Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 115–141 Copyright © 2018 Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.5.1.07 Imagined Geographies, Re-invented Histories: Ottoman Iraq as Part of Iran* Zeinab Azarbadegan AbstrAct: This article investigates how specifc knowledge production (in history, geography, and archaeology) during Nasir al-Din Shah’s reign (r.1848–96) contrib- uted 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 redefning and utilizing new means of assertion of sovereignty in the inter-imperial system of the late nineteenth century. It is a wonder that colonial policies in the current century have endeavoured to rec- ognize Iraq as part of the Arab lands, considering that Iraq is part of Iran and was the capital of Iran for many years. If Arabic language is prevalently used there, it is because for several centuries it was the center of the Abbasid Caliphate, otherwise the people of that land are Iranian immigrants, who still immigrate back from that sacred land to Iran. 1 Mahmud Farhad Mutamid, one of the few Iranian historians writing on Qajar-Ottoman relations during the Pahlavi era (1925–79), reiterates here a long-standing claim that the lands today known as Iraq have historically been part of Iran. 2 He points to the dual basis of this claim; the one historical *Note on transliteration: Within the main text, I have used the Persian transliteration for terminologies and included the Ottoman in parenthesis when they frst appear, as the main focus of the paper is Qajar perceptions of Iraq. 1. mahmud farhad mutamid, Tarikh-i Rawabit-i Siyasi-i Iran va ʻUthmani ya Cild-i Duvvum-i Sipihsalar-i Aʻzam (Tehran: Intisharat-i Kitabkhana-i Ibn-Sina, 1326 S.H. [1947]), 143. 2. Mahmud Farhad Mutamid was the great grandson of Farhad Mirza Mutamid al-Dawla (see fn. 29). He has written several articles as well as two books on the life of Mirza Hussain Khan Mushir al-Dawla Sipahsalar (d.1881), who served as the Qajar ambassador to Istanbul This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Fri, 28 Sep 2018 11:58:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms