‘WAR DIARY. ARMY HEADQUARTERS, INDIA. […] I.E.F. “D”. Volume 32. PART II. (From 16th to 31st March 1917.)’ [‎97r] (202/294)

Wbat with this numerous family, his slaves and his hoshiyahj the Shaikh’s
immediate dependents runs into many hundred; in Arab fashion he keeps
open house for all who come to pay him their respects ; his fees to Govern
ment amount on the richer estates to over twenty thousand pounds a year
and were double that sum under the Turks, when rents were forced up by the
periodical auctioning of the lease. Though he may not have much ready money
at his command, he is a rich man, living in abundance on the produce of his
estate. His position depends on his power to give employment on the land
and thereby keeping his wandering cultivators together. The silting up of a
canal will set the reed villages packing, to the detriment of his tribal strength
as well as his income, the possibility of large defections is a source of anxiety
to him, for labour once scattered is with difficulty re-assembled.
Physical conditions determine the composition of the Albu Muhammed
community. Along the river and the main canals the ground is raised by silt
deposits with the result that the great water channels run through a low
ridge instead of through a valley. On these ridges grow the winter crops
of wheat and barley, an uncertain yield depending partly on the rainfall.
Unfilled tracts of scrub and thorn and small infrequent reed villages lend
to the high ground a certain air of inhospitality. The cultivators are settlers
drawn from weak neighbouring confederations, who take service under the
wealthy Albu Muhammad Shaikhs and enter into tribal relations with their
employers. As the ground falls towards the marsh, the sparser husbandry
gives way to continuous rice fields, with an accompanying of population.
The yellow reed huts, banked up in winter with rice straw to keep out
the rain and the north wind, line the canals in long village streets. In spite
of their frail materials they convey an impression of rural comfort and
prosperity which is borne out by the appearance of their stalwart well nourish
ed inhabitants. These villages are the home of the Albu Muhammad tribes
men, who reserve the fertile rice country for their own use and profit, employing
even here fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. from the corn-lands to execute for hire the heavier labours,
The landscape ends in the reed and open water of the marsh, where the island
hamlets of the Ma’dan occupy ancient knells, rich in fragments of pottery, and
the light pitch-covered mashuf is the only means of communication,
Save for the brick-built house of the Shaikh from river to marsh no per
manent habitation is to be found among the cultivators, hut just as on the edges
of the desert small market towns have grown up to supply the needs of the
Beduin, so on the canals there is an occasional settlement of townsfolk, clustered
round a bazaar which is stocked with cotton goods, dates, coffee, tobacco and
other simple requirements of the country side. Some shrewd merchant of Najd
origin, easily distinguished by his finer features and superior education, presides
over this group of shop-keepers and acts as Mudir on behalf of the Government.
A Sunni, with a comprehensive contempt for his clients, from Sheikh to marsh-
man, he takes his wives from families of like origin with himself, bringing
them from Zubair or elsewhere on the desert borders, and preserves the Najd
blood and the Najd tradition untainted in the heart of Iraq.
Notwithstanding a prevailing turbulence under Ottoman rule the task
of the administrator would not seem to present overwhelming difficulties when
once the tribal character of the Albu Muhammed country is admitted and used
to advantage. The Turkish Government, too weak to control the Shaikhs,
sought to undermine an authority for which they could offer no substitute :
instead of endeavouring to allay dissension, they regarded inter-tribal and
family jealousies as the best guarantee against hostile combination, and accept
ed local unrest as the less formidable of two evils. Their methods pursued
with great adroitness were so far successful that they managed to maintain
a semblance of administration which will prove a valuable heritage to more
capable rulers.
CUSTOMS DUTIES IN IBAQ.
Before the war customs duty was levied by the Turks on all foreign im
ports by land or sea with few exceptions at the rate of 11 per cent, ad valorem
and on exports at the rate of 1 per cent, ad valorem.
Just before the arrival of British troops in Basrah the Customs House was
very extensively looted by Arabs and was destroyed to some extent by fire.
Soon after the occupation a local European firm was entrusted with the
work of collecting duty on the majority of imports (a small portion was dealt