Review David Siddhartha Patel, Order Out Of Chaos, Islam, Information, And The Rise And Fall Of Social Orders In Iraq, Cornell University, 2022

  

There has been some very original work done by Iraq scholars recently and Patel David Sidhartha’s Order Out Of Chaos, Islam, Information, And The Rise And Fall Of Social Order In Iraq can be counted as one of them. Patel spent time in Basra City in 2003-04 and 2011 doing research and interviews with locals. He wanted to explain how social order was created in Iraq immediately after the invasion when the government collapsed and the Coalition was barely present. He argues that mosques run by Ayatollah Sistani and Moqtada al-Sadr were able to form community out of their followers where one had not existed before.

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 23 UK picked Abd al-Gaylani to be Iraq’s first prime minister

  

1915 UK cabinet ordered UK cmdr Gen Nixon to take Baghdad

(Musings On Iraq review When God Made Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921)

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 22 Report Iranian Rev Guard set up crisis cell in Baghdad to put down protests

1920 Iraq High Commissioner Sir Cox asked Jafaar al-Askari to return to Baghdad Would become

1^st Defense Minister Askari ex-Ottoman officer Was Faisal’s military commander during Arab Revolt

PM Zaidi’s Cabinet Almost Completed With New Positions Created For Patronage

  

Iraq’s parliament recently completed most of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s cabinet. It represents Iraq’s version of power sharing not where parties are to be equals and balance each other out but rather where each winning party gets positions based upon the number of seats in parliament they win.

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 21 UK decided to seize Baghdad during WWI Would say would be there temporarily but created Iraq as a British mandate

1914 Ottoman Basra Governor demanded UK withdraw warship from Shatt al-Arab docked in

            Persia to protect oil concession Ottomans began shooting at ship UK agreed

(Musings On Iraq review Iraq In World War I, From Ottoman Rule to British Conquest)

(Musings On Iraq review When God Made Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921)

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 20 Iraqi forces and Peshmerga fought in Kirkuk in aftermath of Kurdish independence referendum

1922 Interior Min Sadoun told governors to start preparing for parliamentary elections and to

            urge voters to only elect candidates who would back Anglo-Iraq Treat

This Day In Iraqi History - Oct 19 Saddam said Iraq couldn’t win Iran-Iraq War because outnumbered

1830 Daud Pasha’s Mamluks assassinated governor sent to replace him in Baghdad Sultan

Mahmoud declared Daud a rebel and appointed another governor