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RESISTANCE TO ECONOMIC PENETRATION: THE KĀRGUZĀR AND FOREIGN FIRMS IN QAJAR IRAN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2011

Gad G. Gilbar
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Abstract

European merchants and investors doing business in the Middle East during the long 19th century expected that commercial disputes in mixed cases would be conducted according to procedures and laws familiar to and accepted by them. In the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, mixed courts based on the French commercial code were established during that century. The Qajars, however, offered the foreign commercial community a different judicial institution: the local kārguzār (agent) and his majlis (court). By the beginning of the 20th century, thirty-six kārguzār offices operated in Iranian towns and harbors. Nevertheless, foreign (mainly British) merchants and their consuls complained bitterly that it was not an effective institution and that it clearly favored the local tujjār (big merchants). They claimed that these defects meant huge financial losses to them. The Qajars viewed this institution and its functioning differently. It served their policy of discouraging foreign penetration, and it contributed to the competitiveness of the Iranian tujjār in their struggle for commercial superiority.

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 5 - 23
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

NOTES

Author's note: The last sections of this article were presented at the XXV International Conference on the Historiography of Asia and Africa, St. Petersburg State University, April 2009. I am grateful to the IJMES anonymous reviewers and to the editor and the managing editor of the journal for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am also indebted to my colleague Dr. Boris Morozov for his help with this study. Research in British and Russian archives was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 865/06).

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22 William Taylor Thomson, Britain's ambassador in Tehran (1872–79), wrote in December 1873 that in “cases between foreign and Persian subjects . . . usage has superseded the terms of the treaty in question [Turkmanchai].” Other British diplomats in Iran, as well as officials at the India Office and the FO, endorsed Thomson's view. See Haworth to Clive, Bushire, 6 August 1927, inclosure in no. 109, Clive to Chamberlain, Gulhek, 7 September 1927, E 4106/526/34, FO 416/81, NAUK.

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25 As late as March 1856 the term dabīr to designate the agent of the Iranian FO was still in use in Tabriz. See Abbott to Murray, Tabriz, 22 March 1856, FO 248/163, NAUK.

26 See Martin and Nouraei, “Kārguzār. I: Diplomatic Relations,” 263, n. 15; and Martin, Vanessa, The Qajar Pact: Bargaining, Protest and the State in Nineteenth-Century Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 38Google Scholar.

27 For lists of the cities/provinces that had kārguzār offices in the early 1880s, see Khan, Muhammad Hasan Saniʿ al-Dawla Iʿtimad al-Saltana, Mirʾat al-Buldan-i Nasiri, 4 vols. (Tehran: n.p., 1981–84), 2Google Scholar: appendix, 21, 3: appendix, 37; and Stolze, F. and Andreas, F. C., Die Handelsverhältnisse Persiens, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der deutschen Interessen (Gotha, Germany: Justus Perthes, 1885), 66Google Scholar. Between the late 1880s and the early 1900s the number of kārguzār offices almost doubled. See Nouraei, Morteza, “Kārgozār,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982–), 15:559Google Scholar.

28 Barclay to Grey, telegram no. 696, Tehran, 14 December 1911; Barclay to Grey, telegram no. 705, Tehran, 15 December 1911; Barclay to Grey, telegram no. 708, Tehran, 16 December 1911; Barclay to Grey, telegram no. 713, Tehran, 17 December 1911, FO 371/1181, NAUK.

