Habesh Eyalet
Habesh Eyalet
Main page
1664939

Habesh Eyalet

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Habesh Eyalet

Habesh Eyalet (Arabic: إيالة الحبشة; Ottoman Turkish: ایالت حبش, romanizedEyālet-i Ḥabeş) was an Ottoman eyalet. It was also known as the Eyalet of Jeddah and Habesh, as Jeddah was its chief town, and Habesh and Hejaz. It extended on the areas of coastal Hejaz and Northeast Africa of Eritrea that border the Red Sea basin. On the Northeast Africa littoral, the eyalet extended from Suakin and their hinterlands to Zeila.

Like Ottoman control in North Africa, Yemen, Bahrain, and Lahsa, the Ottomans had no "effective, long term control" outside of the ports where there was a direct Ottoman presence.[dubiousdiscuss]

In 1517, the Ottoman Turks conquered the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria, during the reign of Selim I. As such, territories of the Sultanate including Jeddah and Mecca were controlled by the Ottomans. Jeddah was then expanded for the purpose of protecting the borders of the Ottoman Empire from Portuguese invasions.

The Ottoman Empire then began extending its borders throughout the rest of the Red Sea coast. Muslim rulers from Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula were dominant in the African Red Sea coast until the Ottoman Turks arrived in the 16th century. The ports of Suakin and Massawa were occupied by Özdemir Pasha, who had been appointed beylerbey in 1555, and the province of Habesh was formed in 1557. Massawa being of secondary economical importance, the administrative capital was soon moved across the Red Sea to Jeddah (from the end of the 16th century until the early 19th century; Medina temporarily served as the capital in the 18th century).

The Ottoman Turks made multiple advances further inland conquering Eritrea. A sanjak of Ibrim was established in the 1560s. In 1571, the governor of Habesh moved to break a siege of Suakin by forces of the Funj Sultanate. The expansion was halted in 1578, and the Ottomans retired from most of the highlands. During the following centuries, the Ottoman administration largely refrained from further interventions, relying on a system of indirect rule. Only on the island of Massawa itself was there an Ottoman governor, who controlled trade and taxes; in Sawakin the Ottoman authorities appointed a customs officer.

There is very little in the way of source material for Ottoman rule in the eyalet of Habesh after the 16th century. Most of Cengiz Orhonlu's Ottoman sources on Habesh come from the late 16th century, with some from the 17th century. Despite the seminal nature of his Habesh Eyaleti, he could not "find precise data regarding the administrative and financial structure of the province" or information on any agricultural taxation.

When the Ottomans became dominant in the Hejaz in 1517, Jeddah had been established as a sanjak under the authority of Beylerbeylik of Egypt. As Jeddah developed into an important centre of trade, the Ottomans turned Jeddah into a beylerbeylik itself. In the 18th century, it was attached to the eyalet of Habeş, and governors of the rank of vizier started to be appointed here.

In 1701, Suakin and the other Ottoman possessions on the African coast were put under the authority of the governor in Jeddah. After its combination with Jeddah, the eyalet gained importance. Owing to the great distance from the capital, the Ottomans had little control over the Pasha of Jeddah, and their authority over the region was mostly nominal.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.