Great Britain, Reza Shah and the Surrender of Sheikh Khazal

Seyyed Mostafa Taghavi

 

Sheikh Khazal of Banikaab tribe is one of the leading Anglophile figures of Iran, who played an important role in the Khuzestan province from constitutional period onwards. He helped the British during the First World War and had their full trust on him and through the support of the British became the most powerful and the unrivalled governor of Khuzestan because of its oil rich and strategic fields of Khuzestan, Sheikh's position in that district was of great importance for the British. But he was removed from the political sconce of gram and Khuzestan by Reza Khan, 1924. When he outset to remove Sheikh, he viewed the movements of Saadat revolutionary committee as an indication for separation of Khuzestan from Iran.

 

Supported by the British, he pretended that elimination of Khazal is on endeavor to present the separation of this province, to fight against the British agents. Safarnameh ye Khuzestan (The Khuzestan travel account) was written out to inculcate the very idea. Following Reza Khan's example other Pahlavi admirers and Pahlavi writers devoted much time and pages on this issue, so as many people with limited knowledge of history would believe this.

 

But a different comment on Khazal's elimination, independent of Pahlavi trends is that the British government through 1921 coup and appointing a more trustworthy agent to have authority not only in Khuzestan but also in all over Iran, felt no need of him anymore did not need Sheikh any more. He was considered as a tool, the usefulness of which had ended.

 

In this regard, the elimination of Khazal was considered absolutely a pro-British move.

 

Further to many arguments in favor of this view, the documents published by F.O. consolidate this argument.

 

Loraine in his report of February 7th 1922 writes that Reza Khan will do the job which the British wanted to be done by the British hands. In his report to Curzon in 1884, he comments that it should be remembered that the final criterion of the British in their relations with Iran is Tehran, and the integrity of Persian Empire is more important for the interests of the British than the local superiority of their protégé. Being confident of Reza Khan's success, Loraine writes in somewhere else that now the time for canceling their old links with the local authouties has come and the support of Reza Khan means the cancellation of relations especially with the Sheikh of Mohammad (Khazal).

 

Eventually, the British government claimed that because of Sheikh's not paying his tax to control government it removes it support of Sheikh and then ordered him to surrender to Reza Khan and go to meet and welcome him.