29 On the sources of ʿurf jurisdiction, see Sepsis, A., “Quelques mots sur l'etat religieux actuel de la Perse,” Revue de l'Orient, de l'Algérie et de colonies 3 (1844): 104Google Scholar; Curzon, George N., Persia and the Persian Question (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892), 1:454–55Google Scholar; Tomar, M. L., Economicheskoe polozhenie Persii (St. Petersburg: Ministerstvo Finansov, 1895), 115Google Scholar; Greenfield, James, Das Handelsrecht einschliesslich des Obligationen-und Pfandrechtes, das Urkundenrecht, Konkursrecht und das Fremdenrecht von Persien (Berlin: R.v. Decker's Verlag, n.d. [1909]), 11Google Scholar; and Sobotsinskii, L. A., Persiia: Statistiko-ekonomicheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg: Krovitskii, 1913), 301Google Scholar. For an interesting case demonstrating the great difference between shariʿa and ʿurfī jurisdiction, see Herbert Busse's remark in History of Persia under Qājār Rule: Hasan-e Fasāʾi's Farsnama-yi Nāseri (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 408, n. 475.

30 Greenfield, Handelsrecht, 11.

31 Ibid., 24.

32 Wishard, John G., Twenty Years in Persia: A Narrative of Life under the Last Three Shahs (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1908), 277Google Scholar.

33 The kārguzār of Bushihr in the early 1870s was a merchant, and his son held the same office in Bandar ʿAbbas. See Mirza Hasan Fasaʾi, Farsnama-yi Nasiri, lith. (Tehran: n.p., 1895–96), 2:43–45.

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35 “Hasan, Muhammad,” in Mihdi Bamdad, Sharh-i Hal-i Rijal-i Iran, dar Qurun-i 12, 13 wa 14 Hijri (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-yi Zawwar, 1968–69), 3:354Google Scholar.

36 Nasir al-Din's long-standing refusal to open the Karun River to international navigation is perhaps the best known example of his negative attitude toward foreign “economic” penetration for strategic reasons. He was not impressed by arguments made by British representatives in Iran that opening the Karun would contribute to the economic prosperity of the southern provinces. See Kazemzadeh, Firuz, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914: A Study in Imperialism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), 160–61Google Scholar; and Walcher, Heidi A., In the Shadow of the King: Zill al-Sultān and Isfahān under the Qājārs (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), 60.Google Scholar Similarly, the shah did not permit the development of a harbor at Giz on the Caspian Sea lest it strengthen Russian influence in Astarabad. See “Report by Consul [Henry Adrian] Churchill on the Trade and Commerce of Ghilan, Mazenderan, and Asterabad for the Year 1876,” United Kingdom, House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers (hereafter PPAP) 82 (1877): 761.

37 Amanat, Abbas, Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1997), 425Google Scholar.

38 For the complex chapter in Iran's history on granting concessions to foreigners, see Jamalzada, Muhammad ʿAli, Ganj-i Shaygan (Berlin: Kawa, 1917), 101–104Google Scholar, 106, 112–15; Taymuri, Ibrahim, ʿAsr-i Bikhabari ya Tarikh-i Imtiyazat dar Iran, 4th ed. (Tehran: Chap-i Iqbal, 1984), 97–364Google Scholar; Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain, 100ff.; and Mansoureh Ettehadieh (Nezam Mafi), “Concessions. ii- in the Qajar Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 6:120–21.

39 This position was clearly manifested in the case of the majālis-i wukalā-yi tujjār. See Adamiyat, Firidun and Natiq, Huma, Afkar-i Ijtimaʿi wa Siyasi wa Iqtisadi dar Athar-i Muntashir Nashuda-yi Dawra-yi Qajar (Tehran: Intisharat-i Agha, 1977), 299–371Google Scholar; and Gilbar, Gad G., “The Rise and Fall of the Tujjār Councils of Representatives in Iran, 1884–85,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 51 (2008): 639–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Gilbar, “Rise and Fall,” 668.

