IOR/L/PS/10/535

Papers relating to Ottoman government officials who were detained as prisoners of war by the British occupying force (Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’) at Basra in late November 1914, and sent to India for the duration of the war. The majority of the papers concern two prisoners (Seyyid Talib Bey [Talib bin Rajab Al-Naqib], and Shaikh Salim Al Khayyum [Salim al-Khayyun]). These include notes and reports on the two individuals (outlining their family background, history, political sympathies, character, and potential use to British causes in the Arab world); and details of their detention in India (in Bombay [Mumbai] and Bellary [Ballari]). Papers dated 1918-1920 also detail Seyyid Talib’s return to Basra via Egypt. At the front of the correspondence are copies of letters exchanged between British officials in the Persian Gulf, and several of the rulers of the Arab coast of the Gulf, in response to the outbreak of hostilities in Europe, and the prospect of war between Britain and Turkey (ff 209-221). The file’s main correspondents are: the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Zachariah Cox; the Deputy Secretary to the Government of Bombay, John Edwin Clapham Jukes; the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign and Political Department.

The file includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.