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Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume30, Number 3, 2010, pp. 512-532 (Article)

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Bones of Contention: Corpse Traffic and Ottoman- Iranian Rivalry in Nineteenth- Century Iraq

SabriAte

he Ottoman- Iranian frontier, which had fluctuated with the fortunes of war and never been a strict dividing line, was permanently fixed by a nineteenth- century interna-tional order intent on mapping out the world according to its needs and methods of

organization. In spite of attempts to demarcate and delimit it, in times of both war and peace, the frontier region witnessed the relatively free flow of goods and ideas, as well as diseases, refugees, fugitives, courtesans, nomadic and seminomadic tribes, pilgrims, princes, sheikhs and ayatollahs, and, many a time, armies. Yet unlike any other frontier region, this one also witnessed caravans carrying the corpses and bones of the faithful to be buried in the cemeter-ies of the holy Shii cities of Ottoman Iraq. One could claim that, together with banditry, com-mercial activities related to corpse and pilgrim traffic constituted one of the most persistent economic activities of the Ottoman- Iranian borderland. Iranian exports were not limited to the celebrated silks, saffron, and precious metals destined for the elite.

European travelers to the region in the nineteenth century rather scornfully report that at times thousands of people, accompanied by hundreds of coffins, crossed from Iran into the Ottoman Iraq, and at times smaller caravans carrying the bodies of the devout in long narrow boxes secured on the backs of mules crossed the frontier. William Kenneth Loftus, an auxiliary member of the Turco- Persian Frontier Commission in the early 1850s, provides an account from An Najaf:

The dead are conveyed in boxes covered with coarse felt, and placed two on each side upon a mule, or one upon each side, with a ragged conductor on the top, who smokes his kaliyun and sings cheer-ily as he jogs along, quite unmindful of his charge. Every caravan traveling from Persia to Baghdad carries numbers of coffins; and it is no uncommon sight, at the end of a days march, to see fifty or sixty piled upon each other on the ground.1

Another traveler, H. Swainson Cowper, who witnessed many of these ghastly processions, maintains, A rickety wicker coffin fastened across a mules back was the usual sight, and as many of them have been brought hundreds of miles from Persia and India it is commonly

ThisarticlewaswrittenwhileIwasaSeniorResidentialFel-lowatKoUniversitysResearchCenterforAnatolianCiviliza-tionsinIstanbul,andwasalsosupportedbytheAmericanRe-searchInstituteinTurkeyandSouthernMethodistUniversity.IamcurrentlycompletingmybookonthetransformationoftheOttoman-Iranianfrontierintoaboundary.Unlessotherwisenoted,alltranslationsaremine.

1.WilliamKennethLoftus,Travels and Researches in Chaldea and Susiana(NewYork:RobertCarterandBrothers,1857),54.

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supposed that a very unsanitary state of things exists in these corpse caravans. 2 Indeed, as the coming pages will show, the sanitary aspect of corpse traffic would make it an international problem and change its course for good. Yet an-other observer, John Ussher, reports, The bod-ies were covered in thin deal and covered with felt, in which the bodies after having been first buried for a year or two and then disin-terred were placed. 3 Usher adds that rich Per-sians sent their dead for interment immediately after death. Indeed, members of the royal fam-ily and other notables would occasionally bring the corpse of one of theirs, like the daughter of Abbas Mirza, to be buried in the precincts of the holy shrines, accompanied by dignitaries in elaborate processions. At the other extreme, members of the poorer classes, who pooled re-sources to pay for a transport mule that would carry up to six long boxes, were forced to tem-porarily bury the bodies of their dead closer to home, until they could amass the necessary means to send the bones for interment. Some pious but poor were not even able to pay the cost of the mule or the small tax levied at the border. Ussher reports the sad story of a poor gentleman trying to evade the small tax levied on coffins and so fulfill the will of his father, whose bones he hid in a bag of barley.4

