Page 205 - Gulf Precis (VII)_Neat

6i
It has constantly been alleged on the part of tho Persian Government that Persian
possession has been quite independent of the Joasmis, who have held authority on tho
Persian coast; and that it has been exercised independently of them, but there has been
no proof of these allegations. Thus the Amin-cs-Sultan informed Her Majesty’s Chargd
d’ Affaires in December 1887 that Sirri and 'I amb had paid taxes to the Persian Govern­
ment for nine years previously, and that documents in support of Persian claims were at
Bushirc. Yet the then Resident Colonel Ross was at once informed by the Malik-ul-
Tujjar, who was Governor at Bushirc at the time, that lie had no such documents. The
proofs of the former dependence of Sirri on Persian authority which were asked for by
Her Majesty’s Legation in March 1888, have also not been given.
On the other hand, it is certain that the condition of the Joasmis on the Persian
coast in past times was not that of ordinary subjects, nor were their Chiefs who held
authority there, in the position of Governors such as are usually subordinate to a para­
mount power. Nearly 150 years ago they crossed over to aid Mulla Ali Shah, Governor
of Ormuz and Bunder Abbas, against his sovereign, and took possession of Lingah and
other places on the coast. In 1809 a British naval and military expedition against the
Joasmis, after dealing with Ras-al-Khymah, had to operate against them on the Persian
coast, destroying their boats at Lingah and attacking Luft. Similar action was necessary
again in 1819-20 when the co-operation of the Prince Governor of Shiraz was requested
in the operations against Lingah, Mughu, Charak and Tawanah, which had completely
identified themselves with the Joasmis. The military force was, after the expedition,
stationed in Kishm, then a dependency of Muscat.
The conclusion from these historical facts is certainly not that the Joasmis having
obtained a footing on the Persian coast, thence derived an authority over outlying islands,
but rather that they carried with them to their new settlement a possession in the islands
which they already possessed ; and the fact that a section of these Arab intruders later
acquired the status of Persian subjects, and held their authority on the coast in subordina­
tion to the Persian Government as local Chiefs or Governors, cannot affect any original
rights the tribes may have held in common.
F. A. Wilson,
Political Resident, Persian Gulf*
313. In 1899 Sir Mortimer Durand called for a report from Colonel Meade,
who after detailing in a * demi-official, dated
Secret E., July 1899, No*.'36o-6g.
13th December 1898 the events up to the
year 1887, added :—
From September 1887 up to the present year, that is for ahout ten years, Lingah has
been governed by Deputies of the Governor of Bushire, and, as far as our records show,
the only act of sovereignty (over Sirri?) exercised by those Deputy Governors has been
to send an official each year to levy a tax of one bag of rice from each large boat engaged
in the pearl fishery and half a bag from each small one. This tax is levied annually at
the close of the season. Our Lingah Agent reports that there are 18 boats engaged in
the fishery and that some 200 men, Arabs from Oman and Soudanese, live at Sirri. oome
six or seven persons (presumably Joasmi Arabs) go there annually to cultivate onions and
water melons. No Persian officials live there permanently. The arguments in support
of the claim of Persia to the island were first seriously advanced in September 1894, and
I think we may reply to them as follow :—The Joasmi Sheikhs have been 1 the de facto
rulers of Lingah for over too years. The Sad-ul-Mulk governed Lingah along with
Bunder Abbas and the other gulf ports on behalf of the Sadr Azam from June 188310
March 1884, but never actually interfered in the affairs of the place, following the example
of his predecessors in the Government of Fars and Bushire by leaving the Government
of the port of Lingah to Sheikh Yusuf, who was then the recognised head of the Joasmi
Arabs of the place.
1 do not quite understand the meaning of the penultimate paragraph of the Sadr
Azam’s letter of the 6th November 1894. Does he mean that the Arab Sheikhs of Sirri
have always farmed the revenue of the island from the Governors of Lingah, and does
he imply that Sheikh Yusuf was one of those Sheikhs? If so, it would seem that he
intended to mislead the Legation, for Sheikh Yusuf, though of course he was by tribal
usage the Chief of’Sirri, was also the Sheikh of Lingah and had farmed the revenues of the
latter place as Deputy Governor from the Sad-ul-Mulk, but had not farmed the revenues
of Sirri, of which, as I have said, he appears to have been Sheikh by tribal custom and not
by the good will of the Persian authorities. It seems only reasonable that, as he was in
the double capacity of Governor of Lingah and Sheikh of Sirri, he should not have
separated the revenues which he collected in the latter capacity from those which he
obtained as the Deputy Governorship of Lingah: but this fact does not, l think, establish
any claim on the part of the Persians, who left out the revenues of Lingah, to the
sovereignty of Serri, which Sheikh Yusuf appears to have held on a totally different tenure.
• Thl* deml-officlil report wai brou-ht on to •• official" record* In June 1904. See notes on pace 8 of tho
Proceedings Seeret E., February 1905, Noi. 869*295.
C640FD