Enemy on the Euphrates (22 page)

In general, the British failed to comprehend that the growing antipathy towards them of Najaf’s mujtahidin and other clerics was less a matter of theocratic ‘bigotry’ than a genuine fear of being incorporated into a foreign European and Christian empire. The two revolutions that had recently occurred in the Middle East – the Ottoman revolution of 1908 and the Persian ‘Constitutional’ revolution of 1905–11, had strongly politicised certain sections of the mujtahid fraternity. Since many of the mujtahidin were Persian, they naturally took a keen interest in political developments in their original homeland and many of them strongly supported the movement of Persian merchants, clerics and artisans which in August 1906 had compelled Muzaffar ed-Din Shah to agree to sign a proclamation setting up a constitutional assembly. When, the following year, the British and Russians agreed to carve up Persia into zones of control followed by the entry of Russian troops into northern Persia in 1908, the mujtahidin of Najaf and Karbela’ protested vehemently and a group of them declared to the British consul that they would issue a call to jihad if Russia did not withdraw its troops.

The Young Turk revolution of 1908 had a broader impact upon the Shi‘i shrine cities, affecting not just the mujtahidin but the wider population. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century,
people in those cities were reading journals from Turkey, Persia, Egypt and India. In 1911 it was estimated that between fifty and a hundred different newspapers were available in Najaf’s libraries every week. Between 1909 and 1911, Najaf itself published one newspaper and two magazines; one of the latter,
al-‘Ilm
(Knowledge) was the first Shi‘i magazine to be published in Iraq. It was in the pages of
al-‘Ilm
that five leading mujtahidin issued a fatwa in December 1910 addressed primarily to their Sunni co-religionists, calling for the unity of
all
Muslims in the face of the encroachments of the European powers, stating that ‘it is obligatory on all Muslims to … defend the Islamic lands and to guard all the Ottoman and Persian territories against the obstinacy of foreigners and their attacks’. Moreover, as we have seen, during the early stages of the British invasion, Najaf had been at the forefront of organising the mobilisation of the mujahidin, the irregular Arab tribal volunteers who had initially flocked to join the Ottoman colours.
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Such, then, was the atmosphere of political awareness around the time when Najaf ceased to enjoy its autonomy and fell under the control of the British Civil Administration of Iraq. Like its sister city, Karbela’, it was not so much a bastion of religious obscurantism as a deeply troubled and hostile centre of opposition to foreign rule. Religious feeling and national sentiment were fused into one and focused on the great western power which had so suddenly and shockingly penetrated both the Shi‘i world and the greater Muslim homeland of which it was a part. As a result, the arrival of the British in Najaf in October 1917 was followed, one month later, by the formation of a secret Islamic opposition movement – the Jam‘iyya al-Nahda al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Renaissance Movement) – whose objective was total resistance to the British occupiers and – when the moment was deemed opportune – to bring about an armed revolution which, it was believed, would spread to the remainder of occupied Iraq.

The antipathy of Najaf’s citizenry and the inhabitants of its surrounding area towards the British was exacerbated by some specific economic grievances against the occupiers. One of the first actions of the British Army as it moved into the mid-Euphrates area had been to
requisition large quantities of wheat for the provisioning of their troops. The result was a steep increase in the price of grain, the impact of which fell heavily upon the poor.
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The disruption of the local economy was also exacerbated by the ongoing military operations against the Turks which dislocated the local economy from its traditional trading relations with Syria. As elsewhere in the regions occupied by the British, the population was also subjected to a package of new taxes: taxes on housing, water tax, building tax, a tax on abattoirs, animal taxes and taxes on shops were only some of the new and onerous fiscal impositions loaded upon the local population.
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Indeed, one thing the British were always very clear about in their colonial territories was that in return for enjoying some of the benefits of British civilisation it was only proper that the natives should pay for it.

