IOR/L/PS/5/449, ff 82-99

This item comprises a copy of an enclosure to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 8 of 1847, dated 23 January 1847. The enclosure is dated 13 November 1846.

The item comprises despatches from Major Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Political Agent in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq], forwarding, for the information of the Government of Bombay and the Governor General of India, copies of his communications with Henry Wellesley, HM Minister Plenipotentiary at Constantinople [Istanbul], reporting on affairs in the Bagdad Pachalic [Baghdad Pashalik, also spelled Baghdad Pashalic in this item], with relevant enclosures.

The papers cover the following matters:

1) Welleseley’s enquiry to Rawlinson regarding his knowledge of any cases of the ‘injurious bearing of the Mahomedan law of evidence on the lives and property of H[er]. Majesty’s subjects residing within the limits of the Ottoman Empire’ and Rawlinson’s response incorporating his critical assessment of Islamic religious law in general and the Hanifeh [Hanafi] Code (school of Islamic jurisprudence) (ff 85-88).

2) Orders issued (at the request of Nejib Pasha [Muḥammad Najīb Pāshā, Governor of Baghdad]) by the Persian [Iranian] Government to the Prince Governor of Azerbijan [Iranian Azerbaijan] and the Governor of Ooroomeeya [Urmia, also spelled Orumiyeh in this item] for the removal of the ‘refugee chiefs’ of Sulmanieh [Sulaymaniyah, also spelled Sulimanieh, Sulemanieh and Sooloomanneh in this item] and Rowanduz [Rawandiz, also spelled Rowandiz in this item] from the Turco-Persian frontier.

3) A cholera outbreak within the Baghdad Pashalic, which Rawlinson estimates over the last forty days has killed ‘at least 30,000 souls’ (f 89).

4) The recent ‘outrage’ committed by ‘a party of Persian marauders’ (f 88) (‘the freebooter Abdulla Beg Sharof Baini’ (f 93) [‘Abdullāh Beg Sharaf Baynī, also spelled Sharaf Baine and Shorof in this item], his followers (refugee subjects of Sulemanieh residing in Kermanshah) and a force of Sinjabis [Sanjâbi tribe, also spelled Sinjabees]) on the Wermazier tribe (dependents of the Jaaf [Jaff] tribe), and responses to the situation including:

• A petition by the heads of the Wermazier tribe to Abdulla Pasha [‘Abdullāh Pāshā] of Sulemanieh
• Abdulla Pasha’s plea to Nejib Pasha
• Nejib Pasha’s complaint to Rawlinson of the ineffectiveness of Mohib Ali Khan [Muḥibb ʿAlī Khān], Governor of Kermanshah, in restraining, punishing and removing Abdulla Beg ‘from his obnoxious position on the frontier’ (f 94), the insecurity of the frontier Turkish tribes who are ‘harassed and tormented beyond all endurance’ (f 95) and intimation that he would not be able to prevent equally violent reprisals occurring in Persian territory
• Rawlinson’s concerns about the disorganisation on the frontier and suggestion that a complaint needs to be made by the Porte itself in order to make the Persian Government take the matter seriously and put realistic pressure on the Governor of Kermanshah.