IOR/R/15/1/498

This file contains correspondence between British officials regarding date gardens in southern Iraq owned by the rulers of Kuwait and Mohammerah. In particular, the correspondence concerns the Government of Iraq's decision to end the immunity from taxation (on the gardens) that had been granted by the British Government to the former ruler of Kuwait, Shaikh Mubārak Āl Ṣabāḥ and the Shaikh of Mohammerah, Khaz‘al bin Jābir al-Ka‘bī in return for their military support against the Ottoman Empire in World War 1.

The file contains detailed discussion of a case in the court of Basra brought against Shaikh Aḥmad al-Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ, the ruler of Kuwait, by Abdulla Al Zuhair/Az-Zuhair [‘Abdullāh al-Zuhayr] and contains copies of various court documents from both the defence and the prosecution.

The file also contains reports regarding the cutting down of trees on Shaikh Aḥmad's estates in Fao (in order to widen roads) by order of the Basra port authorities and on folios 154-157 it contains four photographs of the affected area.

The file also contains the minutes of a meeting held at the Foreign Office that was attended by representatives of the Treasury, the Treasury Solicitor's Office, the India Office and the Foreign Office (in August 1938) and copy of the Iraqi Land Settlement Law No. 29 of 1938 (taken from the Iraqi Government Gazette No. 21, 22 May, 1938).