IOR/L/PS/5/445, ff 195-204

This item comprises a copy of an enclosure to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 104 of 1846, dated 14 September 1846. The enclosure is dated 24 July 1846.

The primary document is a despatch 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 to Sir Stratford Canning, HM Ambassador at Constantinople [Istanbul], reporting on affairs in the Baghdad Pachalic [Pashalik].

The papers notably cover the following matters:

• Reports that the supporters of Ahmed Pasha [Aḥmad Pāshā] have all deserted him, that he left Zohab [Sarpol Zahab] and joined ‘a certain holy man Sheikh [Shaikh] Tahir who resides on the Azerbijan [Iranian Azerbaijan] Frontier of Kurdistan’ and has ‘assumed the habit of a Dervish’, and Rawlinson’s scepticism about Ahmed Pasha’s conversion and suspicion that it may be short-lived
• Information indicating that the troops being sent from Baghdad against the Chief of Rowandize [Rasūl Pāshā, of Rawandiz, also spelled Rowanduz in this item] to enforce payment of arrears of revenue and other measures, have been halted following the mediation of the Pasha of Moosul [Mosul] on behalf of the Chief
• Preparations being made by the Persian [Iranian] authorities to erect a fort on the Kurdish frontier at Lahijan and Rawlinson’s concerns that this will aggravate the Bilbass [Belbās or Bilbas] inhabitants who pasture their flocks in that district and that any orders issued by Nejib Pasha [Muḥammad Najīb Pāshā, Governor of Baghdad] to the Bilbass against impeding the construction will be ignored
• A report that the Governor of Kermanshah has advanced in the direction of Zohab, possibly as a superficial response to the Turkish [Ottoman] advance on Rowanduz
• Reports that Persian refugees residing in the Turkish town of Khannikeen [Khanaqin, also known as Khaniqin] have in the last few days committed a serious ‘outrage’ in Persia and ‘entirely destroyed the rich district of Kileh Shahm, one of the dependencies of Zohab’ (f 201), and Nejib Pasha’s attempts at restitution and orders to the Governor of Khannikeen to expel the offending parties from Turkish territory
• Doubts expressed by Rawlinson and Lieutentant-Colonel Sheil, HM Minister in Teheran [Tehran], regarding the ability of Persian authorities, despite their apparent willingness, to provide redress for ‘outrages’ committed by the various tribes of Looristan [Larestan] on subjects of Turkey or to provide satisfactory compensation for the violent entry into Kerbela [Karbala] by the escort accompanying the Governor of Kermanshah’s wife (on her return from pilgrimage).