The shrines to which both rich and poor came to visit, and the cemeteries to which they brought their dead for burial, were located in the cities of An Najaf, Karbala, Al Kazimiyah, and Samarra, collectively known as the atabat, or the shrines of the imams. Of these, An Najaf (home to the shrine of Ali ibn Abi Talib) and Karbala (home to the shrines of Alis son, Husayn bin Ali, and Husayns half brother, Abbas) are the sacred hearts of the Shia world.5 Additionally, the cemeteries of Wadi Al- Salam in An Najaf, Wadi al- Iman in Karbala, Maqabir Quraysh at Al Kazimiyah, and al- Tarima in Samarra are the

four major sacred burial grounds. While large numbers of the living faithful f locked to the holy cities for pilgrimage, many wanted them to be their eternal resting places as well. As a result, every year thousands of corpses arrived from Shia Iraq and Iran, as well as India, to the shrine cities, or Mesahid- i Mukaddese, as Otto-man documents call them.

Moved by the Shii doctrine of imamate and the belief in an imams power of interses-sion or the act of intervening on the believers behalf on the day of resurrection, and many other traditions, Shiis had for centuries nego-tiated, and increasingly confronted, the Sunni masters of Iraq for the opportunity to bury their dead at the four consecrated cemeteries. By the nineteenth century, their efforts had made corpse traffic not only a lucrative trade but also a source of tension, between Ottoman and Iranian authorities, as well as between Shii Ottoman subjects and their government. The corpses and bones that the caravans car-ried, along with the rituals, requirements, and limitations related to the hallowed grounds to which they traveled, became ties that bound the Shii Iranian state and society to the Shii Otto-man world; yet they also sharpened the bones of contention between the Ottoman and Iranian states, on the one hand, and the Ottoman state and its Shii citizens, on the other.

Consequently, the dead bodies, and the question of how to deal with them, became a sig-nificant religio- political issue inextricable from questions of sovereignty, frontiers, and com-merce and, in the nineteenth century, increas-ingly of public hygiene, sanitation, and sanitary surveillance at boundaries. With the cholera epidemics in the third decade of the nineteenth century, this last matter made the corpse and pilgrimage traffic part of a global problem: that of preventing the spread of contagious diseases. Hence the bones of the poor gentleman hidden

2.H.SwainsonCowper,Through Turkish Arabia: A Journey from the Mediterranean to Bombay by the Eu-phrates and Tigris Valleys and the Persian Gulf (Lon-don:H.Allen,1894),372.

3. JohnUssher,A Journey from London to Persepolis(London:DurstandBlackett,1865),439.

4. Ashorttimebeforetheperiodofourvisitamanwhowasknownnottobelongtothetownwasob-servedbytheastutesentrybringinginabagofbar-ley,whichtheuprightsoldier,whosuspectedatrick,

andwhomnothingbutabribecouldcorrupt(inthiscasethedelinquentwastoopoortoofferone)in-sistedonexamining.Underneathacoveringofbarleywasfoundtheskeletonofthebearersfather,whichwasthusplacingsurreptitiously,andwithoutpayingtheusualtaxforsuchabenefit,undertheguardian-shipofthesaint.AdoublefeewasatoncedemandedfromthecheateroftheSultan,butwhetherhispietyandaffectionstoodsuchatestwewerenotin-formed.Ibid.,45960.

5. Atabat,thresholds,morefully,atabat- e aliyatoratabat- e(oratab- e)moqaddasa,theloftyorsacredthresholds,containthetombsofsixoftheimamsaswellassecondarysitesofpilgrimage.SeeHamidAlgar,Atabat,inEncyclopaedia Iranica,www.iranica.com/articles/atabat(accessed10May2010).

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ast by his son in the bag of barley took on a signifi-cance that extended far beyond the power of Ot-toman custom and quarantine officers intent (or, at times, not so intent) on capturing miscreants.

Informed by this background, and based primarily on Ottoman documents, this article focuses on the unique phenomenon of the trans-fer of corpses (naql al- janaiz or naql al- amwat ) as it was related to Ottoman- Iranian relations, the making of their frontier, and the relations between Ottoman authorities and their Shii subjects. To shed light on Ottoman perceptions of Shii Iranians the article first discusses how Sunni religious authorities responded to Otto-man struggles with the Safavids. Emphasizing the role of sectarian differences in Ottoman- Iranian relations the article dwells not on the theological aspects of naql al- janaiz but rather on its social, political, and economic implica-tions.6 After providing a general overview of the ongoing significance of sectarianism and its evolution in Ottoman- Iranian relations, and the role that sacred Shii geography played in this relationship, I show how two concurrent developments changed the dynamics of border crossing in the nineteenth century: the delimi-tation and demarcation of the frontier, and the appearance of cholera as a new agent of global-ization. Focusing on the medicalization of the emerging boundary line, I show how Ottomans were able to regulate corpse and pilgrim traffic and therefore control the flow of Iranians into

Ottoman Iraq. Yet I also argue that, at the turn of the twentieth century, the transfer of corpses as well as the limitations related to it, provided a venue for Iraqi Shiis to claim full citizenship in the Ottoman body politic.

