"تقارير إدارية ١٩٠٥-١٩١٠" [ظ‎‎٢‎٢‎٦] (٦١٦/٤٥٧)

CHAPTER VI.
ADMINISTRATION REPORT OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S
CONSULATE FOR ARABISTAN, MOHAMMERAH, FOR THE
YEAR 1909.
Consequent upon an excliange of posts between the Government of India
in the Foreign Department and the
Consular appointments, Mohammerah. forei g n Office, Mr. W. MoDouall, who
for 18 years had been stationed as Vice-Consul and Consul at Mohammerah,
was transferred to Kermanshah, and Captain L. B. H. Haworth, I.A., His
Britannic Majesty's Consul at Kermanshah, was appointed Consul for
Arabistan. The Mohammerah Consulate was now brought within the sphere
of the Persian Gulf Residency. Mr. McDoualjl left Mohammerah to take up
his new post on the 27th July, having handed over charge temporarily to
Lieutenant A. T. Wilson, I.A. (at the time in charge of the Indian Oil
Guards), on the 24th.
Captain Haworth proceeded direct from Kermanshah to England on
sick leave.
His Excellency Haji Saif-ed-Dowleh, who arrived at Nasiri in October
1908, as Governor of Arabistan, re-
Locai authorities. mained in Mohammerah or Nasiri as
Shaikh Khazal's guest, until May 1909, without once visiting Shushtar, the
nominal capital of the province and the seat of the Government.
Soon after the death of his grand-daughter. Shaikh Khazal's wife, Jamil-
es-Sultaneh, he applied to the Central Government for leave to resign, which
not being granted, he left by the Bakhtiari road without more ado.
In October 1909, Fakhr-ul-Mulk, with his son, Fakhr-ul-Mamaldk, and
his grandson, Izz-ul-Mamalik, arrived at Shushtar from Ispahan to take up
the Governorship, which had been held during the interregnum with some
success by Shaikh Khazal. On arrival at Shushtar he was coldly but politely
received by the local headmen, whom he rated soundly 'for having paid arrears
of revenue to Shaikh Khazal. This rather injudicious step caused temporary
estrangement between him and the latter, and the situation was not improved
by the more or lesa successful efforts he made to introduce a Constitutional
regime into Arabistan. He was unprovided with any troops when in Shush
tar, and was without any moral or physical support in his task of recovering
arrears of taxation and safeguarding Dizful and the Dizful-Shushtar road
from the raids of Arabs and Sagwands.
The local c medjliss ' which he convened in Shushtar and in Diz'ful were
viewed with disfavour by the principal townsmen, and it cannot be said that
the constitional regime has proved a success up to the present.
His grandson, a young man of about 25, was sent as Deputy Governor to
Dizful at the end of October, under the protection of Assad Khan and the
leading men.
A. Rahim, a minor Bakhtiari notable, who was attached to Fakhr-ul-
Mulk's staff by the Bakhtiari Khans, did his best to stir up strife between the
new Governor of Arabistan and the Shaikh, and between the Shaikh and the
various Arab chiefs under his sway, such as the exiled Maulas and Shaikhs of
Hawizeh, Farhan Assad, Haidar-bin-Ghafil, Shaikh Jafar of the Chab, and
so on, but without success.
Towards the end of the year, however, relations between Fakhr-ul-Mulk
and the Shaikh improved, the former finding it politic to work in harmony
with the latter and, at the end of 1910, Fakhr-ul-Mulk paid a visit to Shaikh
Khazal at Mohammerah and initiated the outward forms of constitutionalism
there.