State of Affairs in Bassra
It was during this year that the hidden natural corruption and depravity of Seyid Mobárek manifested itself, and when thousands of detestable and wicked wretches joined in the rebellion which he was the means of exciting in the jurisdiction of Bassra, who committed every sort of devastation in the cities, towns, and villages throughout the provinces of Bassra and Lahsa, killing, destroying, and plundering where they were able. The government of Baghdád having been conferred on the celebrated vezír, Hasan Páshá, about the commencement of Ramazán, he was also appointed commander-in-chief over all the forces in Baghdád, Sheherzúl, and in all the places appertaining to them.
Some time before this appointment took place, however, the inhabitants, when they first became aware of the cruelties practised by these rebels, sent an embassy to the Sháh of Persia, beseeching him to send them succour to enable them to resist the encroachments of the rebels. Their request was complied with: he sent them three hundred Kizilbáshes under the command of three leaders, but who in fact became more terrible oppressors than the faction had been whom they came to repel. The cure was worse than the disease. A representation of this circumstance was communicated to the court of Constantinople, who about the end of Dhu’l hijja wrote expressly, and in the most peremptory manner, to the sháh in reference to these matters.
Among the appointments to office which took place when Jeráh entered on the premiership, the following may be mentioned. Jeghala Zádeh Sinán Páshá was created kapúdán or lord high admiral; and Khezr Páshá, from among the vezírs, was honoured with the government of Egypt. It belongs to this period to mention, also, that in consequence of the beglerbeg of Caramania having been employed with his provincial troops in the Hungarian wars, the country was in a great measure left naked and without protection. About three thousand insurgents took advantage of this, and collected together in the absence of the governor and his troops, and committed the most horrid excesses; but the inhabitants uniting together opposed them and slew the greater part of these reptiles.
But of all the remarkable events which had taken place during this period, the following is the most astonishing. It has been recorded by the pen of some one in a collection of facts, that on Friday the 18th of Rabia II., about mid-day, the lady of Bekerbeg, the beglerbeg of Shám Sheríf (the noble city of Damascus), a woman of high rank, called Ayesha, the daughter of a respectable officer in the army, was delivered, after only three months pregnancy, of two male children, and shortly after she brought forth twelve more, fully formed, but not living, female children; in all two males and twelve females. Such a phenomenon as this was is certainly not beyond the range of possibility; but physicians denominate such occurrence an error in nature.