Persistence of Sectarianism in Ottoman- Iranian Relations: Pre- nineteenth- Century PeriodIn the early sixteenth century, three interrelated phenomena emphatically recast the physical and mental map of the Islamic world: the trans-formation of the Safaviyya Sufi order into the Safavid state (1501); the resulting dominance of Shiism in the Iranian plateau; and the Safa-vid championship of Shii Islam, which shifted Irans relations with the surrounding world. One key result of these transformations was the threat the Ottoman Empire felt on its eastern frontiers. Subsequently, three factors contrib-uted to the development of the Ottoman- Iranian rivalry: the presence of large numbers of qizil-bash (Alawites) living in Anatolia; Shah Ismails messianic appeal and missionary efforts among them; and the existence of holy Shii sites and considerable numbers of Shiis in Iraq- i Arab. Indeed, six years before the Ottomans decisively crushed him in Chaldiran (1514), Shah Ismail took control of Baghdad and made pilgrimage to the shrines of the imams, where he devoted his attention to [their] maintenance and beau-tification and bestowed generous gifts on their attendants.7 The following year, he defeated

6.Forthereligiousaspectofthecorpsetraffic,IreliedonYitzhakNakashsmasterfultreatmentoftheissueinhisThe Shiis of Iraq(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUni-versityPress,2003),chap.7,CorpseTraffic.

7. EskandarMonshi,History of Shah Abbas,trans.RogerSavory(Boulder,CO:Westview,1978),58.RudiMattheearguesthatIransexpansionintoIraq-iArab,thesacredlandoftheShiiworld,wasmotivatedlessbytheideologyofthenascentSafavidstatethan

bystrategicconsiderations.SeeRudiMatthee,TheSafavid-OttomanFrontier:Iraq-iArabasSeenbytheSafavids,International Journal of Turkish Stud-ies9(2003):15773.Similarly,RhoadsMurpheycon-cludesthatstrategicconsiderationsratherthanreli-

Caravan of corpses going to Kerbelah, in John Ussher, A Journey from London to Persepolis, 480

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the Sunni Uzbek Shaybak Khan, made a gold- mounted drinking cup out of his skull, and sent his straw- stuffed head to Bayezid II; at the same time, he also sent the Mamluks their share of severed heads and demanded from them the right to cover (kiswa ) the Holy Kaabah.8 Thus began the Iranian rulers bid to become the un-contested champions of Shii Islam. As a result of the ensuing confrontation, the oldest frontier region of what is today called the Middle East was determined by what one could conveniently call the first attempts to export a Shii revolution. An indirect result of the same confrontation was the Ottoman occupation of Mamluk Egypt, which elevated the sultans rank to the custo-dians of the two holy cities and made them the uncontested champions of Sunni Islam. Conse-quently, sectarian tension became an indelible component of Ottoman- Iranian relations, with Iraq the main theater of confrontation.

The emergence of naql al- janaiz and pil-grimage to the atabat as an interstate issue was a by- product of these historical developments, as Yitzak Nakash maintains. Before Irans con-version to Shiism, those buried around the holy grounds of the four shrines were largely distin-guished and affluent individuals.9 With mass conversion, securing pilgrimage and burial traf-fic routes and controlling the flow of caravans became the purview of the state and as such a source of legitimacy, and possible contention, with the masters of Iraq. The borderlands of Baghdad, Basra, and Kermanshah emerged as sites where the legitimacy of both empires was at stake. The Ottomans had the task not only of securing the consent of their Shii subjects in Baghdad and beyond but also of restraining the Ajams, who were eyeing the holy Shii sites.