The troubles at Najaf began in December 1917. First, a British cavalry patrol was fired on from the city walls; then a British aeroplane which flew over the city received a barrage of heavy rifle fire. Next the government offices in the city were attacked and the pro-British governor and his subordinates were forced to flee to Kufa. In response the British imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 and 500 rifles on the citizenry and ordered the arrest of two individuals considered the ring-leaders of the disturbance – who promptly escaped from the city. The fine was paid but the rifles handed over turned out to be ancient firing pieces of little practical value. However, the strength of the Indian troops at Kufa was now raised to a battalion and a detachment was posted just outside the city walls.

Events now took a more tragic turn. On 1 February 1918, Captain W.M. Marshall of the Indian Political Service, who was about to go on leave to get married, was sent to Najaf as deputy to Captain C.C. Balfour, formerly of the Sudan Civil Service, who had responsibility for the whole Shamiyya Division within which Najaf was situated. Captain Marshall spoke Persian – but not Arabic, apparently – and whereas in Karbela’ the majority of the population were Persian-speaking this was not the case in the predominantly Arabic Najaf. Soon after the arrival in the city of Marshall, who was charged with the task of collecting taxes
from its hostile and unruly inhabitants, the movement of opposition to the British flared into widespread civil unrest.
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The secret Islamic Renaissance Movement which directed the unrest enjoyed widespread support within the city but its leading members, many of them from the mujtahid fraternity, were divided as to the best way to drive out the British. Some thought it would be reckless to launch an armed revolt against the occupation without some assurances that support would be forthcoming from other cities and from the tribes. Indeed, discussions had already been held with men such as Muhsin Abu Tabikh and other tribal sheikhs of the mid-Euphrates about the possibility of an uprising which would drive the occupying British from Najaf, as had occurred during the war when invading Turkish troops had successfully been driven out of the city; but the sheikhs took the view that any such action would be premature.
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Sheikh al-Shari‘a Isbahani, one of the senior mujtahidin in the city, who had played a leading role in the jihad of 1914–15 and who would later become one of the principal leaders of the 1920 insurrection, was apparently also sceptical about the likelihood of a successful revolt in Najaf and opposed it.

However, there were others, in particular a small group of individuals led by a bazaar trader called Haji Najm al-Baqqal, who had formed what was, in effect, a secret society within a secret society, and it was their belief that by some daring act of violence they could not only spur the broader Islamic Renaissance Movement in Najaf into armed action but also light the spark of a rebellion which would explode throughout the whole country.
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For a time the unrest subsided and in March the battalion at Kufa was withdrawn as it was believed by the High Command that the atmosphere in the city had considerably improved, although both Marshall and Balfour expressed their misgivings. Then, on the morning of 19 March, Haji Najm al-Baqqal and a group of his associates, disguised as shabana, the British-paid Arab police, arrived at the khan where Captain Marshall had his HQ. The twenty-seven armed attackers planned to capture and hold the watchtower of the khan, which dominated the surrounding area. Having killed the Indian sentry, they entered the building, heading
for the tower. Captain Marshall and his labour officer, who were sleeping at the time, were wakened by the commotion and Marshall tried to reach the office where the telephone was installed but he was shot dead in its doorway.
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However, by now the Punjabi guards were aroused and after an exchange of fire in which some of the attackers were wounded, Haji Najm and his men were forced to flee, leaving one of their number dead.

As soon as he heard of the attempted coup, Captain Balfour rushed to Najaf with a squadron of armoured cars from Kufa and entered the city. Although he and his escort came under heavy fire they managed to extricate the remaining Indian guards and loyal shabana from the city, although two of them were shot dead as they passed through the bazaar. For the people of Najaf, there was now no turning back: the city had declared open war on the British Civil Administration.

Its response was swift and muscular. The commander-in-chief, General William Marshall, issued a proclamation demanding the surrender of certain named individuals, including some of the leading citizens of Najaf, who were believed to have been complicit in the attack on the khan even though they did not actually take part in the raid. In addition there would be a collective fine of Rs 50,000 and 1,000 rifles, and a hundred other persons were to be handed over for deportation to India. Failure to accept these conditions would result in a complete blockade of the city.

