Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family

by Tamara Chalabi

  Invited by Clemenceau to take the floor, Faisal sat in the centre of the room and read his speech in his native Arabic. He began, ‘I am happy to be here in this meeting, which gathers the most illustrious men of the great nations, and I believe that this Higher Court will do justice by the Arab nation in its pursuit of its natural rights.’ Standing near to him, Lawrence translated his words in a soft voice, too low for Clemenceau’s ears.

  Towards the end of his speech Faisal became emotional, appealing for self-determination and the independence of the Arab people. During the exchange of questions, he went so far as to state plainly that his nation had been a great civilization at a time when other nations represented at the meeting were still barbaric and primitive.

  Faisal impressed his audience with his bearing and his eloquence, but he failed in his quest. Although the situation in the Middle East was undoubtedly problematic, it was not regarded with the urgency accorded to France’s burning need for vengeance against the Germans in Europe, or Britain’s dissection of Germany’s African interests. And so a final verdict on the fate of the region was delayed until it could no longer be ignored.

  In the interim, the Middle East was politely carved up between Britain and France over cups of tea and grand banquets. Politicians drew up new borders on their maps and declared new nation-states. Early grand schemes of a large kingdom extending west to the Mediterranean, and east to the Persian border, were gradually whittled down. Iraq was the result, a set of remote provinces in the former Ottoman Empire which were given a new identity. It was a fulfilment of sorts for the region’s people, but hardly an adequate response to the many hopes invested in its creation.

  In the climate of mounting exasperation, a new underground political party emerged: the Haras al Istiqlal, or Independence Guard, which wanted an Arab government led by one of the Sharif of Mecca’s sons. The party’s meetings were attended by both Sunni and Shi’a leading families – the Chadirchi, Bazargan, Fattah, Daftari, Al-Sadr, Arif Agha, Abul Timman, Suwaidi, Kelidar, Kubba, as well as the Chalabi – indicating a Sunni–Shi’a rapprochement that the British had not been banking on; much to the dismay of British intelligence officers, who received endless reports of the meetings, often anti-British in tone, from the well-greased palms of their local informers.

  Ever alert to political developments, Abdul Hussein became closely involved with the group, although he was not a member. Along with others from Kazimiya, he was invigorated by its nationalist appeal, and soon found himself attending and hosting meeting after meeting with the effendis of Baghdad in an attempt to find a solution to the impasse with the British. To his wife Jamila’s consternation, Abdul Hussein’s dawakhana was busier than ever, and often noisy with raised voices from morning to dusk. From afar, Rumia pursed her lips in disapproval when she learned of the disruption to the household. But Bibi found herself becoming increasingly excited by the presence of political activity at such close quarters; her rapport with Abdul Hussein contributed to her attitude.

  The news stories that Abdul Rasul read out loud in the kursidar reported that France and Britain, along with Italy and Japan, had summoned a conference at San Remo in Italy to resolve the state of political limbo in the Middle East. The conference concluded in late April 1920, passing a resolution for a set of mandates in the Near East under Allied control. More importantly, it incorporated the controversial Sykes–Picot agreement of 1916, which divided up the region between the French and the British.

  The finer points of the mandate system were not fully absorbed in Baghdad, where it was viewed as a veneer for occupation. As public anxiety about the future of the region grew, the Independence Guard’s meetings in Baghdad picked up momentum and their patience with the British began to wear increasingly thin.

  On 1 June 1920 Abdul Hussein joined Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr and other Independence Guard members at the Sheikh Sandal mosque in Baghdad, where an effusive poem was read out to welcome the visitors from Kazimiya, poetry being a customary device in rallying the people. The welcome that he and his Shi’a companions were given was especially telling as they were being received in a Sunni mosque. After the collective prayer, Abdul Hussein adjourned with a group of men to a nearby house to discuss recent events and to strategize. It was decided that a rally would be organized at the shrine in Kazimiya to demonstrate the depth of the public’s anger to the British. The date was set for 3 June.

