IOR/L/PS/5/452, ff 270-291

This part of the volume consists of a copy of an enclosure to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 105 of 1847, dated 30 December 1847. The enclosure concerns affairs in the Baghdad Pachalic [Pashalik, also spelled Pashalic in this item]. It is numbered 3 and is dated 28 October 1847.

The enclosure consists of a letter from the Political Agent in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq] and Consul at Baghdad [also spelled Bagdad in this item], Major Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay in the Political Department, forwarding copies of two despatches to the Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department. These two despatches enclose a copy of a despatch from Lord Cowley, HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Constantinople [Istanbul] to Rawlinson, and copies of despatches to Cowley from Rawlinson and from Lieutenant Arnold Burrowes Kemball as Acting Consul at Baghdad. The despatches to Cowley include an enclosed letter from Rawlinson to HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Tehran, Colonel Justin Sheil, and a letter to Rawlinson from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Palmerston.

The despatches report on matters including:

• Instructions reaching Baghdad from the Sublime Porte [the Government of the Ottoman Empire] exempting British Indian subjects from the passport regulations instituted by the Turkish [Ottoman] Government, and Lord Cowley reporting that he has obtained an assurance from the Porte that it is not their intention to enforce the orders recently promulgated for the compulsory sale of properties belonging to foreigners
• The progress of the cholera epidemic in the Baghdad Pashalic
• Suffrok [Ṣufūq bin Fāris al-Jarbā’, also spelled Suffook in this item], the ‘de jure Chief’ of the Shammar tribe and his son Ferhan [Farḥān bin Ṣufūq al-Jarbā’] having so far complied with the summons of Nejib Pasha to present themselves at Baghdad, with Nejib Pasha [Gürcü Mehmet Necip Pasha, or Muḥammad Najīb Pāshā, also spelled Negib Pasha in this item, Wali of Baghdad] investing Ferhan as Sheikh [Shaikh] in lieu of his father, rather than their rival Ayudeh [‘Ūdah?]
• The state of the Turco-Persian frontier, including Nejib Pasha complaining to Rawlinson about the dangers to which Turkish subjects are exposed by the ‘incapacity’ of the Governors of Kermanshah and Senna [Sanandaj] to control the ‘Koordish’ [Kurdish] tribes residing within the Persian [Iranian] line
• Nejib Pasha issuing orders directing that the Turkish guard ship be withdrawn from its position at the mouth of the Haffar Canal, a position remonstrated against by Sheil as a breach of engagement, and that it be moved to the Bussorah [Basra] roads
• The conduct of Suffook, the Chief of the Shammar, after he had been restored to favour by Nejib Pasha, being (in Rawlinson’s words) ‘offensive to the dignity and hurtful to the interests of the Government to which he owes allegiance’, leading to him being killed by Gunj Agha [Kunj Āghā], who had been sent by Nejib Pasha; and Rawlinson’s view that although Nejib Pasha strenuously denies it was a premeditated murder, the ‘Arab’ tribes over whom Suffook had ‘extraordinary influence’ will view it as a treacherous murder and resume their 'old habits' of isolation from all contact with the Turkish authorities
• Nejib Pasha asserting the supremacy of the secular authorities over the ‘fanatical party’ connected with the tomb of the ‘Soonee’ [Sunni] saint Sheikh Abdul Kadir [Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir Gīlānī or al-Jīlānī], through actions including the removal of the Mufti of Baghdad from office and the principal men associated with the shrine being arrested and transported to Bussorah, in response to what Rawlinson describes as the threat of imminent insurrection, and Rawlinson’s approval of the actions of Nejib Pasha
• Negib Pasha despatching Sadik Beg [Ṣādiq Beg] to Bussorah, for the purpose, Rawlinson believes, of him seeking compensating sources of revenue following the order of the Porte to abolish the Ihtisab duty [a tax on markets in the Ottoman Empire] throughout the Pashalic, with these sources of revenue likely to include the imposition of a twelve per cent duty ad valorem on horses exported to India, which Lord Palmerston has stated to Rawlinson would be disapproved by HM Government
• Rawlinson having a ‘full and very satisfactory’ conversation with Sadik Beg regarding the suppression of the 'slave trade' [trade in enslaved people] between Bussorah and the African Coast, with Sadik Beg appearing prepared to give full effect to the prohibitory instructions issued from Constantinople and Baghdad on the subject
• Rawlinson’s view that it would be advantageous for him to visit Bussorah himself in December 1847, after the convention of the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Major Samuel Hennell, with the ‘Arab Chiefs’ [prohibiting the transportation of enslaved African persons on board vessels belonging to Bahrain and the Trucial States] has come into operation, in order to for him to be able to examine personally the working of the present system.