Skip to item: of 822
Information about this record Back to top
Open in Universal viewer
Open in Mirador IIIF viewer

‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries [...] Vol XI containing the treaties, & c., relating to Aden and the south western coast of Arabia, the Arab principalities in the Persian Gulf, Muscat (Oman), Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province’ [‎113v] (235/822)

The record is made up of 409 folios. It was created in 1933. It was written in English and French. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

Transcription

This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.

Apply page layout

192
PERSIAN GULF— Bahrain.
Ahmad died in 1825, and his son Khalifa, who had snrreeded to his share
in tlie government, died it' 1884. Mnliammad bin Khalifa was for some
years kept out of power hy liis grand-nncle Abdulla bin Ahmad; but ii,
184-3 he succeeded not only in recovering his rights but in expelling
Abdulla bin Ahmad from Bahrain. The latter, who found refuge in
Dammam, made several unsuccessful attempts, with the help of the Wah-
habis and the Shaikh of Kuwait, to recover his power. He died in 1848,
but his son Muhammad bin Abdulla continued the feud. His warlike
preparations and his piracies so endangered the peace of the Gulf that in
1859 he was declared a public enemy and expelled from Dammam by a
British force. Xo sooner was ibis done than Muhammad bin Khalifa of
Bahrain began to levy imposts on Wahhabi vessels, and to carry off their
property. On being remonstrated with he made simultaneous applica
tions for protection to the Persian Governor of Fars and the Turkish Wali
of Baghdad. The Persian flag was hoisted on the arrival of an Agent of
the former, only to be immediately pulled down and replaced by the
Turkish flag on the arrival of an Agent of the latter. Both Agents dis
appeared from Bahrain after a short interval, during which representa
tions had been made, and assurances secured, by His Majesty's Minister
at Tehran. Earlv in 1861, therefore, when the Shaikh of Bahrain, in
violation of his treaty eng agements, again blockaded the Wahhabi ports,
he was forced by the Resident in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. to withdraw the
blockade, and was required to conclude a perpetual Treaty (No. X) of
peace and friendship, binding himself to abstain from war, piracy and
the importation of slaves by sea, on condition of protection against
similar aggressions, and to permit all British subjects to trade with
Bahrain on payment of an ad ralorcm duty of 5 per cent, on their goods.
In 1863, in consequence of complaints made against the lawless people
on the south-east coast of the peninsula, Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifa
sent his cousin Muhammad bin Ahmad to Qatar to act as his Amir or
deputy. This official arrested and deported to Bahrain the local Shaikh
of Wakrah, and made himself so unpopular during the next two or three
years that he was at last compelled to return to Bahrain. Shaikh Muham
mad bin Khalifa thereupon, in October 186T, sent a force from Bahrain
under the command of his brother Ali to punish the people of Qatar;
and at the same time invited the Shaikh of Abu Dhabi to co-operate with
his troops, a.s Bida (now known as Dohah) and Wakrah had long been
harbours of refuge for seceders from Oman. Shaikh Zaid bin Khalifa
promptly accepted the invitation ami joined Shaikh Ali with 2,000 men:
and the combined forces, after-destroying a large number of Qatar boats,
attacked and sacked the towns of Wakrah and Bida with circumstances
of peculiar barbarity, and plundered property of the estimated value of
eleven lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of krans.
As Loth the Bahrain and Abu Dhabi Shaikhs were bound by their
engagements with the British Governjnent to abstain from aggression of

About this item

Content

The volume is a fifth edition of a collection of historic treaties, engagements and sanads (charters) signed between representatives of the British Government or East India Company, and foreign rulers, dignitories or government officials, in the regions of Aden, south west Arabia, the Arab coast of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , including Muscat and Oman, Baluchistan, and the north-west frontier Region of British India bordering Afghanistan. province (present-day Pakistan). This volume, originally compiled by Charles Umpherston Aitchison, Under Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, was revised in 1930 and published in 1933 by the Manager of Publications in Dehli, under the authority of the Government of India.

Part 1 contains treaties and engagements relating to Aden and the southwest coast of Arabia:

  • An historical overview of British (and Turkish) involvement in the region, including descriptions of the treaties and engagements signed;
  • The Anglo-Turkish Convention (in French) respecting the boundaries of Aden, dated 9 March 1914;
  • Treaties and conventions, agreed between the years 1802-1917, at Aden and with the Abdali tribe, the Subeihi, Fadhli, Aqrabi, Aulaqi, Irqa, Lower Haura, Beihan, Yafai, Audhali, Haushabi, Alawi, the Amirate of Dhala, the Wahidi, Kathiri, the Sultanate of Mukalla, Soqotra [Suquṭrā] and Qishn, Yemen, and the Idrisi. The treaties cover agreements of commerce, friendship and protection; agreements for the cession or purchase of land, for the abolition of the slave trade, storage of coal, protection of shipwrecked British sailors.