41 See, for example, “Report by Consul General [Henry M.] Jones,” Tabriz, November 1872, PPAP 67 (1873): 377; Edward Charles Ross, “Reports . . . on the Trade and Commerce of the Persian Gulf for the Years 1873–78,” PPAP 73 (1880): 249; Edward Charles Ross, “Report on the Trade of Southern Persia and the Persian Gulf for the year 1889,” FO Diplomatic and Consular Reports (hereafter DCR), Annual Reports (hereafter AS) 760 (1890), 5; “Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Persian Gulf for the Year 1900 by Lieut.-Colonel C. A. Kemball,” DCR AS 2631 (1901), 7–8; “Report on the Trade of the Consular District of Resht for the year 1902–03 by Acting Vice-Consul [Alfred F.] Churchill,” DCR AS 3109 (1908), 8; “Report on the Trade and Commerce of Bushire for the Year 1906–07, by Vice-Consul H. G. Chick,” DCR AS 3951 (1908), 5; “Report on the Trade of the Provinces of Seistan and Kain for the Year ending February 19, 1907, by Major R. L. Kennion,” DCR AS 3970 (1908), 10; “Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Province of Arabistan for the Year ended March 20, 1908, by Consul W. McDouall,” DCR AS 4134 (1908), 4; “Report on the Trade of the Consular District of Bushire for the Persian Fiscal Year March 22, 1909, to March 21, 1910, by Mr. N. Worrall . . .,” DCR AS 4606 (1910), 7; M. Nikol'skii, “Torgovlia Giliana v 1908 godu,” Rossiiskaia Imperiia, Ministerstvo Inostramykh Del, Sbornik Konsul'skikh Donesenii (hereafter SKD) 1909, N2: 120–21; Suprunov to the board of the Discount and Loan Bank of Persia (review of the foreign trade of Khorasan), Mashhad, undated (1911 or 1912), 600/10/215, Russiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (Russian State Historical Archive), St. Petersburg (hereafter RGIA); and Lorimer, J. G., Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ʿOmān and Central Arabia (Calcutta: Government Printing, 1915), 1/2:2142Google Scholar.

42 See in particular “the Suleiman (Karikoor) case” and “the Shabankara case.” For the first case, see “Kārguzār's Report” (translation), Mashhad, 27 June 1890, inclosure no. 36 in “Documents showing the result of the official inquiry into the death of Suliman . . .,” MacLean to Wolff, Mashhad, 19 July 1890, FO 248/504, NAUK. For the Shabankara case, see “Judgment Order, 14th Zi Hijje, 1327,” “Note, 18/12/09,” and “Note, 22/12/09,” inclosure no. 3 in no. 4/164, Trevor to Barckay, Bushire, 14 January 1909, FO 248/990, NAUK. For an illuminating discussion of the Shabankara case, see Nouraei and Martin, “Karguzar. III: Disputes,” 154–57. For an analysis of the Suleiman (Karikoor) case, see Gad G. Gilbar, “The Mysterious Death of a Commercial Agent and the Kārguzār of Mashhad, April–June 1890,” forthcoming.

43 Consul Chick to Sir R. Clive, Shiraz, 5 May 1927, inclosure 5 in Sir R. Clive to Sir Austen Chamberlain, Tehran, 20 May 1927, no. 167, FO 416/80, NAUK. For an earlier version of the same conclusion, see H. G. Chick, “Report on the Trade of the Consular District of Bushire for the Persian Fiscal Year March 21, 1911, to March 20, 1912,” DCR AS 5093 (1913), 24.

44 Henry M. Jones wrote in 1871 that “. . . losses sustained by the European houses here [Tabriz] amount to 40,000l . . .” See “Report . . . on the Trade and Commerce of Tabreez for the Year 1870,” PPAP 65 (1871): 241. John Lorimer wrote in 1914: “When an account of outstanding British and quasi-British claims was made, at the beginning of 1900, for the Persian Coast and Islands, ʿArabistan, and Persian Makran, it was found that there were no less than 105 cases calling for joint investigation and settlement, and that some of them were as much as eight years old. The total of the compensation claimed in the whole of the cases was £27,597 . . .” See Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf 1/2: 2142. See also Floor, “Bankruptcy,” 75.

