Habesh Eyalet

Eyālet-i Ḥabeš ایالت حبش
Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire
←   ← 1554–1802 1813–1872 →   →   →   →
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The Eyalet of Jeddah-Habesh in 1795
Capital		Massawa,Sawakin,Jeddah
History
•	Established	1554
•	Disestablished	1872
Area
•	1856	503,000 km2(194,209 sq mi)
Today part of		Sudan  Eritrea  Saudi Arabia  Djibouti  Somalia

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Habesh Eyalet (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت حبش; Eyālet-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 that border the Red Sea basin. On the Northeast African side, it comprised Massawa, Hirgigo, Suakin and their hinterlands.

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 and garrison.

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).

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Wikipedia