Deep History of the Fertile Crescent to the Tigris & Euphrates Under the Ottomans | Faisal Husain

Historian Faisal Husain wrote the book "Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire" and in this episode, helps us explore the history of the Tigris and Euphrates. He argued for the necessity of understanding human history within the context of geological time, discussing the rivers' origins roughly 20 million years ago, tracing their influence on civilization from the "agricultural revolution" (which some scholars argue was a mistake leading to health issues) to the rise of early urban centers like the Sumerian cities. The conversation highlights the difference between the gentle Euphrates, which attracted early settlements, and the fast and unpredictable Tigris. Shifting to the Ottoman era, Husain examines the environmental challenges of Ottoman Iraq, which was poor in essential resources like grain, metal, and wood suited for construction, and details the extraordinary story of the Euphrates river changing its course in the late 1600s due to a poorly dug irrigation canal. He emphasizes the cultural importance of the palm tree and the vital role of water buffaloes, which made life possible for a quarter of the Iraqi population in the wetlands, whose fate would have otherwise been migration to seek resources and refuge elsewhere.

 

0:00 Introduction

1:47 When Did the Tigris and Euphrates Start?

3:04 The Importance of Deep History

5:49 Geological Origins: 20 Million Years Ago

7:37 When the Rivers Began to Matter to Homo Sapiens

10:40 The Rationale for Writing Deep History

12:00 Starting Middle East History Before 6th Century Arabia

14:45 The Difference Between the Twin Rivers

17:05 Why Sumerian Civilization Clustered on the Euphrates

20:36 Questioning the Agricultural Revolution

23:16 How Agriculture Began: Trial and Error

27:00 The Consequences of Taming Nature

30:40 The Ottoman Conquest of Iraq

32:20 Why Iraq Was Environmentally Poor for a Major Power

36:06 Iraq’s Default Status Under Iranian States

38:25 Baghdad in the 16th Century

42:25 The Euphrates Shifts Course (Late 1600s)

47:09 Water Buffaloes: The Essential Technology of the Wetlands

49:28 Ranking the Most Important Crops

51:03 Evliya Çelebi: The Traveler

54:49 Ottoman vs. European Traveler Perspectives

58:35 The Book Cover: Baghdad on the Tigris

 

Faisal Husain is an environmental historian of the Ottoman Empire, with a geographical focus on its eastern provinces in Anatolia and Iraq and a temporal focus on the early modern period. His first book "Rivers of the Sultan" examined the role of the Tigris and Euphrates in the establishment of Ottoman state institutions in the Ottoman eastern borderland between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. His second book project is an environmental history of Ottoman frontier expansion east of the Euphrates during the sixteenth century. He is co-editing a book on the global histories of animals (under contract with Oxford University Press) with Emily Wakild (Boise State University) and Nancy Jacobs (Brown University). In 2024-2025, he served as a senior lecturer at Boğaziçi University’s Department of History in Istanbul through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. He serves on several editorial boards, including those of Marmara Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi (Marmara University), Global Environment (White Horse Press), and the “Middle East Environmental Histories” book series (Leiden University Press).

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