Namik Pasha and His Military, Political Role in the Iraq's Modern History

Abstract

This paper deals with personal Namik Pasha (1804 -1892), who was a major Ottoman statesman of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. He served under five sultans and acted as counsellor to four of them. He founded the Ottoman Military Academy, was twice viceroy of the Eyalet of Baghdad: The first was (1851- 1852), the second (1862-1868). He also served important ministerial positions in the Ottoman empire. Namik Pasha sought to transform several areas from governing of the tribal chiefdom to the Modern administrations, but his reforms had been opposed by the Arab traditions in the chiefdom, which extended its roots to the ages immemorial. In the meantime, he build the irrigation canals, roads, bridges, camps, schools. On the other hand, he hardly worked to suppress the armed uprisings in order to reinforce the Ottoman role and objected the increase of the British interests in Iraq. Therefore, he was nominated as a Serasker (Minister of War) by Sultan Abdul Aziz in March 1868.