Imagined Geographies, Re-invented Histories

Ottoman Iraq as Part of Iran

Bibliographic Data

ID6157233
AuthorsZeinab Azarbadegan (corresponding author), Zeinab Azarbadegan Zeinab Azarbadegan
Year2018
Volume5
Issue1
Pages115-115
Publication date2018-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2376-0702 • E-ISSN: 2376-0699
PublisherIndiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2979/jottturstuass.5.1.07
OpenAlexW2891206237
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited6

This article investigates how specific knowledge production (in history, geography, and archaeology) during Nasir al-Din Shah's reign (r.1848–96) contributed to Ottoman Iraq being historically imagined as part of Iran. This was reasserted textually, visually, and performatively through textual and photographic productions as well as through travel by Qajar statesmen and even the shah himself. In particular, the Qajar state appropriated Sasanian and Achaemenid histories to delimit Ottoman Iraq as part of an Iranian historical geography among other places which were outside of Qajar spatial territory but were included in its imagined geography. Analyzing the main Qajar court-sanctioned geographical texts, maps, travelogues, and photographs, it is argued that the many new technologies of rule utilized by colonial European empires were also employed by the non-European Qajar Empire, concluding that non-European empires were actively involved in redefining and utilizing new means of assertion of sovereignty in the inter-imperial system of the late nineteenth century

Ancient history · Iraq war · Ottoman empire · Political science · Politics · Archaeological Research and Protection · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Turkey's Politics and Society

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