Henceforth, the Ottoman- Iranian geopo-litical rivalry would be couched in religious and sectarian terms of differing intensities. Safavid challenges to Ottoman rule in Iraq, Anatolia, and Kurdistan, and their proselytizing in these regions, spurred Ottoman anti- Safavid and anti- Shii propaganda.10 Thus from very early on, the highest Ottoman religious authorities, like Mufti Hamza (d. 1512) and Sheikh al- Islam Ibn Kemal, known as Kemalpasazade (d. 1533), issued anti- Shia fatwas declaring Shah Ismail and his followers as apostates and heretics. Ke-malpasazade decreed that their status is that of apostates, and once conquered . . . their posses-sions, women and children would be considered spoils; as for their men, they should be killed unless they become Muslims. 11 It was after obtaining these fatwas that Selim ordered his army to prepare for the campaign against Shah Ismail, massacring the Anatolian qizilbash on his way to decisive victory at Chaldiran. Three decades after Chaldiran, and possibly on the eve of Sultan Suleymans first campaign against the Safavids (1533 35), the famed Ottoman Sheikh al- Islam Ebus- suud (ca. 1490 1574), declared the Safavids and their followers to be apostates and defined war against them as holy war and therefore not merely licit but obligatory.12

No doubt such fatwas were the by- products of a time of confrontation. As Rhoads Murphey suggests, preoccupation with doctrinal matters, as expressed in the rather bombastic literary style of sixteenth- century diplomatic correspon-dence, may well have been mostly confined to pro forma rituals, which signaled the initiation and conclusion of military campaigning.13 How-ever, such correspondence was not limited to the sixteenth century, as Ottoman- Iranian re-

giousanimosityshapedtheOttoman-Safavidrivalry.SeeRhoadsMurphey,SleymansEasternPolicy,inSley man the Second and His Time,ed.HalilInalcikandCemalKafadar(Istanbul:Isis,1993),25978.

8.SeeAdelAllouche,The Origins and Development of the Ottoman- Safavid Conflict (906 962/1500 1555)(Berlin:KlausSchwarz,1983),93.FollowinginShahIsmailsfootsteps,NadirShah,afterhisinvasionofIraqin1743,financedtherenovationofthedomeoftheShrineofAliinAnNajaf.SeeErnestS.Tucker,Nadir Shahs Quest for Legitimacy in Post- Safavid Iran(Gainesville:UniversityPressofFlorida,2006),42.ForSafavidpropagandainAnatoliaseeM.ahabettinTekinda,YeniKaynakveVesikalarnIAltndaYavuzSultanSeliminranSeferi,Istanbul niver-

sitesi Edebiyat Fakltesi Tarih Dergisi(Yavuz Selims Iranian Campaign in Light of New Sources and Docu-ments)17(1967):4986.

9.Nakash,Shiis of Iraq,187.ForShiipilgrimage,seeNakash,Shiis of Iraq,chap.6.ForHajj,seeSuraiyaFa-roqhi,Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Otto-mans, 1517 1683(London:I.B.Tauris,1994).

10. SuspiciousofpossibleinfiltrationonthepartoftheshahsemissariesinIraq,inthesixteenthcenturyIstanbulrequiredIranianpilgrimstotaketheoffi-cialcaravanroutesthroughDamascus,Cairo,andYemen,ratherthanthemucheasierKermanshah-Baghdad-Basraroutethatwaslateropenedtopil-grimtrafficdependingonpoliticalexpediency.SeeFaroqhi,Pilgrims and Sultans,13637.

11. Forthese fatwas,seeAllouche,Origins and Devel-opment,11112.

12.ColinImber,Ebus- suud: The Islamic Legal Tradi-tion (Stanford,CA:StanfordUniversityPress,2009),86.

13.Murphey,Sleymans Eastern Policy,271.

