'A Précis of the Relations of the British Government with the Tribes and Shaikhs of 'Arabistan By Lieutenant A T Wilson, Acting Consul for Arabistan' [‎11v] (27/143)

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as occasion offered. They are said to have emigrated originally from the
Arabian Coast of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. 1 * and being buffalo herdmen, to have
settled at Wasit on the Shat-el-Hai. Driven thence by the Muntafik they
settled in the Delta of the Karun : to this cause their ancient feuds are
ascribed.
2 From thence they extended their settlements up “ the Jarrahi, the
ancient Hedyphon, pitching their tents round an artificial mound, the remains
of some old city, upon which rose the modern town of Fallahiyeh. ,,
The neighbouring tribe of Afshars objected to this encroachment but the Ka’ab
excused themselves by saying that the pastures of the J arrahi were better than
those of Qubban where they did not prosper. Soon afterwards a ditch was
dug around the mound, upon which the Afshars again remonstrated. The
Ka’ab replied that the ditch was dug to preserve their buffaloes, which were
carried off almost every night. The following year a stout mud wall rose
within the ditch, and the Afshars finding that the Ka’ab were setting them
at defiance, invited a neighbouring tribe to assist them in expelling the in
truders.
The Ka’ab on their side applied to the Wali of Hawizah to assist them in holding
the footing they had acquired on the Jarrahi.
“ We are Arabs,” they said, “and consequently the Saiyid is a brother. It is
better that we should be his subjects than those of the Afshars.”
The Wali consented and marched against the Afshars who were thus driven alto
gether out of Doraqistan and took refuge at Lihrawi where they built a castle,
which, according to Layard, still bears their name. 3
The Ka’ab Arabs, whose claims to the territory on which they pasture
their buffaloes are much the same as that of any other tribe settled in Baby
lonia or Chaldea, were not, however, allowed to remain long in peaceful pos
session of their annexation. At the accession of Shah ’Abbas, Imam Quli
Khan, Governor of Farsistan, headed an expedition against them and forced
them not only to return part of their encroachments to the Afshars, but also
compelled them to pay a certain tribute to the Shah of Persia, thus subjecting
them to Persian rule. 4 This must have taken place about 1620. (Shah ’Abbas
died 1625 = A. H. 1036.) Taking advantage, however, of the state of
anarchy which succeeded the death of Nadir Shah (1740) the Ka’ab Arabs
repossessed themselves of the whole of Doraqistan, and forcing the Arabs
and sundry Turkoman tribes that pastured their flocks in the same territory
to decamp, they made themselves masters of all the territory that intervened
between the Euphrates, the Karun, and the Hindi j an river.
Their piratical exploits under the guidance of Shaikh Salman have been
described in detail in Chapter I and need not be referred to here- He extended
his dominions to Kurdilan on the Euphrates and to both banks of the Shatt-
al-’Arab. He took Hindi j an, and destroyed the Dutch factory An East India Company trading post. at Kharag.
He was more than once attacked by both Persian and Turkish armies, but
unsuccessfully.
In 1763, Karim Khan broke the dam at Marid on the Karun, thus causing
the waters of the Karun to desert (as it seems they had, for many years
shown a tendency to do) the old bed past Qubban, a settlement said to have
been founded shortly before the Safi dynasty by the successors of Husain
Mehdi. Salman consequently admitted Persian sovereignty henceforward,
and in return for assistance to the Persians at the siege of Basrah was
gianted the town of Flindijan and its dependencies by Karim Khan in per
petuity, according to Ainsworth, upon a payment of 1,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. yearly to
the Persian Government. As the attack of Karim Khan took place in 1703,
attacks on Basrah (in both of which the Ka’ab helped the Persian), in 1742
XV t- J - G -. Lo " m .T> C T E ;' ,n hls Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. (V 0 1. 2) states that the original home of
the Ka ah was in Najd and that some of the tribe are still to be found there at a place (unidentified) called
U s lauraniyeh, also that the majority of the Ka’ab eventually established themselves in North Africa' but
Nassar, the legendary progenitors of the Ka’ab of Southern ’Arabistan, made their way from Naid to Dorao
which they eventually occupied. J 1
Voj ! n The 29 7 0wing is from Ainsworth’s “ Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition,” 1888,
3 Nahr Afshar near Buzlyeh is so called to this day in memory no doubt of this tribe. Lahrawi or
.Linrawi is a tract m the Bakhtian low country Ea.4 of Batwand.
Native history (v. a .) records anattack‘on the Ka’ab by 30,000 Persians and Kurds under Muhammad
Husain Qaj&r, which was repulsed in 1/34, or thereabouts.