Basra

Basra stands on the Shatt al-Arab, where the combined Tigris and Euphrates flow toward the Gulf. Founded in 636 as a garrison town, it became a great port and seat of learning, famous for its date groves and orchards. The Mongols took the city in 1258, and in the 14th century it lay on the borderland of the Mongol and Mamluk worlds. The traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited then, praised its courts and fruit gardens.

From the early 15th century local Arab families held Basra under the loose overlordship of the Turkmen dynasties, until the Safavids of Shah Ismail briefly took it in 1508. The Portuguese reached the city in 1529, and in 1536 its Bedouin ruler acknowledged Suleiman the Magnificent as overlord; the Ottomans tightened their hold in 1546. From 1595 the Portuguese acted as protectors of Basra, and in 1624 they helped its pasha repel a Persian invasion. After about 1625 local chieftains held Basra and the delta marshes until the Ottomans retook them in 1668.