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lations in later centuries indicate. A look from the borders, especially from the atabat, shows that sectarian animosity continued. Wartime animosity laid the ground for peacetime rela-tions and made Iranian access to the atabat and corpse traffic contentious issues. As a result of this sustained sectarian hostility, even the mar-riage of Sunnis to Shiis was forbidden, which remained an unresolved issue as long as the Ot-toman Empire endured, because the prohibi-tion was a direct result of the sectarian rivalry between the empires and became inseparable from their ideologies of legitimation.14

After about two decades of struggle over the frontier regions, the Safavids and the Ot-tomans signed their first political treaty in Amasya, on 21 May 1555. For the first time, the sultan officially recognized Safavid Iran, while Iran recognized Ottoman sovereignty over Baghdad, Basra, and western Kurdistan.15 Correspondence exchanged between Sultan Suleyman and Shah Tahmasb before the sign-ing of the treaty underscores the significance of sectarian differences and Shii holy sites in Ottoman- Iranian relations. In his letters, Shah Tahmasb raises the issue of Iranian Shii ac-cess to the atabat and safe transit to the hajj in Hejaz. Accepting his counterparts request that Iranians be allowed to freely visit the atabat, as well as Mecca and Medina, Sultan Suleyman promised that they would be treated justly and be protected, adding, the essence of our wish is to protect the honor [namus] of the Prophet and his companions. 16 Accordingly, Shiis were guaranteed free access to the holy cities in Ara-bia and Iraq, while Iran pledged to cease abus-ing Sunni Islam, namely, by curbing irreverent and offensive language used by Shiis when re-ferring to the first three caliphs of Islam, the Prophets wife Aishah, and the Sunni faith in

general and by ordering the cessation of public cursing ceremonies, the denial of the legitimacy of the first three caliphs (sabb va rafd ), and, of course, Omar Kushan, the ritual destruction of the effigy of Omar, the second caliph.17

However, such amicable rhetoric did not put an end to Ottoman anti- Shii policies or Ira-nian anti- Sunni practices. Even though I could not find fatwas like those of Ebu Suud coming from the Iranian ulema, it is well known that anti- Sunni practices abounded at the Safavid court. For example, during the time of Shah Tahmasb, to impose Shiism on the Sunni ma-jority of Iran, Sunni ulama were obliged to execrate the first three Caliphs, and the recal-citrant among them were immolated; the tombs of Sunni saints and scholars were violated; and Sunni mosques were desecrated. 18 Indeed, Shah Tahmasbs zealotry was so intense that he would interrupt Friday prayer in Sunni mosques of Qazvin, making a Shii preacher ascend to the pulpit and start the vilification of Alis en-emies: the companions beginning with Abu Bakr and the rest of the ashara al- mubashara bil- janna (the ten who were blessed with paradise), the prophets wives (Aishah and Hafsa), and the four Sunni caliphs.19 It appears that such prac-tices continued, because injunctions against sabb va rafd and calls for the better treatment and security of Iranian pilgrims to Iraq and Hejaz appear in later treaties concluded between Iran and the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman animosity outlived the Safavid state. The Afghan occupation of Iranian lands up to Esfahan, and the Russian occupation of Baku and Dagestan (1723), whet the Ottoman appetite for the spoils of Safavid disintegration. When meeting to discuss the situation in Iran, the Ottoman divan (council of ministers) de-clared that, according to many books of Islamic

14.SeeKarenM.Kern,TheProhibitionofSunni-ShiiMarriagesintheOttomanEmpire:AStudyofIdeolo-gies(PhDdiss.,ColumbiaUniversity,1999).

15. ForearlyIranian-Ottomantreaties,seeRemziKl,XVI- XVII Yzyllarda Osmanl- ran Siyasi Antlamalar(Ottoman- Iranian Political Treaties of the Six-teenth to the Seventeenth Centuries)(Istanbul:TezYaynlar,2001).ThemostdetailedTurkishsourceonIranian-OttomanrelationsoftheearlyperiodisstillBekirKtkolu,OsmanI- Iran Siyasi Mnasebetleri (1612 1678)(Ottoman- Iranian Diplomatic Relations [1612 1678])(Istanbul:FetihCemiyeti,1993).Forthebe-

ginningoftheeighteenthcentury,seeMnirAktepe,Osmanl- ran Mnasabetleri ve Silahr Kemani Mus-tafa Aanin Revan Fetihnamesi 1720 1724(Ottoman- Iranian Relations and Kemani Mustafa Aghas Conquest of Yerevan 1720 1724)(Istanbul:stanbulniversitesiEdebiyatFakltesiYaynlar,1970).

