Lahsa eyalet
| Eyālet-i Laḥsā | |||||
| Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire | |||||
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| History | |||||
| • | Established | 1560 | |||
| • | Disestablished | 1670 | |||
| Today part of |
 Kuwait Qatar Saudi Arabia
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Lahsa Eyalet (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت لحسا; Eyālet-i Laḥsā) was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. The territory of the former eyalet is now part of Kuwait and Qatar. Qatif was the main city of the eyalet, which was named after the city of Al-Hasa.
The area was occupied by Ottoman forces in the middle of the 16th century, and it would be administered by them, with varying degrees of effectiveness, for the next 130 years.
The beglerbegilik of Al-Hasa was established in 1552, primarily to protect Basra's trade with India, since the Portuguese were making raids on the coasts and shipping in the Gulf. By March 1552, garrisons had been introduced in Lahsa, the largest town in the region. The first land survey of the newly occupied province began before September 1553. For the first few years of occupation, Lahsa was administered as a district of Basra Eyalet. By 1560, the district officer was promoted to governor-general.
The first attempted invasion of Bahrain from Lahsa by Ottomans was made in the summer of 1559, when an invasion force of 600-1,000 men was despatched by Mustafa Pasha, governor-general of Lahsa, who acted on his own, presumably to impress Sultan Suleiman. It ended with disastrous results: the surrender of the Ottoman forces, and their withdrawal after the payment of a ransom of 1 million akçe. Mustafa Pasha died (how is not explained), but the men returned to the mainland in March or April 1560.
With the withdrawal of most of the garrison, the Bani Khalid leaders, the erstwhile rulers of the area, used the opportunity to rebel against the Ottomans, occupying Lahsa and establishing Mubarraz as headquarters. Order was restored with the arrival of a new governor-general and new troops.
The Portuguese squadron in Hormuz then controlled all traffic in the Gulf, raiding Al-Katif in 1552, 1559 and 1573. By 1566, attempts were made to establish peaceful relationships with the Portuguese in the Hormuz base. In 1568 the Ottomans made further naval preparations to capture Bahrain, but the rebellion in Yemen in the same year curbed all such plans.
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Wikipedia