  On the appointed day, more than 5,000 men gathered in the shrine’s courtyard. Abdul Hussein stood in his family alcove, discussing the logistics of the rally with the Kelidar. They found it hard to hear each other speak above the noise, as the town criers beat their drums across town, through the marketplaces and along all the little alleyways, to make sure every man in Kazimiya came to the meeting, together with the effendis of Baghdad, who had travelled to Kazimiya by tram. The main square heaved with thousands of men, and the applause and shouts that followed the speeches from the pulpit echoed across Kazimiya. The message was sent loud and clear to the British: the people wanted Arab rule, not British occupation.

  By July more than 20,000 people had been called out by the Independence Guard to demonstrate in Baghdad’s mosques, and a full-scale rebellion broke out against the British in the south. The tribes were in revolt – the Kurds in the north and the Arabs in the south – but not as a single coordinated unit. The Independence Guard had acted cohesively, whereas the separate Shi’a tribes were encouraged by the Shi’a religious establishment in the city of Najaf to fight the British as infidel occupiers. There was talk of a Muslim state, but it was an unformulated vision. Nevertheless, there was a unifying goal: a total rejection of being incorporated into Britain’s imperial domain.

  In late September, the British began to retaliate in earnest, deploying their modern weaponry against the humble armoury of the tribes. The revolt began to flag in some regions, unsupported as it was by factions such as those tribes which had already reached separate agreements with the British over their lands.

  However, by October the security situation had worsened throughout the middle Euphrates. Even the holy towns were in tumult. The British now resorted to overwhelming force to suppress the rebellion. Aeroplanes bombed Kufa, a town near Najaf that held great significance for the Shi’a: it was in the Sahla Mosque at Kufa that Imam Ali, the first Imam and the Prophet’s cousin, had been killed during his prayers in AD 661. In bombing Kufa, the British were attacking one of the most sacred Shi’a sites.

  At the end of October there was outrage in Westminster at the loss of Iraqi and British lives and the millions of pounds that had been spent fighting the revolt. Over 6,000 Iraqis and 500 British soldiers had been killed. Yet the Iraqis had made their point; they would get their native government. Although the revolt had been short-lived, it left a deep mark on the Iraqi psyche as a major event in the birth of their nation. It also reopened the rift between the Shi’a and Sunni communities.

  Whereas the Sunnis, familiar with the realm of politics, found a modus operandi that allowed them to interact with the British, the Shi’a were prevented from doing so by their powerful religious leadership. The Shi’a ‘divines’ (as the British called these religious leaders) closed all doors on dialogue. Back in March 1920, before the outbreak of the rebellion, the Grand Ayatollah Shirazi had already issued a fatwa against dealing with the occupying forces. For most Shi’a believers, breaking with a fatwa – akin to a papal edict – was tantamount to heresy.

  Thus the pillars of the new state of Iraq were built lopsided, with the country’s Shi’a majority excluded from power. The hold of the religious establishment in Najaf, the marjayyia, was so strong that there was no alternative source of political authority to represent them. Equally, on their side the British were not predisposed to deal with the Shi’a, as they found them too extremist compared to the Sunni. They believed that the Shi’a were intransigent and would not be persuaded; that theirs was a world of principle and theory, ill-suited to the realities of life.

>   Many Shi’a grew bitter. They felt that it was because of their rebellion that the British had brought an end to their military occupation, but that now they were being punished for it by their fellow countrymen. Just as they had been under Ottoman rule, so now too they were for the most part excluded from power. The Sunni Arabs had taken that prize.

  Abdul Hussein was deeply disappointed by the turn of events. Many of his colleagues in Kazimiya and Baghdad fled British reprisals; some who had arrest warrants out in their names joined King Faisal in Damascus, including his friend Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr. Abdul Hussein knew the British had labelled him an extremist too, and he had to retreat from public life for a while, as he also risked arrest. He wished above all that his community would be pragmatic at this critical stage and engage with the actual state of things, instead of upholding its arcane theological positions. He mourned the loss of the Sultan: at least things had been clear back then.