16.Kl,Osmanl-ran Siyasi Antlamalar,7475.

17.OmaralsoreferstoUmaribnSad,whowasinchargeofthemilitarydetachmentthatsurroundedHusayn,sonofAli,andultimatelymartyredhimatKarbala.

18.HamidAlgar,SomeObservationsonReligioninSafavidPersia,Iranian Studies7(1974):291.

19. RosemaryStanfieldJohnson,SunniSurvivalinSafavidIran:Anti-SunniActivitiesduringtheReignofTahmasbI,Iranian Studies27(1994):128.

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jurisprudence ( fiqh), the Shiis (Rafidhi taifesi ) were considered apostates (murted ) and infidels (kafir ) and fighting them was tantamount to fighting polytheists.20 After this council meeting, in his ferman (royal decree) to the commanders of the imperial and local troops getting ready to march on Iran, Ahmed III, declaring the revafz- kzlb blasphemous and apostates, urged his soldiers not to lag in their gaza (holy war) and jihad on the enemies of the religion (dmen- i din ). He justified these remarks by referring to the highly regarded books of the ulema, which declared the lands of the revafz- kzlb to be Dar al- Harb (abode of war) and gave fatwas for the application of the rules of apostasy and blasphemy.21

One possible break with sectarian animos-ity and its logical conclusions emerged during the short reign of Nadir Shah (1736 47), who, nearly one century after the signing of the Treaty of Zohab, before his 1736 coronation at Mughan, overtly criticized sabb va rafd as an un-derclass practice that stained the soil of Iran.22 Nadir Shah made a further attempt to bridge Shii and Sunni Islam by proposing that the Ot-tomans acknowledge Shiism as a fifth madhab, or school of legal interpretation, thenceforth to be called madhab- i Jafari. However, the Ot-tomans rejected his overture and therefore lost the opportunity to relegate religion to a second-ary role in Ottoman- Iranian relations. Yet the Treaty of Kurdan, signed in 1746 between Nadir Shah and the Ottoman Empire, did grant for-mal Ottoman recognition of the legal status of Shii Iranians as fellow Muslims and Iran as part of Dar al- Islam [abode of Islam] without com-promising the legitimacy of the Ottoman sultan as the principal defender of Sunnism and the custodian of the Two Holy Places. 23 Like ear-lier diplomatic exchanges, it also promised that Iranians would henceforth give up the ritual cursing of the first three caliphs [sabb] and, in return, that they would be allowed to continue

to make pilgrimages to the shrine cities of Iraq and that Ottoman officers would not demand oppressive taxes from them.24

Following Nadir Shahs unsuccessful at-tempts to foster religious coexistence, Karim Khan Zand (r. 1760 79) and the Qajar dynasty (1796 1925) made Shiism the basis of their le-gitimacy to rule. When Karim Khan Zand oc-cupied Basra in 1775, yet another similar fatwa was issued against him as well.25 Consequently, religious animosity went unabated even during times of peace.26 However, even though the Ot-toman chronicles continued to label Iranians as Qzlbash religion- destroyers who had gone astray, Shiis as rafidi (rejecters, deniers), and the shah as heretical and misguided, during the Qajar times the language of Islamic broth-erhood gradually replaced that of sectarian ani-mosity that the aforementioned fatwas display. Additionally, the sectarian differences that led to hostility did not result in Ottomans and Ira-nians becoming isolated from each other. Espe-cially in its earlier centuries, the Ottoman capi-tal continued to be part of the Persian cultural ecumene, while Iran continued to function as a Turco- Persian state under successive dynasties. Cultural and commercial contacts, as well as the exchange of ambassadors and the movement of pilgrims, merchants, artists, and people chang-ing subjecthoood, continued unabated. As a result, Iranians and other Shiis continued to dwell in a legally ambiguous space until the 1823 Ottoman- Iranian Treaty, which treated the shah and the sultan as equal and sovereign Muslim leaders and recognized Iranians as foreigners. Like the Europeans before them, they were to be given special consideration in their dealings with the central government and were entitled to state intervention should they encounter vio-lations of the treaty by the Ottomans, whether government officials or otherwise. 27 Employing the usual hyperbolic and ornate language, the treaty of 1823 gave both the sultan and the shah

20.Aktepe,1720 1740 Osmanl- Iran Mnsebetleri,1314.

