"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٥‎٩‎٦] (١٧٨٢/١٧٥١)

1596
unnecessarj to enter at length here on its provisions. Bripflv
v ) it s6gnit'(i
to devote nearly all the property of which he died possessed to the i
keep of his tomb at Kadhmain, and of the house containing it for . ^
and it purported to constitute the British Resident at Baghdad nr '
of a trust fund into which the bulk of the estate was to he formed f
the purpose just mentioned. In the management of the tru t
Muhammad Husain Khiin, British Agent at Kadhimain ad
Muhammad Taqi Khan, British Agent at Karbala, and other' were
apparently to be associated with the Resident.
The Government of India were anxious to respect, in so far
possible, the wishes of the late Nawab; but the will bristled with
difficulties which only a court of law, upon proper proceedings beL
taken, could have resolved. Under Muhammadan law the "deceased
was not competent to dispose by will as he had done, of more than one-
third of his estate; and some of the subsidiary dispositions which he
made were in themselves legally invalid. It was not clear, moreover,
that the Resident was actually appointed executor; and if it were held
that he was, the directions in this respect were so worded that thev
could only apply to the Resident holding office at the time of the
Nawab's death, in his personal capacity. These serious difficulties apart
the Government of India thought it undesirable that a British official
in a foreign country should be made responsible for the management of
a trust such as that contemplated in the will; and they accordingly
instructed the Resident not to take upon himself the obligation.
Interim charge of the estate was assumed, however, bv the KesideDt
in his character of Consul-General; and a receiver was appointed for
its administration. The Turkish authorities evinced much interest in
the disposal of the estate and a strong desire to take charge of the
immoveable portion of it through the Turkish Land Records Department,
which provoked from Colonel Tweedie, the Resident, a remark that,'
"if the heirs of the late Nawab once let his property or its money
I proceeds l )ass out of British ^to Osmanli custody, they may consider it
^otie from them foi evei, and as little worth going to law about as if it
" were situated in the moon.-"
^ In 1889 a suit for invalidation of the will was brought in the High
Court of Calcutta, the plaintiffs being nine of the Nawab's next-of-kin,
the defendants the British Government and the native trustees
mentioned in the document itself. In 1890, an application for probate
t e will was filed in His Britannic Majesty's Supreme Consular
Couit at Constantinople by the native trustees in question, and was
j^anuna
ilk^ 1
la