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Muhsin Abu-Tabikh
Iraqi politician From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Sayyid Muhsin bin Hassan bin Ali bin Idris (Arabic: السيد محسن بن حسن بن علي بن إدريس; 1878–1961), better known as Muhsin Abu-Tabikh (محسن أبو طبيخ), was a prominent Iraqi nationalist, one of the leaders of the 1920 Iraqi Revolt and convicted fraudster.
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Biography
He was born in 1878 in Ghammas, a district of Diwaniyah Governorate in southern Iraq.[1][2] Known for his contribution to the Iraqi revolution against British occupation.[3] He fought with the Ottoman army against Britain in 1915. On October 6, 1920, it was decided by revolutionaries that a national government must be formed through an elected revolutionary council to oversee the areas liberated from the British.[3] Abu-Tabikh was appointed the head of the new government, the administration was set up temporarily in Karbala. Celebrations took place in the city hall in the midst of crowds that exceeded tens of thousands, where he raised the first Iraqi flag in modern history.[3][4]
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Land theft controversy
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Abu-Tabikh and his father were found guilty by the British Administration of stealing 30,000 acres of land from the Khaza'il family by allying with the Ottoman Administration to implement fraudulent deeds in their name, in order to diminish the control of the Banu Khuza'ah over their Kingdom in the Middle Euphrates.[5]
British Administrator James Mann wrote:
"I went off on Friday morning on horseback to Ghammas, a ride of about eighteen miles ... and started in at once with the hearing of a famous land dispute. ... The land in dispute is about 1500 acres, and thirty years ago it belonged to a great tribe called the Khazail, who took no notice of the Turkish Government, and did not pay any taxes. In 1889 the Turks decided to do something, so they sold the land, with an enormous amount besides—probably 30,000 acres in all—for a nominal sum to a rich man called Saiyid Hasan who stood well with them, on his promising to pay the necessary taxes. The whole business was accompanied by amazing bribery and fraud, and the deeds of sale are so fatuous as to be entirely invalid. But the Turks provided troops to push out the tribes, and Saiyid Hasan managed to get possession and cultivate a great part of the land. Of the particular piece now under dispute, however, he never got possession, and the Khazail people remained in occupation. Saiyid Hasan in due time died, and in 1904 his son, Saiyid Mohsin Abu Tabikh, inherited the property. He ... could not endure the presence of these tribesmen on land for which he held his father's deeds. He twice obtained Turkish troops to drive them out, and was once successful, so that in 1910 he managed to grow some crops on the land. But back they came, and there they have stayed until this day. In 1918 Saiyid Mohsin petitioned the British to reinstate him, and the A.P.O. of those days (since deceased) rather unfortunately took his deed at its face value, and ordered possession to be given him. The order was not completely carried out, and there has been constant trouble: and a few months ago suspicions were raised about the validity of the deeds (which are of course in Turkish), and they were sent to Baghdad for investigation. Needless to say, they were pronounced wholly worthless."[6]
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After the revolution
Abu-Tabikh was one of the members of the Iraqi delegation that arrived in Mecca on March 9, 1921, to meet with Sharif Hussein and ask him to appoint his son as king of Iraq.[7] He accompanied Fasil I when he first arrived in Basra on June 23, 1921.[8] After the formation of the Iraqi government, he moved his residence to Baghdad and married Saniyah Al-Sandoq, the sister of Iraqi archaeologist Izz al-Din Al-Sandoq. Under the monarchy, he was a member of the Iraqi senate until it was overthrown by the 1958 revolution. He stopped his political activity after the 1958 revolution, which had seized most of the agricultural lands that belonged to his family as part of agrarian reform law at that time. However, the republican revolutionaries had a great deal of respect and appreciation for him, and he remained a respected and honored figure in his old age. Muhsin Abu-Tabikh died in Baghdad in 1961.[9]
Name and family lineage
According to Jawad al-Shahristani he was the descendant of Sayyid Idris, who is considered the first to become known by the title “Abu-Tabikh” for feeding masses of people of his region in the Middle Euphrates. "Tabikh" means food, which is rice with meat in "the year of famine", he and his descendants became famous for this event and were given the title "Abu-Tabikh".[10]
Works
He authored the book Principles and Men[9] and several memoir manuscripts which were collected by his son Jamil Abu-Tabikh into one book, the book was published under the title Memoirs of Sayyid Muhsin Abu-Tabikh 1910-1960, fifty years of Iraq's modern political history in which he described the 1920 revolution as "a sacred revolution; a great revolution that influenced history in a significant way." His evidence is that the revolution gave birth to the Iraqi state, which was the revolution's "highest goal".[3]
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See also
References
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