21. Thetextofthisferman ispublishedinibid.,3943.

22.Tucker,Nadir Shahs Quest, 39.

23. Foradetailedtreatmentofthistopic,seeibid.

24. Ibid.,98.

25.AhmedCevdetPasha, Trih- i Cevdet(Cevdets His-tory)(Dersaadet[Istanbul]:Matbaa-iOsmaniye,AH1309/1893),2:305.

26. LadySheildrawsattentiontothepopularityofOmarKushaninTehranof1850inherGlimpses of Life and Manners in Persia(London:JohnMurray,1856),140.

27.BruceMasters,TheTreatiesofErzurum(1823and1848)andtheChangingStatusofIraniansintheOt-tomanEmpire,Iranian Studies24(1991):9.Transla-tion,BruceMasters.Forthetextofthe1823ErzurumTreaty,seeSahhflareyhi-zdeSeyyidMehmedEsadEfendi,Vaka- nvs Esad Efendi Trihi(History of Esad Efendi),preparedbyZiyaYlmazer(Istanbul:OSAV,2000),23646; andTrih- i Cevdet,11:22835.

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the title of khalifa without mention of the Ot-toman sultans exclusive claim to rule over the umma (the Islamic community).28 No doubt be-cause of a long history of persistent complaints, the treaty made it clear that Iranian pilgrims would be treated like the pilgrims of other Is-lamic lands. The more enduring second Er-zurum Treaty of 1847 would take further steps toward equalizing the sovereigns and thus end-ing the ambiguous space Iranians inhabited in the mental map of the Ottoman Dar al- Islam. To corroborate the ties of friendship and unity between the two Mussulman states, article 7 of the treaty once again ensured Persian pilgrims and other subjects protection from all kinds of oppression, molestation, or disre-spect.29 This was also the time of Tanzimat re-forms in the Ottoman Empire, which changed the terms of the discussion when they led to the proclamation that the dhimmis, or people of the Book, of the Ottoman Empire would be fel-low citizens of Ottoman Muslims. Henceforth, citizenship, not religion, was to define ones sta-tion in the Ottoman lands. By making citizen-ship the source of rights, these reforms signaled that Iranians could no longer rely on their am-biguous membership in the larger Dar al- Islam to guarantee their rights in the Ottoman state. Thus began a process I refer to as dividing the umma, defining the citizen: citizenship, not reli-gion, became the basis of rights conferred.

However, this did not mean that religious animosity subsided. A snapshot of Ottoman documents shows that Iranian complaints about the ill treatment of Shiis on their way to Hejaz and Iraq, as well as Ottoman objections to sabb va rafd, continued to the end of the nineteenth century. At the same time, even though the conversion of southern Iraqi tribes to Shiism increased Sunni- Shii competition, and Shii practices such as naql al- janaiz were unaccept-

able for the Sunni Ottoman establishment, the protection of all pilgrims to Hejaz had been identified as a sacred duty of the sultans; as a re-sult of the constant petitions of Iranian envoys and ambassadors, Istanbul repeatedly ordered the governors of the frontier region to ensure that Iranian pilgrims to Mecca and the atabat were treated fairly. Ideological animosity did not mean that the sultans would neglect their sacred duty or that Istanbul would forgo the sizable revenues they accrued from Iranian pil-grim and corpse traffic. Hence, until the com-ing of cholera, a new agent of globalization, lu-crative border crossing continued unabated.

Charitable InvolvementA significant facet of the Ottoman- Iranian ri-valry related to what could conveniently be called the Iranian dynasties charitable involve-ment in the affairs of Ottoman Iraq. In addition to petitioning for protection and free access for pilgrims and corpse caravans, Iranian dignitar-ies continuously requested permission to erect Shii mosques and madrassas in Ottoman ter-ritory.30 Moreover, there were constant appeals for the maintenance and furnishing (tefri ) of the shrines of the imams, especially those of Ali and Husayn.31 Throughout the centuries, Istan-bul was careful with such appeals, as they were seen as threats and challenges to its legitimacy.32 However, what challenged the legitimacy of the Ottoman rule in Iraq was a boon to the legiti-macy of the Safavid and Qajar monarchies. The glow of golden domes in An Najaf and Karbala, revered in Ottoman diplomatic language, was light to the Iranian rulers as well.

