"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٤‎٨‎٣] (١٧٨٢/١٦٣٨)

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1483
discussion on a aubject to which, for several reasons, it is not desirable to attract
unnecessary attention.
There are some minor arguments which might be used in favour of letting things
lie as they are. Were the Nawab Ikbal-ud-Dowla e proposals and Sir A. Kemball's recom
mendations to be carried out, the British Government would undoubtedly be lending
itself to the promotion of the interests of the Mahomedan religion among the natives
of India—a course directly opposed to all its recent policy ; and it would be encouraging
the emigration of its subjects to Turkish Arabia—an object which politically cannot
be regarded as expedient.
The Government of India recognised thatj as Sir A. Kemball pointed
out, the words " or persons who have its charge" in the English transla
tion of the Agreement of 1825 as ratified by Lord Amherst were at least
an* interpolation; but their enquiry into this point unfortunately did not
ieadj, as it might have done^ to the discovery of the part of the Agree
ment authenticated by the King of Oudh's own seal. Instead, aiguing
from the defective version of the Agreement then relied upon, which,
besides wrongly introducing " Mujavirs " into the question, omitted the
clause that required the Mujtahid recipients to distribute the money to
«deserving persons," the Government of India arrived at the conclu
sions detailed above. They also quoted, as an analogy supporting their
view of the case, the terms of a particular endowment founded at
Lucknow by King Ghazi-ud-Din Haidar,—that of the " Imambarah-i-
Najaf-i-Ashraf/'
The Secretary of State for India, in November 1867, agreed with the
more general conclusions of the Government of India, observing :
that, with reference to the terms of the deed of 1825, it is not incumbent on the
British Government to do more than pay the money regularly to the recipients specific
iu that deed, namely, the high t priest, in charge of the shrines ; that such payment is
a good and sufficient payment; and that the Government has not undertaken, and can
not now undertake, to control the ultimate distribution of the money by the chief
priest among the devotees who may frequent, or reside at, the places of pilgumag
in question.
♦ The Government o£ India thonght. at thU time, that the .mevt.on w« not
without significance ; b.,t »nch a view h»s ceased to be tenable since
that the Persian word, of which the English phrase was given as a parenthetical
explanation, was itself only an erroneou. transcription o£ two Persian words having
different sense.
+ The facts of the Ondh Bequest case being now better ^1^°^
sary to remark here that the Mnjtahids arc not, aed never were, ... ehaigo o£ the
shrines^
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