First paragraph The Growth of Foreign Trade and its Connection to the Global Market WHEN THE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA we know today as Iraq came under Ottoman rule in 1534, Iraq became an Ottoman border state. The search into the history of this state in the late Ottoman era, therefore, is in fact a search into part of the history of the Ottoman state itself. That historical period was not, under any circumstances, void of economic and social deterioration. There was little or no movement, especially social life in the cities of the three Iraqi provinces, Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. The various Ottoman concepts, ideas, traditions and customs were not entrenched, not just in individuals’ minds, but also among the civilian social groups and units.1 In addition, historical events, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, confirm the receding role of the Iraqi city, as it isolated itself and Bedouin values and customs became prevalent among its residents.