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I RAQ

others in the tribe, and they were supposed to make decisions based on what was best for the tribe. But after the rural sheikhs and the important families in Baghdad registered their claims to land, they were obliged to support the Ottoman government, which could back up their land claims with military force. Most of the ordinary tribesmen became little more than tenant farmers, with their labor enriching the landowning families. During the 19th century, contact with the nations of Europe The Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople, 1453. During the following century, the Ottoman Empire extended its control into Kurdistan and Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq. Ottoman influence in the region would last until the second decade of the 20th century.