'Persian Gulf Gazetteer, Part I Historical and Political Materials, Précis of Turkish Expansion on the Arab Littoral of the Persian Gulf and Hasa and Katif [al-Qaṭīf] Affairs' [‎12] (29/164)

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Ottoman Ambassador to France, and forwarded to the Foreign Office in 1872
by Sir B. Frere, then on his way to Zanzibar as special envoy.
In this memorandum,'after observing that from wbat bad passed be inferred
that the Porte bad " signified to Fra-Dce its claim to the entire seaboard of
Arabia, extending from Suez to the bead of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , and therefore
including Oman or the principality of Maskat." Dr. Badger continued : —
" The claim of Turkey to the Provinces of Yemen and Nejd, and to the intervening
maritime provinces, including Oman, is founded on the fiction that a lineal descendent of the
Ambasside Khalifahs of Baghdad invested Salim II, after his conquest of E^ypt and his suc
cesses on the sjiores o£ the Red Sea, with the sovereig-nty over the whole of Arabia. It is
indisputable, however, that during the existence of the dynasty nearly the whole of Arabia
had revolted from its authorities and set up native principalities and chiefdoms, which have
maintained their independence until the recent attempts made by the Turks to subjugate them
in Yemen and Nejd. All that they can fairly lay claim to is the seaboard of Arabia from
Suez to Mokha which they have held with occasional intermission since their first conquests
in the Red Sea in the 16th century. As regards Oman, the native annals of the province
incontestably prove that it became indep D ndent of the Baghdad Khalifate in the loth century
and has never since been subject to foreign rule except for a short time to the Persians. The
same is tmeof the Arab chiefd'»ms »n the Pei sian Gulf, whose history is intimately connected
with that of Oman ; moreover, it. is indisputable that neither the Turks nor the Egyptians
have ever exercised any jurisdiction over the territories referred to, and that the Turks
themselves, in 1847, virtually admitted the independence of the Imams and other Arab chief-
doms in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , is proved in the folioving extract from a Vizerial letter addressed
to the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. of Baghdad on the subject of the slave trade as given in Aitchison's Treaties,
Volume VII, page 192 ;—
" Votre Excellence sait qu'il a dan ces environs la des Gouvernements, efc des Imams
iodependants et, cela etant, des chatiments dont il s^agit^ ne peuvent pas etre appliques a leurs
batiments.^
But preposterous as their claims may be, there is every probability that the Turks will lose
no time in endeavouring to enforce them. The result of partial success would be to introduce
a fresh element of complication and strife into the Eastern Sea without any correspondina'
advantage either to the Turks themselves or to the threatened maritime Native States and
chiefdoms, or to the British GovernmenV
4:8«B. It would seem that the Sublime Porte had at this time in view the
Holy ottoman Empire. idea . of sewing in the whole of the Arabian
peninsula its religio political empire, what
may be called the Eoly Ottoman Empire, in analogy of the Holy Boman
• see Bryce's Holy Eoman Empire. Empire * a fusion of an ideal Universal
Church, the fiction of the Eoman Empire
and a feudal monarchy, which claimed even an independent France, as a
fief under its Imperial Lordship. International arrangements took place
among many of these states of the Holy Roman Empire or between many of
them and states outside the Empire, without the cognizance of, or in opposition
to, the Imperial Power or the Boman Pontiff, a process which might as well
and is in fact repeated in our days in the Holy Ottoman Empire.