Page 366 - Gulf Precis (VI)_Neat

S3is
Paslins of Gubnu wore actually in power at the period of Sultan Morad’s treaty
with Shah Tahmasp in A. i). 1G39, hut whether their dependence upon
Bussorah was really of such a nature, as to entitle tho territory, over which
they ruled, to he considered an integral part of Irak-i-Arab, in opposition to
all geographical precedent, or whether their connexion with the parent Gov­
ernment., was of tho same loose and undefined character as that of the Chaab,
who succeeded them, is a point which I have not been able to resolve, and,
indeed, as tho district of Cuban has now become a desert, and has thus lost
Rimmi ftvplfobic for proving iho i.„Uori... r=,M a11 territorial value, it is of no great con-
of Turkey, to itmia upon tiioShut-vNAruii, iiuie|>cud* sequence to determine its original depen-
miiy ot mere geographic!precedent. deucy. Of far moi’o importance is it to tho
question of frontier at. present pending, to find, that from the earliest establish­
ment of Turkish rule in Mesopotamia, that is from the commencement of
the lGtli century, tho dependence upon Bussorah, and consequently upon
Turkey of the lands on tho left bank of the Shat-cl-Arab, from the. sea as fur
as Girdelan, has been acknowledged and recorded; the famous Sultan Salim,
in about A. D. 1012 having conferred tho lands in question in free grant
upon four holy men of Bussorah, Sheikh Alxlool Salam, Sheikh Ahmcd-el-
Ilcfahee, Sheikh llabceh-Bllah, and Sheikh Ibrahim Bodhein, and a great
part of the original patents passed under tho Sultan’s seal, being as it is
affirmed still in existence. That three years elapsed from the dato of Sultan
Murad’s treaty with Shah Tahmasp before the Turkish authority was fairly aud
permanently established in Bussorah is not I think of any material conscqucnco.
The present right of Turkey to the town, according to that treaty, as a depend­
ency of Baghdad and a part of Irnk-i-Arab has never been subject of dispute,
and if the claim to Bussorah he conceded, the right to all the lands dependent
upon it will follow as a matter of course.
Now the laud upon which the town of Mohammerah was subsequently
built was unquestionably one of these
Mflliimnimli included in tlicio lamia and in pos-
icision of Turkey until within the lust few venn. dependencies. It was specified, indeed, as I
understand in one of Sultan Salim’s grants.
It continued in the hands of the descendants of the original grantees for above two
centuries, it was then resumed by the Bussorah Government on some trivial
pretext with many other lands in the vicinity ; and it was subsequently farmed
together with tho lauds of Ilaffir and Tamar by Suleiman Pasha of Baghdad, as
I have previously stated, to the Chaab Chief, Sheikh Salman. Turkey is thus able
to show her practical exercise of supremacy over the lands of Mohammerah for
a consecutive series of above 250 years. But this is not all, so incontestable were
her rights considered to be, that the Chaab, long after they had become virtually
independent of Bussorah, continued to pay the rent or land tax instituted by
Suleiman Pasha for tho districts of Tamar, Ilalfar and Mohammerah. Three
hundred tons of dales are indeed still yearly handed over to the officers of the
Bussorah Government as the share of produce of tho two former farms, and it
is only since the forcible occupation of the town of Mohammerah by the Persian
troops, that the payment of the annual land lax of 500 Karoosh (about £ 40)
for the ground upon which the town is built, has been discontinued.
That Turkey is unable in the same conclusive way to prove the acknowledg­
ment of her claim to the remainder of the territory stretching down along the
Shat from Mohammerah to the sea, is owing merely to the lands in this quarter
having been exempt from taxation, agreeably to Sultan Salim’s pateut, when
the Chaab violently wrested them from the possession of the descendants of
Sheikh Abdool Salim, the original grantee.
But although the question of the political dependency of Mohammerah and
tho adjoining territory may bo thus considered as a mere matter of argument,
to be.proved almost to demonstration in favour of Turkey the geographical
appropriation of tho lands, is by no means so easily disposed of.
When Sultan Salim bestowed the grounds of Haffar and Mohammerah upon
Sheikh Ahmed-el-ltofahce, they were
Former dependency of Mobamuicrab upou Bussorah
geographically correct. doubtless strictly dependent upon Busso-
rah, for the Karoon river still flowed in the
Guban hod and the Haffar CaDal upon which the lands were situated was thus