45 Suprunov to the board of the Discount and Loan Bank of Persia, (review of the foreign trade of Khorasan), Mashhad, undated (1911 or 1912), 600/10/215, RGIA.

46 For Nasir al-Din's endeavors to reform the administration, see Bakhash, Shaul, Iran, Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform under the Qajars: 1858–1896 (London: Ithaca Press, 1978), 166–70Google Scholar, 281–82.

47 Blau, Otto E., Commercielle Zustände Persiens. Aus den Erfahrungen einer Reise im Sommer 1857 dargestellt (Berlin: Verlag der Königlichen geheimen ober-hofbuchdrukerei, 1858), 56Google Scholar. Unlike Tabriz, Tehran did not have a mixed court in the mid-1850s. This is evident from memos written by ambassadors Charles Murray and Justin Sheil in January 1856 and March 1857, respectively. See Lambton, Ann K. S., “The Case of Hājjī ‘Abd al-Karīm. A Study on the Role of the Merchant in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Persia,” in Iran and Islam, ed. Bosworth, C. E. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1971), 346Google Scholar.

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50 Prideaux to Thornton, Bushire, 22 June 1876, inclosure no. 4 in Hamilton to Tenterden, India Office, 11 April 1877, FO 881/3538, NAUK. Pelly's proposal was supported by the government of India in early 1873. See Haworth to Clive, Bushire, 6 August 1927, E 4106/526/34, FO 416/81, NAUK.

51 Edwards to Ross, Bushire, 24 February 1873, FO 248/290, NAUK; Ross to Thornton, Bushire, 11 April 1876, inclosure no. 2, and Prideaux to Thornton, Bushire, 22 June 1876, inclosure no. 4, in Hamilton to Tenterden, India Office, 11 April 1877, FO 881/3538, NAUK.

52 The majlis (or ijlās) was an informal institution convened and headed by the malik al-tujjār in the main urban centers with the aim of settling disputes among the tujjār and between them and other members of the commercial and financial community (dallālān, bunakdārān, ṣarrāfān) as well as between merchants and their clients and suppliers. In consultation with the disputing sides, the malik invited prominent merchants to join the majlis and work out an acceptable compromise. The majlis had no formal authority and derived its standing from the preference of the tujjār for a process of arbitration rather than a court decision. See Greenfield, Das Handelsrecht, 27; Gad G. Gilbar, “Malik al-Tudjdjār,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 6:276–77.

53 Ross, “Commerce of the Persian Gulf,” PPAP 73 (1880): 249.

54 Haworth to Clive, Bushire, 6 August 1927, E 4106/526/34, FO 416/81, NAUK.

55 The Government of India to Salisbury, Fort William, 15 December 1876, inclosure no. 1 in Hamilton to Tenterden, India Office, 11 April 1877, FO 881/3538.

56 George Hamilton to the FO, 4 April 1877, in Haworth to Clive, Bushire, 6 August 1927, E 4106/526/34, FO 416/81, NAUK.

57 Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain, 154–55.

58 Terrington to India Office, 11 July 1877, quoted in Haworth to Clive, Bushire, 6 August 1927, E 4106/526/34, FO 416/81, NAUK.

59 Edward Charles Ross, “Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Persian Gulf for the Year 1879,” PPAP 75 (1880): 1733; and Ross, “Southern Persia,” DCR 760, 5.

60 Kemball, DCR 2631 (1900), 7. A year later Kemball was less optimistic regarding the likelihood of change in the administration of justice in mixed cases. He quoted a leading (British?) merchant with extensive experience in Iran who “advises British merchants to exercise more caution in their dealings and to avoid giving indiscriminate credit.” See “Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Persian Gulf for the Year 1901 by Lieut.-Colonel C. A. Kemball,” DCR AS 2803 (1902), 6.

61 Arthur Hardinge to Edward Grey, separate and confidential, London, 23 December 1905, no. 9 [381], 22, FO 416/26, NAUK.