The British ultimatum was rejected; and so, four days after the attack on the khan, Najaf was surrounded by barbed wire and all food and water supplies to the city were cut off. Moreover, unfortunately for the Najafis, a few days later, the entire Ottoman army at Ramadi, which had been holding down the British and Indian forces in the west of the Baghdad vilayet, surrendered and Marshall was able to send a full brigade south to reinforce the troops besieging Najaf. For their part, the citizens of Najaf, armed mainly with abandoned Turkish rifles, manned the city walls and bastions and took possession of a group of mounds, collectively known as Tel Huwaysh, which were outside the walls and overlooked part of the city. On these they dug trenches and built barricades.
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Over the next two weeks sporadic rifle fire was exchanged between the opposing sides while the British continued to tighten the noose
around the city. Meanwhile, the defenders managed to send letters to some of the sheikhs of the surrounding area begging for military assistance.
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Muhsin Abu Tabikh was one of the recipients; but at the same time he also received detailed information from Kufa about the strength of the British forces surrounding Najaf and in particular the fact that they were fielding heavy artillery. In the circumstances it seemed that any attempt to intervene would only result in the British forces attacking and occupying his, and other, Euphrates towns. Understandably Abu Tabikh was not prepared to take such foolhardy action.

Then, suddenly, on 7 April, the besiegers launched a massive artillery barrage upon the Najafis dug in on the Tel Huwaysh. The defenders were forced to flee behind the city walls and two battalions of Indian troops moved in to occupy the mounds.
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With the British now in possession of this important vantage point overlooking part of the city, it was now only a question of time before resistance collapsed.

On 9 April 1918, the British commander sent a message to the Grand Mujtahid Muhammad Kadhim Yazdi. The aged and deeply conservative cleric had supported the jihad of 1915 against the invaders but by now was known to be one of a group of mujtahidin in Najaf who were out of sympathy with their city’s revolt. General Marshall’s message to Yazdi was brutal and unequivocal: he would shortly commence a full-scale bombardment of one of the four mahallas of the city. Without food supplies and, even more critically, without water, the resolution of the Najafis wavered and power fell into the hands of Yazdi and his associates, who promptly offered the capitulation of the city, possibly hoping for some degree of leniency on the part of the British besiegers. By 4 May all the named individuals requested by the British had been surrendered and the other conditions met.

Gertrude Bell, writing to her father, had no doubts about the retribution which the malefactors were due. ‘Already a number of the murderers of Captain Marshall have been handed over to us. I expect and hope we’ll hang them,’ adding that, ‘the whole affair has been very successfully managed thanks to Captain Wilson and Captain Balfour’.
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A military court was assembled at Kufa to try the offenders. The proceedings of the court resulted in eleven death sentences and nine terms of imprisonment ranging from six years to life. In response, public calls for clemency were issued from all the main Iraqi Shi‘i centres. The Persian government also expressed its fears to the British minister in Tehran that Persian religious feeling might be dangerously stirred by the sentences. Letters poured in to Wilson asking him to advise General Marshall that only the two named assassins should be executed and the death sentences on the others commuted on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence, which forbids the execution of more than one man for one murder. It was to no avail. Captain Balfour, the ‘man-on-the-spot’, insisted on the mass execution. Wilson agreed and so did General Marshall. So on the morning of 25 May 1918, Haji Najm al-Baqqal and ten other Najafis were hanged in public at Kufa, before a cowed but resentful crowd.
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To Wilson the outcome was a triumph. The imposition of the harshest of terms on Najaf had been ‘a challenge to the fanatical elements throughout Mesopotamia; it was an assertion of our right, our duty, and our intention to govern without too tender a regard for the arrogant claims of the self-appointed oligarchs of the town.’

The Najafis bowed the neck. Eloquent expressions of regret were offered. Extravagant displays of submission were made by those who had been out of sympathy with the revolt including the Grand Mujtahid Yazdi. But meanwhile, the young men of the city, the tribal sheikhs of the nearby villages and a key group of nationalist mujtahidin, brooded over the injustice of the Infidels. They had witnessed Bell’s ‘making of a new world’ and they did not like it. But for the time being they refrained from further open resistance and patiently awaited their opportunity for revenge.
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