Page 210 - Gulf Precis (V)_Neat

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Ottoman Ambassador to Franco, and forwarded to tlio Foroign Offico in 1672
by 6ir J3. Frero, then on his way to Zanzibar as special envoy.
In this memorandum,'after observing that from what bad passed he inferred
that the Porte had “ signified to Franco its olaim to the entire seaboard of
Arabia, extending from Suez to the head of the Persian Gulf, and therefore
including Oman or tho principality of Masknt.” Dr. Badger continued :—
** Tho claim of Turkov to tho Provinces of Yemen and Nojd, and to tho intervening
maritime provinces, including Oman, is founded on the fiction that a lineal descend on t of tho
AmhnBFide Khalifahs of Baghdad invested Salim II, after his conquest of Egypt and his 8UC-
Ot-Bses on the shores of the Red Sea, with the sovereignty over the whole of Arabia. It is
indisputable, however, that during tho existence of tho dynasty nearly tho whole of Arabia
had revolted from its authorities and sot up nalivo principalities and cliicfdoras, which have
maintained their indupcndenco until tho recent attempts made by the Turks to subjugate them
io Yemen and Nejd. All that they can fairly lay claim to is the seaboard of Arabia from
Suez to Mokha whi.h they have held with occasional intermission since their first conquests
in the Red Spa in the 16th century. As regards Oman, the native annals of the province
incontestably provo that it became independent of the Baghdad Khalifato in the loth century
and has never since been subject to foreign rule except for a short time to tho Persians. The
same is tueof the Arab chiefdims m tho Peisian Gulf, whoso history is intimatoly connected
with that of Oman ; moreover, it. is indisputable that neither the Turks nor tli9 Egyptians
have ever exercised any jurisdiction over the territories referred to, and that the Turks
themeelves, in 1847, virtuallj admitted tho independence.of the Imams and other Arab chicf-
dom6 in the Porsian Gulf, is proved in the following extract from a Vizerial letter addressed
to the Pasha of Baghdad on tho subject of the slave trade as giveu in Aitchison's Troaties,
Volume VII, page 192 :—
“ Votre Excellence sait qu’il a dan ces environs la des Gouvernements, et des Imams
iodependaota et, cola etant, des ch&limeats dont il 6*agit, ne peuvenb pas etro appliques a leurs
b&tiraents.”
“ But preposterous as their claims may be, there is every probability that the Turks will lose
no time in endeavouring to enforce thpm. The result of partial success would be to introduce
a fresh element of complicatiou and strife into the Eastern Sea without any corresponding
sdvantago either to the Turks themselves or to the threatened maritime Nalivo States and
chief dums, or to the British Government*"
48»B. It would seem that the Sublime Porte had at this time in view the
idea of reviving in the whole of the Arabian
Holy Ottoman Empire.
peninsula its religio political empire, what
may be called the Holy Ottoman Empire, in analogy of the Holy Roman
•Empire * a fusion of an ideal Universal
* Bee Bryoe’s Holy Boman Empiro.
Church, the fiction of 1 he Roman Empire
and a feudal monarchy, which claimed even an independent France, as a
fief under its Imperial Lordship. International arrangements took place
among many of these states of the Holy Roman Empire or between many of
them and states outside the Empire, without the coguizance of, or in opposition
to, the Imperial Power or the Roman Pontiff, a process which might as well
and is in fact repeated in our dayB in the Holy Ottoman Empire.