"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٣‎٨‎٥] (١٧٨٢/١٥٤٠)

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1385
The stipulations for the good treatment of Persian subjects in
Turkish ^Iraq which were contained in the Second Treaty of Evzeroum
seem to have remained, to all intents and purposes, a dead letter. Under
Najib Pasha's rule Persians were exposed to cruel harassment at the
hands of the Turkish officials ; witness the following extract from a
despatch of the British Political Agent at Baghdad to the British
Ambassador at Constantinople in 1848 :—
The Persians, to whom His Excellency commonly applies the equally dishonourable
title of " Eafizi," are tbe objectB of an undisguised and undiscriminating persecution.
To enumerate the mult'tudiaous grievances under which the latter parties suffer would
be too great a trespass upon Your Excellency's time and patience. Those grievances
have been catalogued for the most part in my previous despatches, and they extend
over every portion of tho body politic and every question of individual right, whether
affecting religion, conscience, nationality, property, commerce or personal security.
The last refinement of severity to which my attention has bfien drawn (and which has
been superadded to the prohibition of all charitable bequests or benefactory outlay upon
the holy shrines and to a compulsory substitution of Sunni for Sheeah law in the
towns of Karbala and Neijef, not only in regard to civil contracts, conveyance of
property, testamentaiy dispositions, etc., but in such personal matters as marriage and
divorce) is a formal interdict that His Excellency has lately placed upon those
traditional mourning ceremonies which, within certain bounds, the Persians have
always hitherto been permitted to exhibit at the present season in memory of their
martyred Imams. This interdict is regarded as almost equivalent to proscription
of the Sheeah faith, and has called for the most violent resentment generally amongst
the Persian population.
Treatment of
Persian
subjects
in Turkish
Iraq after
the Second
Treaty of
Erzeroum,
1848-52.
When a new appointment was made by the Persian Government to the
office of Persian Consul at Baghdad, apparently in 1849, it was stated
that the exequatur of the new officer denied his right to exercise the extra
territorial jurisdiction over nationals vested in the Consuls of European
powers under Capitulations, and that the Turks insisted upon all suits
in which Persians were concerned being tried by the Sunni courts of the
province. In 1852 the Persian Government forbade their subjects to
cross the frontier into the Baghdad Pashaliq; but this prohibition seems
to have been due to the disturbed state of Turkish 'Iraq at the time,
rather than to difficulties of a diplomatic order.
At the beginning of the Crimean war there appeared a probability that
Persia might make common cause with Bussia against Turkey and her
allies, and in 1854 the Persian Governor of Dizful collected troops near
the Basrah frontier with the purpose of attacking Basrah in case a rupture
should take place. The Pasha of Baghdad, on his part, called the Arab
tribes to arms and embarked on intrigues with Shaikh Jabir, the Persian
Crisis on the
Basrah-
Muham-
mareh
frontier and
British naval
demonstra
tion, 1854.