.

From the 16th to the 17th century
The Bedouin Arab tribe of Al-Mughamis, a branch of the Banu'l-Muntafiq inhabiting the area between Kufa and Basra, established their rule over Basra in the early fifteenth century. From 1436 to 1508 de facto control was in the hands of the Moshasha, a tribal confederation of radical Shi'ites found mainly on the edges of the marshes at the border of the Safavid province of Arabestan (present-day Khuzestan).

In 1508, during the reign of the first Safavid ruler, Shah Ismail I (), Basra and the Moshasha became part of the Safavid Empire. The Moshasha proved to be valuable allies to the Safavids, often acting as Safavid proxies in campaigns against the Arabs of southern Iraq and Basra, led by a Safavid-appointed governor. Although nominally Safavid subjects, they had broad autonomy, and their territory served as a buffer zone between the Safavids and the Ottomans.

In 1524, following Ismail I's death, the Al-Mughamis resumed effective control. Twelve years later, during the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1532–1555, the ruler of Basra, Rashid ibn Mughamis, acknowledged the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent () as his suzerain, who in turn confirmed him as governor of the city. Though Basra submitted to the Ottomans, the Ottoman hold over Basra was initially tenuous. This changed in 1546, when an Ottoman garrison was installed in the city after a Moshasha uprising.

Despite being supplanted by the Ottomans as rulers of Iraq, the Safavids never gave up their claim to it, at least in court rhetoric. In reality, most of Iraq was foreign territory to the Safavids, even though the south was inhabited by many Shi'ites. As the modern historian Rudi Matthee explains,

From the 17th to the 18th century

In 1596 the Ottoman governor sold Basra to a certain Afrasiyab, a local magnate descended from the Sunni Seljuq dynasty. From then until 1668, Basra was considered a hereditary eyalet under the Afrasiyab family.

During this period, the Safavid Shah Abbas the Great () made a number of attempts to capture Basra, a major rival for his own commercial port city of Bandar Abbas, and a base for the Portuguese traders in the region. The Safavid attempts in 1624, 1625, and 1628–1629 during the War of 1623–1639 proved unsuccessful, through a combination of Portuguese interference, pressing concerns on other fronts and, finally, Abbas' death.

Though the Safavids acknowledged Ottoman rule over Iraq in the Treaty of Zuhab (1639), they were occasionally tempted to attempt to regain it, for instance after the Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683. More cautious and conservative factions, aware of the decline in Safavid military strength, prevailed against it. Relations remained fraught around Basra due to the continuous harassment of Iranian pilgrims by the Ottoman authorities, so that the Safavids even prohibited the passage of pilgrims on several occasions. Furthermore, upheavals in southern Iraq continued to spill over the border into Safavid territory. Thus in 1667, when Husayn Pasha of the Afrasiyab dynasty refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Sultan and the Ottomans sent a punitive expedition against him, Husayn Pasha evacuated the entire population to Safavid territory while offering the city to the Safavids. Shah Suleiman I (), however, dismissed Husayn Pasha's pleas as he did not want to antagonize the Ottomans, and in 1668, the Ottoman governor of Baghdad established direct control over Basra.

Basra was also drawn to the Safavids for economic reasons: in the mid to late 17th century, Safavid abbasi and panj shahi coins were the most commonly used coins in Basra. Under Suleiman I's successor, Husayn (), Safavid policy in relation to regaining Iraq did not change. Matthee claimed "this is hardly surprising", given that the Safavid army was weak at the time and the Shah himself was famous for his unassertive nature. Unlike most of his predecessors, Sultan Husayn actively encouraged pilgrims to visit the Shi'ite holy shrines in Iraq, which they did in unprecedented numbers. Husayn was also willing to spend the resources of the Safavid state for the upkeep of the shrines in Iraq.

Prelude
The turn of the 18th century saw greater turmoil and renewed Safavid involvement in southern Iraq. In 1690, an outbreak of plague and famine led to tribal unrest amongst the Al-Muntafiq tribe in southern Iraq. Led by Shaykh Mane ibn Mughamis, the Muntafiq Arabs revolted against the Ottomans. The Ottoman government conducted a punitive campaign but was unable to put down Shaykh Mane's revolt. In 1695, Shaykh Mane captured Basra with the help of the local population and ousted the Ottoman governor and troops. During his short-lived tenure as ruler of Basra, he was considered to be relatively benevolent. The Safavids were not especially pleased with this turn of events. Not only had the rebels seized control of an important city on the Safavid border—they had also plundered a number of pilgrim caravans near Basra during their capture of the city. To the Safavids, this proved that Shaykh Mane held expansionist ambitions and might pose a danger to their interests. The Safavid-appointed vali ("viceroy", "governor") of neighbouring Arabestan province, Farajollah Khan, was also concerned about the links between the Moshasha and Shaykh Mane. Some 5,000 dissatisfied members of the Moshasha, followers of his nephew Sayyed Mahmud, had assisted Shaykh Mane in the capture of Basra in 1695. Just two years later, in 1697, Farajollah Khan and his loyal Moshasha clashed with Shaykh Mane and his Moshasha sympathisers.

