'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' [‎36v] (77/143)

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In return, the Shaikh grants to such tribesmen as live in his lands in
Turkey and such men are very numerous, the customary tribal exemptions
from grazing taxes “ vergi ” or “ miri ” ^ taxation, and from other
imposts of a minor character, but important in the aggregate. Many of
them too, even though actually in possession of Turkish certificates of
nationality (which documents are considered by Arabs as purely administra
tive documents having no bearing on tribal questions) have the right, handed
down from father to son, to cultivate wheat lands in the Ahwaz district, and
Arabs of the Ka’ab and Muhaisin tribes living in Abulkhasib and /am will
be found in December and January ploughing their lands as tar north as
Wais.
We thus have the quaint anomaly of Arab tribesmen, in possession of
certificates of Turkish nationality and liable to Turkish military service,
training for which they may have actually undergone, acknowledging simul
taneously liability to service under the Persian Flag, and proceeding annually
100 miles and more from their homes in Turkey to cultivate lands in Persia
which they and their forefathers have tilled for generations.
Questions of reciprocity seldom arise between Persia and Turkey, in
regard to this frontier at all events, in connection with the treatment of
Arab tribes, since no Arab tribes subject to Turkey reside in Persian terri
tory, though, as has been shown, the reverse is very extensively the case.
The Shaikh as a landowner.
The Shaikh of Mohammerah exercises, and it is inevitable and natural
that he should exercise, influence in Turkish territory in virtue of the fact
that he is by far the largest holder of cultivated land in Basrah district.
No serious estimate of the value of the lands he owns can be attempted,
but it has been greatly enhanced in recent years by the general improvement
in land values and half a million sterling is probably not too high a figure,
although were his lands to be thrown on the market at present, they would
probably not find a buyer at any thing like this price. Many of the lands he
owns were purchased by Shaikh HajI Jabir in the sixties and seventies, when
land was cheap, and when the Turkish authorities in Basrah had to depend
even more than at present on the good-will of the Shaikh of Mohammerah for
the peace and safety of the district. 1
Sir Khaz’al Khan, K.CJ.E., has also invested largely in property in the
Basrah nilayat during the last ten years.
The main reasons which led him and his predecessors to invest their
money in Turkey rather than Persia no longer apply with the same force as
formerly and it is probably from habit rather than from necessity that the
Shaikh has purchased land in Turkey during the last few years.
Up till about 1903, the Shaikh of Mohammerah and his tribes held no
title from the Persian Government to the date groves and other lands
occupied by them and they were therefore disinclined to invest money and
labour in them, as the possibility of dispossession was always before their
eyes. The Turks were weak, not less friendly disposed than the Persian
Government; it was then desirable in their eyes to have lands in Turkish
territory in which they could settle if need arose.
When reproved for by the Persian Governors of ’Arabistan for favour
ing this policy, the Shaikh of Mohammerah used to reply that he did so
from patriotic motives and with the strategical object of securing from
hostile influences areas of Turkish territory adjacent to that of Persia.
The acquisition of lands of Umm-ar-Rassas and Umm-al-KhassasIf,
opposite Mohammerah and Failiyeh, respectively, and of the Diaji lands on
the Turko-Persian frontier was used to illustrate this point of view, which
found ready acceptance and the purchase of the islands of Shamshamiyah by
the Shaikh in 1909 may be quoted as another instance of this policy, although
1 The attack on the B. I. S. Co/s S. S. “ Cashmere ” in 1872, for assistance in repelling which Hsji Jabir
was accorded a salute of 1 gun by that Company, took place in Basrah and the specie which was stolen was only
recovered by his efforts, the Turkish authorities being powerless in the matter.