Page 391 - PERSIAN 5 1905_1911

AND THE MASKAT POLITICAL AGENCY FOR TIIE YEAR 1000.
89
The site for a quarantine station has now been selected and a disinfecting
apparatus was received in September from England, though it has not yet
been taken into use.
Political.—The relations of the Political Agent with the Chief and his Bahrain
family throughout the year have been very good, and the same remark may
be considered to apply* to the Bazar Masters and Kazis, though one
instance of tyranny displayed by the Head Kazi, Sheikh Jasim bin Mahza,
almost entailed a reference to the Residency before the matter was rectified by
the annulment of the Kazi’s action. The incident arose out of the unabated
jealousy which exists between Sheikh Jasim and Haji Abdun Nabi Kal Ewaz,
the Persian leader, attention to which was directed in 1904, when the Kazi
was reprimanded for his connection with the disturbances created by the
servants of Sheikh Ali bin Ahmad. The cause of this ill-feeling is not so
much the difference of religious beliefs between the parties as that both men
are keen purchasers of shops and godowns in the Manama Bazar, from the
rent of which very profitable revenues are obtained, though the competition
for tenants frequently results in friction which is similarly also seen to in­
volve the two or three other interested landlords in the same line.
In the affair under reference the Kazi had purchased from Sheikh Esa,
under disreputable misrepresentation, a piece of a public road at the entrance
to the Bazar, and in order to compensate the public for the narrowing of the
way he then induced one of the Chief’s most tyrannical servants, Almas, to
break down and remove the seat-like masonry buttress which extended along
the opposite side of the road under a wall belonging to a new arcade of shops
built by Haji Abdun Nabi. The practice of building such foundation
projections as seats is very common in Bahrain and many of them probably
are encroachments upon the public road. Haji Abdun Nabi’s brother and re­
presentative in this instance had protested in the Agency with the knowledge
of the Kazi and his friends, while the Political Agent was away on a cruise,
against the destruction of his buttress without investigation and before the
act was committed. Strong pressure was therefore put upon the Chief to
repair the damage prior to discussion, and this was eventually done at the
Kazi’s expense after the Chief had with difficulty been induced to inspect
the scene in company with the Political Agent. The matter then lapsed into
oblivion, as the settlement of the boundary question would probably have been
very difficult to arrange.
Another difficult dispute about boundaries, which was complicated by the
aggressive enroachment on waste land of the Sheikh’s cousin and Wazir
(Superintendent of State gardens), Abdur Rahman bin Abdul Wahhab, while
the case was sub judice, occupied the attention of the Agency throughout the
year and was settled soon after its close in the form of a compromise arrranged
between the Chief and the Agency, to which the three contesting parties gave
a grudging consent, after the local (Shara) court had failed to pronounce a
decision acceptable to the Agency. The two parties opposing the Wazir and,
in a lesser degree, each other, were Messrs. Gray Paul & Co., as purchasers
of a property from the heirs of the last Residency Agent, and an Arab pearl-
merchant, Salman bin Matar, who is a naturalized British subject. The
dispute had existed for more than 20 years but only reached the acute stage
when both the Wazir and Messrs. Gray Paul proposed to construct substan­
tial buildings on the one site, shutting off at the same time the free approach
of air from the sea to the third party’s house.
The chief historical event of the year in Bahrain was the return in
August 1908 of Sheikh Ali bin Ahmad, after just three years’ exile in Bombay.
His former garden possessions have been returned to him by Sheikh Esa, but
in lieu of the miscellaneous other sources of income he now receives a monthly
cash allowance of R300 from the State, which is paid to him regularly through
the Political Agency. In the circumstances the young Sheikh’s future good
behaviour seems well assured, and his conduct since his return has been quite
irreproachable. He has apparently decided to make his home chiefly in Rifa,
where the majority of the Chief’s nephews and cousins reside and spend their
days hawking and coursing, when not entering into fresh matrimonial
engagements.
N