"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٣‎٦‎١] (١٧٨٢/١٥١٦)

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A few months later the British Political Agent had to report that the
great Bani Lam tribe had risen in rebellion in consequence of the Pasha's
having farmed the collection of the taxes for which they were liable to the
Shaikh of the Muntafik, their hereditary foe; that they had ravaged the
districts of Mandali, Jasan and Badrah and approached within 80 miles of
Bagdad ; and that the Pasha seemed disposed to cancel the arrangement
he had made with the Muntafik Chief,—a step by which the latter would
probably be alienated, in his turn, with dangerous results. The ^Northern
Sham mar, too, among whose chiefs Najib Pasha had cultivated dissension,
succeeded for once in combining and in forming a coalition that seemed
capable of sweeping the whole country down to the gates of Baghdad.
Nightly robberies and other atrocities disgraced the streets of the city
itself; these were believed to be the work of gangs of armed Arabs sent in
from outside to distract the attention of the Government. Major Rawlinson
observed that some allowance must always be made for natural turbu
lence of the Kurds and Arabs, but that in the present case the disorders
were undoubtedly due to the character of the fiscal administration.
At length, in the summer of 1849, a very serious crisis arose upon the
Shatt-al-Hindiyah in consequence of the extortionate demands made upon
the cultivating Arabs there by the Pasha. The lands irrigated by the
Hindiyah and other canals from the right bank of the Euphrates were
legally assessed at an amount equivalent to £17,800 sterling ; but Shaikh
Wadi, the Chief of the Zubaid, an outsider to whom the Pasha had given
them in farm, raised from them in one year no less a sum than £105,000.
The tribes of the district, which were in general law-abiding, then rose,
expelled the farmer and his myrmidons, and plundered the public granaries
and store-houses in which their contributions in kind had been deposited
after collection. Najib Pasha called upon Abdi Pasha, the Army Com
mandant, to put down the insurrection and reinstate Shaikh Wadi by
force of arms; but that officer, convinced that the tribesmen had a just
grievance, declined to do more than despatch a column, with specific instruc
tions for the restoration of order only. A furious altercation between the
Pasha and the Commandant followed, and eventually it was arranged to
send a joint civil and military Commission to the spot to investigate the
causes of the outbreak. The Commissioners did not agree; each supported
the view of his own superior; and the feud between the civil and military
heads of the administration became a public scandal.
* Saftilc, the chief of the Northern Shammar, after assassinating his principal rival in
the tribe, Nijris, was himself treacherously made away with in 1847 by an emissary of
the Wali of Baghdad. See Layard's Nineveh and its Remmns, pages 61-78, for an
account of Safuk and his affairs in 1846.
Bani Lam
and Shammar
revolts, 1849.
Dangerous
rebellion of
the Hindiyab
Arabs and
friction be
tween the
Turkish civil:
and military
authorities,
May-June
1849.