  He tried to put on a brave face in front of his family, especially Abdul Rasul, who was terribly disappointed by the crushed revolt. The depth of his feelings was evident in his shrunken demeanour and uncharacteristic listlessness. He was certain that had all the rebelling forces united, they would have forced the British to accept their demands. Hadi agreed with him.

  Abdul Hussein kept on reiterating that everything was not lost – at least something had to be done now, for even the British couldn’t continue as before. And he hoped against hope that Faisal would deliver for all their sakes; for everything he had heard about the Sharif’s third son pleased Abdul Hussein.

  8

  A New King for a New Country

  From Mesopotamia to Iraq

  (1920–1921)

  THE FUTURE OF Baghdad, Basra and their environs was a dilemma that not only taxed Abdul Hussein and the members of his household, but also the great heads of state in Europe. The cost of occupying the region had become too high for the British to maintain, and a solution had to be found urgently. Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, wanted to resolve the débâcle as quickly as possible. Happily for him, the opportunity arose at an international conference in Cairo in April 1921. The conference was being held following the decision of the French to drive King Faisal out of Damascus, which had been promised to them as part of the Sykes–Picot agreement drawn up during the war. Faisal was now a king without a kingdom, and Iraq a country without a king. The combination of the two elements appeared, on paper, to have potential.

  The conference at Cairo was a significant occasion, and many interested parties awaited its outcome, among them Faisal’s close ally T. E. Lawrence. ‘Everyone Middle East is here!’ Lawrence announced cheerfully when greeting his colleague, the renowned British diplomat Gertrude Bell, on her arrival in Cairo for the proceedings.

  Like Lawrence, Miss Bell had been deeply involved in the region for many years. An unusual and highly educated woman who had travelled through the Middle East for over twenty years in search of love, adventure and relics, she had been the only female political officer in the Foreign Office, where her local knowledge had proved invaluable in Basra during the war, resulting in her becoming Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner in Baghdad some weeks after its fall. She had subsequently been instrumental in drawing up the borders of the new country that was to replace Mesopotamia, and was already known to the people of the region as a prominent political figure.

  Bell and Lawrence were united in their hope for Faisal to become King of Mesopotamia, or Iraq as the region was now officially called. But they were apprehensive about the likelihood of this happening, as pressure to withdraw British troops from Iraq mounted in London.

  In the event, Faisal did not attend the conference that was to decide his fate. However, as far as Churchill was concerned, installing him as King of Iraq was clearly the best solution in terms of Britain’s beleaguered finances, as well as its ability to perpetuate control over the region. Moreover, it would enable Britain to keep a tight rein on Faisal’s family, which occupied positions of power throughout the Middle East. Faisal’s would be the central role through which other members of his family could be kept in check.

  Installing Faisal represented a wise choice in other respects. The Allies’ decision to depose the Muslim Caliph, in the person of the Ottoman Sultan, was still regarded as dubious. The Caliph was, after all, revered by Muslims worldwide, including the millions in India who were under British rule. So it was a sensible move to suggest replacing the Caliph with someone even closer to the founder of the faith – for Faisal was of the Hashemite clan and as such a direct descendant of the Prophet. His father, Sharif Hussein, had even been appointed Emir of Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims (a decision the Ottomans must have regretted later when he sided with Lawrence and the Christian British against the Caliphate).

  Thus was Faisal’s role settled. Pending national elections in Iraq, which the British authorities hoped to influence without appearing to do so, the first big battle had already been won.

  When the telegram arrived announcing Faisal’s arrival in Basra, Abdul Hussein was naturally among the delegation from Baghdad that arranged to travel down and welcome him. He set off by train on 19 June 1921. This was his first experience of the railway to Basra, popularly called the shimandifair, a bastardization of the French chemin de fer (this term would in turn soon be replaced by reyll, a bastardization of the English). The track had been built by the British Army during the war, and finally completed using Indian labour in January 1920. Before then the more common method of transport had been by steamboat.