62 Ibid.

63 See, for example, R. L. Kennion, “Report on the Trade of Khorassan for the Year 1905–06 . . .,” DCR AS 3724 (1906), 8. For a similar approach of a Russian observer, see Ter-Gukasov, G. I., Politicheskie i ekonomicheskie interesy Rossii v Persii (St. Petersburg: Ministerstvo Finansov, 1916), 95Google Scholar.

64 Chick, DCR 5093 (1913), 24.

65 Chick to Clive, Shiraz, 5 May 1927, inclosure 5 in R. Clive to Austen Chamberlain, Tehran, 20 May 1927, no. 167, E 2523/526/34, FO 416/80, NAUK.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.; Haworth to Clive, Bushire, 6 August 1927, E 4106/526/34, FO 416/81.

68 Iran unilaterally abolished the Capitulations by notifying the foreign powers in May 1927 that all exterritorial agreements were to terminate after a period of one year. Moazzami, Abdollah, Essai sur la condition des étrangers en Iran (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1937), 72–75Google Scholar.

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70 G. Ovseenko, “Vvoz sahara v porty Persidskogo zaliva,” SKD, 1903, 1:32–33.

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73 The head of the Mashhad branch to the board of the Discount and Loan Bank of Persia, Mashhad, 4 August 1909, 600/9/1060, RGIA; “Report,” The head of the Mashhad branch, Mashhad, 9 August 1909, 600/9/1060, RGIA; “Report,” The head of the Mashhad branch, Mashhad, no date, 600/9/1060, RGIA; The head of the Mashhad branch to the board, Mashhad, 17 December 1911, 600/9/1060, RGIA; The head of the Mashhad branch to the board, Mashhad, 22 March 1914, 600/9/1060, RGIA; and “The New Agreement between Zawwar and the Bank,” Persian text and Russian translation, Mashad, 4 February 1914, 600/9/1060, RGIA.

74 Muhammad Riza was a cousin of Hajji Muhammad Hasan Amin al-Darb. See “Rais-ut-Tujjar II, Muhammad Raza Khan of Meshed,” in Churchill, George P., Biographical Notices of Persian Statesmen and Notables, September 1909 (Calcutta: Government Printing, 1910), 88Google Scholar; and Government of India, “Meshed,” Gazetteer of Persia, 1:539.

75 The head of Mashhad branch to the board, Mashhad, 27 January 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA; The first mīrzā of the consulate to the director of the bank in Tehran, telegram, Mashhad, 3 March 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA; The consul general in Mashhad to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, telegram, Mashhad, 12 March 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA; The head of the Mashhad branch to the board, Mashhad, 14 April 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA; Mashhad branch to the board, Mashhad, 29 April 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA; and the kārguzār of Mashhad to the head of the Mashhad branch, translation, Mashhad, 24 May 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA.

76 The head of the Mashhad branch to the board, Mashhad, 19 June 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA; “Decision of the Board of the Discount and Loan Bank,” St. Petersburg, 5 July 1914, 600/10/281, RGIA.

77 The consul general in Mashhad to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, telegram, Mashhad, 25 April 1915, 600/10/281, RGIA.

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80 Gilbar, Gad G., “Demographic Developments in Late Qājār Persia, 1870–1906,” Asian and African Studies 11 (1976/77): 154Google Scholar. The figure for Iran is a crude estimate for 1904.

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85 Yaganegi, Esfandiar Bahram, Recent Financial and Monetary History of Persia (New York: n.p., 1938), 18–28Google Scholar; and Issawi, The Economic History of Iran, 16.

86 Issawi, An Economic History of the Middle East, 68–71.

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88 Findley, Carter Vaughn, “The Tanzimat,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. IV. Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Kasaba, Reşat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 36–37Google Scholar.

89 See Nasir al-Din's letter to his minister of foreign affairs, summarized and partly quoted in Thomson to Salisbury, Tehran, 26 January 1879, no. 38, FO 539/13, NAUK.

