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File 1855/1904 Pt 10 'Koweit:- Relations with Turkey. Sheikh's properties at Fao and Fadaghia' [‎98r] (195/398)

The record is made up of 199 folios. It was created in 12 Jan 1908-18 Sep 1912. 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. .

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Wali still refused to allow the registration of the transfer of the land he had pur
chased at Fadagh ia unless he took out a certificate of Ottoman nationality. Abdul
Wahab Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , however, gave me a somewhat different account of the matter.
According to him, strict orders have been received from Constantinople not to per
mit the registration of the transfer to Mubarak^at all. The reason for this oppo
sition to what is really a very ordinary transaction is, so Abdul Wahab informs
me, that a misconception exists at Constantinople regarding the situation of the
land to be transferred, and that the Ministers believe it to occupy an important
strategic position commanding Basrah, moreover, they do not think Mubarak is
buying the land himself, but that the British Government are financing him
in the matter. Abdul Wahab says the Wall had sent in very favourable reports,
explaining bow erroneous all this is, but he has not succeeded in overcoming
the opposition of the Ministers. As regards the question of the nufus tesTcere,
Abdul Wahab told me this matter could easily be got over by the Shaikh putting
the land in the name of bis blind son and taking out a certificate of Ottoman
nationality for him in order to satisfy Turkish susceptibilities. I informed your
Excellency in a previous despatch that Shaikh Mubarak proposed adopting this
course when Major Knox and I discussed the matter with him last year at Kuwait.
I do not myself think the Wali is as obligingly disposed to settle the question
in the way the Shaikh suggests, as Abdul Wahab Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. would have me believe.
As the deputy Ahmed Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. as Zobeir, the seller of the land, is at Constantinople,
be could, no doubt, satisfy the Ministers as to the position of Fadaghia. I think
they do not want to let Shaikh Mubarak acquire more ground here for purely
political reasons, and the Wali, I think, is not likely to endeavour to induce them to
change their minds as he fully appreciates the anomaly of the Shaikh’s position
and loses no opportunity of having a dig at me about the Kuwait question. Your
Excellency may have seen a statement in the Frankfurter Zeitung that Ahmed
Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. Zobeir had sold large tracts of land at Basrah to the British Government.
An indignant denial of this was published by Zobeir’s brother, Abd-el-Mohsin,
President of the Municipality, in the Basrah newspaper “Izhar-ul-Hakk,” but
the statement, no doubt, refers to the present transaction and cannot but tend to
increase Turkish suspicions.
The Wali, however, practises the Turkish maxim about being affable to one’s
friends and dissimulating with one’s enemies, and I hear Shaikh Mubarak has
promised to assist him to get the stone required for his new road by using Kuwait
boats to bring the material from Maskat, no charge being made for freight, but
the Wali paying the cost of the labour employed. Whether the Kuwait fisher
men will approve of this onerous arrangement is another question. In any case
the Wali is cultivating good relations with his neighbours to some purpose and,
as long as he continues on good terms with the powerful Shaikh of Muhammerah,
it is unlikely there will be any armed disturbance in the Vilayet. There have
been none of importance this winter. Early last month Falih es Seyhood,
who is practically an outlaw, and who seems to have enlisted the good offices
of Shaikh Khazal in order to effect a reconciliation with the Vali, came from
Muhammerah where he has been staying to Basrah, and asked for pardon, saying
he was ready to pay arrears of taxes due and to give up the rifles of his Arabs
to the Turkish Government, to which he expressed his loyalty. The Wali com
municated his application to the Minister of the Interior, but I have not heard
with what result. Falih returned to Muhammerah, the Wali having given him
to understand that he would be arrested if he remained here longer than
twenty-four hours.
Shaikh Khazal has on his side reciprocated by maintaining a conciliatory
attitude tbwards the Wali since his arrival and has not opposed the partial des
truction of his house property on the Ashar creek road, which is included in the
municipal scheme now being carried out by the Wali of widening the road and
laying down a tramway to Basrah. Shaikh Khazal’s agent, Mirza Hamza, called on
me and made some enquiries as to my own attitude in regard to the properties
of the Bohra and Khoja communities on the road which were being partly pulled
down. I told Mirza Hamza that I had been in correspondence with Constantinople
on the subject, and His Majesty’s Embassy saw no reason to interfere with the
execution of the Wali’s project, and that I had received instructions as to the

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The papers concern relations between Shaikh Mubarak [Mubārak bin Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ], Ruler of Koweit [Kuwait] and the Government of Turkey [the Ottoman Empire]; particularly in regard to the purchase by the Shaikh of date gardens at Fao [Al Fāw] on the Shatt-al-Arab, and property at Fadaghia, near Fao, both of which were in Turkish territory. In both cases, the Turkish authorities insisted that the Shaikh should first register himself as an Ottoman subject before they would allow the legal formalities of ownership to be completed.

The principal correspondents are the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. (Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Zachariah Cox); the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. , Kuwait (Major Stuart George Knox; from 1909 Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear); the British Consul at Basrah (also referred to as Bussorah) [Basra] (Francis Edward Crow); the British Ambassador at Constantinople (Sir Gerald Augustus Lowther); Shaikh Mubarak; and senior officials of the 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. , the Government of India, and the Foreign Office.

The papers cover: papers concerning the Fao property, including the Shaikh's appeals for a committee of inquiry and arbitration over the matter, January 1908 - July 1909 (folios 115-199); papers concerning the Fadaghia property, February 1909 - December 1910 (folios 6-114); Foreign Office paper containing a memorandum communicated to the Turkish Ambassador concerning the Bagdad railway question and other matters, July 1911 (folios 4-5); and correspondence concerning a false report in a Turkish newspaper that an allowance had been granted by the Turkish Government to Shaikh Mubarak, May-July 1912 (folios 2-3).

The French language content of the papers is confined to three folios of newspaper extracts (folios 133-135).

The date range gives the covering dates of all the documents contained in the papers; the covering dates of the Secret Department minute papers that enclose them, as given on folio 1, are 1908-1912.

Extent and format
199 folios
Written in
English and French in Latin script
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File 1855/1904 Pt 10 'Koweit:- Relations with Turkey. Sheikh's properties at Fao and Fadaghia' [‎98r] (195/398), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/51/2, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100037401202.0x000005> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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