  The journey to Basra was twenty-eight hours long and very hot, but nothing could spoil Abdul Hussein’s good humour. At first he could scarcely sit still, so full of anticipation was he. At every turn in the conversation with his travelling companions, he laughed heartily. However, the air of excitement was underpinned by a sense of apprehension: this was a new and unknown political road on which they were setting out.

  As the train rattled along, following the river through palm groves, Abdul Hussein’s thoughts turned to the implications of Faisal’s arrival in Basra. He worried that protests might disrupt his reception. He didn’t know what to expect of the southern tribes, who had developed good relations with the British, and he was also suspicious of the British themselves. They had toyed with several other local candidates, so he was not sure if they really wanted Faisal. He also worried that Faisal wouldn’t be able to handle Iraq’s mixed population, which required deft management.

  The train arrived at Basra station late at night. Abdul Hussein arrived feeling exhausted and restless, and was grateful to step out into the cool evening air. Unlike the last time he had visited the city, when a horse-drawn carriage had taken him from the port, this time he was met at the station by a driver in a Morris Cowley convertible. It was too dark to see the patterns of the delicately latticed windows of the townhouses by the river, but the moon’s reflection on the water moved him to recite the opening verse of the Quran in thanks for such beauty.

  Rashid Street, one of Baghdad’s main thoroughfares in the late 1920s.

  The British navy ship HMS Northbrook had carried Faisal and his party from Jeddah. Several of them were Iraqis who had fled to Faisal after the 1920 revolt. Abdul Hussein’s good friend Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr was among them. Also at Faisal’s side was his British aide of some years’ standing, Kinahan Cornwallis, a distinguished diplomat and Arabist who would in time be the object of Gertrude Bell’s unrequited love.

  The party arrived at Basra port in the late afternoon of 23 June 1921, after a journey of eleven days. A small crowd of onlookers was waiting at the pier for them, but there were no loud cheers: they had come out of curiosity. Only weeks earlier, perhaps inspired by Kuwait’s example next door, the people of Basra had petitioned for complete autonomy and a republic. The tribes, meanwhile, resented the notion of a king altogether.

  No sooner had Faisal greeted his official reception committee than he was taken asid
e by the British political officer St John Philby, and advised that he would have to earn the respect of the people, who were going to vote in free elections. In short, it was by no means a fait accompli that he would be king.

  In contrast with this hard-headed exchange, Abdul Hussein’s encounter with Faisal was altogether more amicable. Expecting to be overwhelmed and perhaps a little tongue-tied, Abdul Hussein was surprised to feel at ease. A delicate man, Faisal was very cordial, more approachable and likeable than Abdul Hussein had imagined he would be. Indeed, before he had a chance to greet the new regent properly, Faisal was thanking him for his courtesy in having travelled so far for the purpose of welcoming their party. Abdul Hussein bowed his head deeply and told Faisal of the high esteem in which he held his forefathers, the Prophet’s family. He pledged his service and loyalty, and extended an invitation to him to visit the Chalabi house when he came to Baghdad.

  Faisal accepted Abdul Hussein’s invitation graciously, but explained that first he had to travel up through the country to the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala in order to pay respect to his ancestors – he was referring to the Shi’a shrines of Imam Ali and his son Imam Hussein. It was hoped that this would gain him favour in the hostile cities that remained subject to the Ayatollah’s fatwa, prohibiting them from interacting with the British or their representatives. The Shi’a were also still smarting from the previous year’s revolt and from the strong hand that the British wielded against them. Faisal, a stranger in this land, was keenly aware of the need to win them over.

  In light of Faisal’s clear concerns about the size of the task that lay before him, Abdul Hussein saw his chance to make a favourable impression and instil in the new King a sense of support that, he hoped, would encourage him in his work. Much would depend on the hospitality he could summon up back in Kazimiya.