90 Taymuri, ʿAsr-i Bikhabari, 124–26; idem, Qarardad-i Rizhi, Tahrim-i Tanbaku, Awwalin Muqawamat-i Manfi dar Iran (Tehran: Shirkat-i Sahami-yi Kitabha-yi Jibi, 1983); Lambton, Ann K. S., “The Tobacco Régie: Prelude to Revolution,” Studia Islamica 22 (1965): 119–57, 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; (1966): 71–90; Keddie, Nikki R., Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891–1892 (London: Frank Cass, 1966)Google Scholar; and Kosogovskii, V. A., Iz tegeranskogo dnevnika polkovnika V.A. Kosogovskogo, ed. Petrov, G. M. (Moscow: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1960), 139–42Google Scholar.

91 The ʿulamaʾ of Isfahan played a central role in the campaign to refrain from buying foreign (mainly British) textiles and in the establishment of the Iranian joint stock textile company Shirkat-i Islamiyi in 1899. See Jamalzada, Ganj-i Shaygan, 98; Lambton, Ann K. S., “Secret Societies and the Persian Revolution of 1905–6,” St Antony's Papers: Middle Eastern Affairs 1 (1957): 51Google Scholar; Hatam, Anja Pistor, “Islamic Trading Companies as a Prerequisite for Progress: The Case of the šerkat-e eslamiyeh of Isfahan,” in Matériaux pour l'histoire économique du monde Iranien, ed. Gyselen, Rika and Szuppe, Maria (Paris: Association pour l'avancement des études Iraniennes, 1999), 322–23Google Scholar; and Walcher, In the Shadow of the King, 200–202.

92 On the fierce opposition of Hajj Mirza Jawad Aqa Mujtahid, see Adamiyat and Natiq, Afkar-i Ijtimaʿi, 356–61; and Gilbar, “Rise and Fall,” 661–65.

93 “Report by Consul-General [Henry M.] Jones on the Trade of the Province of Azerbijan for the Year 1870,” PPAP 66 (1871): 961; “Report by Consul-General [Henry M.] Jones on the State of Trade in the Province of Azerbijan during the Year 1872,” PPAP 65 (1873): 969; and “Report on the Trade and Commerce of Bunder Abbas and Lingah for the Year 1907–08 by Lieutenant C. H. Gabriel . . .,” DCR AS 4076 (1908), 7.

94 For a discussion of the difficulties British firms faced in Qajar Iran, see Bostock, Frances and Jones, Geoffrey, “British Business in Iran, 1860s–1970s,” in British Business in Asia since 1860, ed. Davenport-Hines, R. P. T. and Jones, Geoffrey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 40–45Google Scholar. The authors did not, however, touch upon the judicial factor in their study.

95 On the attitude of the Iranian tujjār toward foreign firms and banks and their relations with foreign merchants and investors, see Ashraf, Mawaniʿ-i Taʾrikh, 50, 55; Natiq, Huma, Bazarganan dar Dad wa-Sitad ba Bank-i Shahi wa-Rizhi Tanbaku (Paris: Intisharat-i Khawaran, 1992), 163–75Google Scholar; Ittihadiyya, Mansura (Nizam Mafi), Inja Tihran ʾAst . . . Majmuaʿ-i Maqalat darbarah-i Tihran 1269–1344 H.Q. (Tehran: Nashr-i Taʾrikh-i Iran, 1998), 337–52Google Scholar; and Mahdavi, Shireen, For God, Mammon, and Country: A Nineteenth Century Persian Merchant, Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin al-Zarb (1834–1898) (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999), 39–42Google Scholar.

96 Nouraei and Martin, “Karguzar. III: Disputes,” 162–63.

97 See, for example, Qawwam al-Dawla to Wolff, [Tehran], 11 Jumada ʾl-ukhra 1306/12 February 1889, FO 248/488, NAUK.