Part 2 contains treaties and engagements relating to the Arab principalities of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , divided into the following areas: 1) The Wahhābī A follower of the Islamic reform movement known as Wahhabism; also used to refer to the people and territories ruled by the Al-Saud family. and Nejd [Najd]; 2) Bahrain; 3) The Trucial Arab shaikhs (of Oman); and 4) Kuwait:

  • An historic overview of the agreements made between the British and the region’s rulers, organised by tribes and/or geographical locality;
  • Agreements and treaties signed with the Wahhābī A follower of the Islamic reform movement known as Wahhabism; also used to refer to the people and territories ruled by the Al-Saud family. tribe, including: an agreement between the Wahhābī A follower of the Islamic reform movement known as Wahhabism; also used to refer to the people and territories ruled by the Al-Saud family. and British Government over aggression towards the Arab tribes, dated 21 April 1866; a series of conventions and treaties agreed in the 1920s, establishing boundaries and relations between the Kingdom of Najd and its neighbours; the Treaty of Jeddah, dated 20 May 1927;
  • Agreements and treaties signed with the ruler of Bahrain, relating to: piracy and slavery (1820), abstention from entering into relations with foreign powers (1880, 1892), arms trafficking, wireless telegraphy (1912), and oil exploitation (1914);
  • Agreements and treaties signed with the shaikhs of the Arab coast, relating to respect for British property (1806), piracy (1820), the slave trade (1838, 1873), the maintenance of maritime peace in perpetuity (1853), the Anglo-Qatar treaty (1916); oil exploitation (1922);
  • Agreement and treaties signed with the ruler of Kuwait, relating to: arms trafficking, exclusive post office rights (1904), pearling and sponge fishing concessions (1911), wireless telegraphy (1912), oil exploitation (1913), boundaries between Kuwait and Najd (1922) and Kuwait and Iraq (1923).

Part 3 contains treaties and engagements relating to Oman, chiefly Muscat but also Sohar:

  • An historical overview of the Sultanate of Muscat, and the agreements made between Britain and Muscat;
  • Treaties and conventions, agreed between the years 1798 and 1929, including: the exclusion of the French from the Sultan of Muscat’s territories (1798); suppression of the slave trade (1822, 1873); commerce (1839); cession of the Kuria Muria islands [Jazā'ir Khurīyā Murīyā] (1854); the independence of Zanzibar (1861, 1862); telegraphic communications (1864, 1865); jurisdiction of Indian subjects at Muscat (1873); friendship and commerce (1891); coalfields at Ṣūr (1902); arms traffic (1919); prolongation of the commercial treaty (1891); treaty of peace between the Sultan of Muscat and Chief of Sohar (1839).

Part 4 contains treaties and engagements relating to Baluchistan:

  • An historic overview of the region and its districts, including British involvement in Baluchistan, organised by the Kalat [Kelat] Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. , Sibi Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. , and British Baluchistan and its territories;
  • The treaties and conventions listed for Kelat, agreed between the years 1839 and 1925, include: an engagement between the British Government and the Khan of Kelat (1839), the Khan of Kelat’s allegiance and submission to the British Government (1841); various agreements for the protection of the Indo-European telegraph line; cession of lands for the Kandahar Railway (1880), Mushkaf-Bolan Railway (1894) and Nushki Railway (1906); demarcation of the boundary between Persian Baluchistan and Kelat (1896);
  • The treaties and conventions listed for Sibi and British Baluchistan, agreed between the years 1884 and 1897, including: cession to the British Government of rights to petroleum and other mineral oils (1885); agreement on the Bargha and Largha boundary line (1895), grazing fees for animals and responsibility for good behaviour within the British border at Zhob, signed by the Suliman Khel Ghilzai (1897).

Part 5 contains treaties and engagements relating to the northwest frontier province:

The appendices contain a number of treaties signed between foreign rulers, including treaties agreed between Muscat and the United States, French and Dutch Governments, as well as British Parliament acts and memoranda related to the treaties and engagements in the volume.

Extent and format
409 folios
Arrangement

The volume is arranged into five key geographical regions: Aden and the southwest coast of Arabia, the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman (Muscat) and Sohar, Baluchistan, and the northwest frontier province. The main body of the volume, containing the narrative treaties, is arranged into parts covering these five regions. The appendices at the end of the volume is likewise arranged by the five regions.

Each part (or region) is further subdivided into a number of smaller units, and in some cases further subdivided into smaller units. These subdivisions can be tribal, geographical and administrative in nature. Within each part, the narrative treaties are numbered with Roman numerals, restarting at I at the beginning of each part.

There is a contents page at the front of the volume (ff.2-17) which lists the geographical regions, their subdivisions and treaties. The contents pages refers to the volume’s pagination system. There is a subject index, arranged alphabetically, at the end of the volume (ff.363-405) which also refers to the volume’s pagination system.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: The volume’s foliation sequence uses circled pencil numbers, located in the top-right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of each folio. It begins on the first folio with text, on number 1, and ends on the last folio with text, on number 405. Total number of folios: 405. Total number of folios including covers and flysheets: 409.

Pagination: The volume has a series of printed pagination sequences, expressed in Roman numerals for the contents, appendices and index pages, and in Arabic numerals for the volume’s main content matter. These numbers are located in the top-left corner of versos and the top-right corner of rectos.

Written in
English and French in Latin script
View the complete information for this record

Use and share this item

Share this item
Cite this item in your research

‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries [...] Vol XI containing the treaties, & c., relating to Aden and the south western coast of Arabia, the Arab principalities in the Persian Gulf, Muscat (Oman), Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province’ [‎113v] (235/822), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/G3/12, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023462215.0x000024> [accessed 28 March 2024]

Link to this item
Embed this item

Copy and paste the code below into your web page where you would like to embed the image.

<meta charset="utf-8"><a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100023462215.0x000024">‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries [...] Vol XI containing the treaties, & c., relating to Aden and the south western coast of Arabia, the Arab principalities in the Persian Gulf, Muscat (Oman), Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province’ [&lrm;113v] (235/822)</a>
<a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100023462215.0x000024">
	<img src="https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000000884.0x0003bd/IOR_L_PS_20_G3_12_0235.jp2/full/!280,240/0/default.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
IIIF details

This record has a IIIF manifest available as follows. If you have a compatible viewer you can drag the icon to load it.https://www.qdl.qa/en/iiif/81055/vdc_100000000884.0x0003bd/manifestOpen in Universal viewerOpen in Mirador viewerMore options for embedding images

Use and reuse
Download this image