There is hardly any reference in the Ottoman historiography to bureaucratic posts held by Shiites in the Ottoman Empire, except for anecdotal information. In all probability, historians’ apparent lack of interest arises partly from the invisibility of non-Sunni Muslim sectarian identity in the official documentation that the usual Ottoman practice was not to reveal them. Another reason for this might be the tendency to focus on, evidently more lucrative, antagonisms rather than grey zones in which Shiites and Sunnis interacted. Therefore, this paper aims to examine provisional and conditional incorporation of Shiite subjects into local bureaucracy. Indeed, many non-Sunni Muslim, including Shiite, subjects were recruited into the Ottoman bureaucracy in Iraq and Lebanon during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examples demonstrate that there were numerous Shiites who were appointed not only as public officials to the shrine cities of Iraq and but also to many other local bureaucratic posts in Iraq and Lebanon. Drawing on biographic and prosopographic data as well as archival documents, primarily the personal registers (Sicill-i Ahvâl) in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul, this paper discusses experiences of certain Shiite subjects in the Ottoman bureaucracy and drives some conclusions about their recruitment and promotion patterns. Thus, the paper aims to illuminate aspects of the ambiguous legal and political positions of Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite subjects in the Ottoman Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.