Safavid control: 1697–1701

Farajollah Khan and his loyal Moshasha emerged victorious and captured Basra in name of the Safavid Shah, prompting Shaykh Mane to flee. When the Safavids realized that Shaykh Mane and his tribesmen were keen to retake Basra, and even wanted to attack Hoveyzeh, the provincial capital of Arabestan Province, Shah Sultan Husayn issued a farman (a decree), ordering an army from the Safavid province of Lorestan led by Ali Mardan Khan, chief of the Fayli tribe and the governor of Kohgiluyeh, to move on Basra. On 26 March 1697 regular Safavid troops took control of the city, and Ali Mardan Khan was appointed governor. This marked the start of the second period of Safavid control of Basra. Later that year, Ali Mardan Khan was replaced by Ebrahim Khan, the governor of Dawraq (modern-day Shadegan, Khuzestan).

Though the Safavids had established control over Basra, they refrained from laying "full and definitive claim" to the city. Sultan Husayn's government was still concerned not to disrupt the peace with the Ottomans. Furthermore, they were aware of Iran's military weakness at the time and realized it would be "difficult to hold on to a city located in an extremely volatile region". The activities of the Kurdish rebel Suleiman Baba, who had captured the town of Ardalan and the fortress of Urmia near the Ottoman border in the same year, reinforced their concerns. In late 1697, Shaykh Mane, having made peace with his former enemy Farajollah Khan, and assisted by Moshasha defectors, defeated a large Safavid force near the fortress of Khurma (Khorma) and captured their general. This forced Sultan Husayn to offer the Basra to the Ottomans. Sultan Husayn had keys made of pure gold and sent Rostam Khan Zanganeh as ambassador to Constantinople, to hand them over to the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa II (), in a symbolic gesture offering the city to Ottoman control. However, although the Safavids continued showing a willingness to return Basra to the Ottomans and entertained an Ottoman embassy in Isfahan between December 1698 and April 1699, Basra would stay in Safavid hands until 1701.

In early 1700, Shaykh Mane reappeared before the city of Basra and demanded 500 tomans from its Safavid governor, Ebrahim Khan. The governor, who was short of troops, bought Shaykh Mane off by paying 300 tomans and was reinforced by 6,000 soldiers from the province of Kohgiluyeh. The Arab forces continued to pressure the city, which prompted the Shah to recall Ebrahim Khan later that year and replace him with Davud Khan, the former governor of Al-Qurna. Subsequently, the Arabs blockaded Basra, which caused a famine. This situation continued into 1701. By February of that year, the 6,000-strong Safavid garrison, demoralized by lack of pay and the news that a massive Ottoman army was heading for Basra, revolted against the Safavid governor and looted numerous properties in Basra. The Ottoman army reached Basra on 9 March 1701, demanding the Safavids surrender. Davud Khan and the Safavid troops in Basra left the city and boarded ships that had been kept at the ready. On 10 March 1701, the newly appointed Ottoman governor, Ali Pasha, entered Basra accompanied by the Ottoman governors of Baghdad, Sivas and Kirkuk, as well as some 30,000 Ottoman soldiers.

Assessment
Matthee notes that it remains unclear "how Basra fared under the Iranians" in 1697–1701, as contemporary sources "voice no consensus about the issue". Some eyewitnesses insisted that Basra was well governed by the Iranians and hail both Ali Mardan Khan and Ebrahim Khan as "just rulers who showed concern for the people". According to resident Carmelites (members of a Roman Catholic mendicant order) in Basra the city prospered under the beneficent rule of these two Safavid governors, while according to the Scottish sea captain Alexander Hamilton the Iranians encouraged trade and were kind to foreign merchants, unlike the Turks. However, in 1700 the Dutch East India Company stated that Basra had declined under the Safavids and that trade had diminished.

Notes

References

Sources
 
 
 
 

History of Basra
Military history of Safavid Iran
Iran–Ottoman Empire relations
1690s in Iran
18th century in Iran
Ottoman Iraq
Military occupation
17th century in the Ottoman Empire
18th century in the Ottoman Empire