To control and reduce the Shii presence in Baghdad, An Najaf, and Karbala, the Otto-man government issued a set of regulations re-garding visitations (ziarat ) as early as 1565.33 At the time, semi- official representatives of the

28.Masters,TheTreatiesofErzurum,10.

29. Forthetextofthe1847TreatyofErzurum,Ire-liedonRichardSchofield,ed.,The Iran- Iraq Border: 1840 1958,vol.1(Buckinghamshire,UK:ArchiveEdi-tions,1989):67577.

30. Inonesuchexample,Ziaal-Saltana,thesisteroftheQajarprinceSayfal-Dawla,boughtapieceoflandinAnNajafandaskedforpermissiontobuildamadrassa.SeeBabakanlkOsmanlArivi,PrimeMinistryOttomanArchives,Istanbul(hereaftercited

asBOA),SadaretAmediKalemiEvrak,AAMD,AH25/38,1267.1.12/17November1850.

31. Inonesuchexample,Nasiral-DinShah,inthecom-panyofhiscousinAliReza(Azadal-Mulk),sentbarsofgoldtotheshrinesofImamAliandImamHasanal-Askari.ThebarsweretobedeliveredtothehighestShiireligiousauthorityofthetime,Abdal-HusseinTehrani.AliRezaAzadal-Mulkkeptadiaryofhistravels,Safarnameh- e Azad al- Molk ba atabat(Azad al- Molks Travels to Atabat)(Tehran:Muassisah-iPa-zhuhishvaMutaliat-iFarhangi,AH1380/2001).

32. Formoreinformationonpiousgiftsasasourceofdiplomaticrivalry,thepoliticsofhajj,andthedif-ficultiesIranianpilgrimsfacedinearliercenturies,seeFaroqhi,Pilgrims and Sultans,13445.

33. ItshouldbenotedthatOttomansconsideredtheIranianvisitorstotheatabatjustasvisitors(zuvvar),whileforthevisitorsthemselvestheirziarat wasapil-grimage,almostifnotequallymeritoriousthanthehajj,whichisstillanobligationontheShiiMuslims.

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Shah seem to have resided both in An Najaf and Karbala, whose principal aim it was to distribute alms. 34 These representatives were not permit-ted to establish soup kitchens for the poor, even if only for Iranians. It was argued that a pilgrim could take care of herself or himself for the span of five to ten days, and longer stays were undesirable.35

Less than ten years after these initial regu-lations were issued, in 1573, a report reached the Imperial Divan in Istanbul that fifty men had received a salary from Persia to recite continuously, day and night, Nobel Suras, on behalf of the evil- doing Shah. 36 However, this was only part of the bad news. When a group of corpses was brought to Karbala, Safavid appoin-tees went with standards from Abbass shrine to meet the processions, and the corpses were paraded around the holy places. Worse yet, such practices were carried out with the knowledge of the sayyids (descendants of the Prophet), nakibs (head of sayyids), and mutevelli (admin-istrators of shrines), whom the Imperial Divan deemed worthy of capital punishment (siya-set ).37 Yet the issue was not an easy one. When dealing with the Shii Safavid influence in Iraq, Istanbul walked a tightrope. It was necessary, especially at times of crisis on the western fron-tier, not to alienate its own Shiis while staying on good terms with Iran. Hence in spite of nu-merous warnings issued against the ceremonial parading of corpses, corpse traffic and burials continued. Neither willing nor able to stop the practice, the Imperial Divan nevertheless in-sisted that the corpses were not to be laid in the direction of their qibla, that is, Aradabil.38 The beylerbeyi, or governor, was to arrest and ex-ecute the reciters on trumped- up charges. He was, however, to be extremely careful to avoid anything which may give offense to Persia. 39 Whatever measures the beylerbeyi took were not successful. Four years later, there were still re-

citers in the two shrines who received stipends from Iran. The divan ordered the beylerbeyi to execute them after accusing them of some other crime.40

Such charitable Iranian involvement and presence in Iraq affected Ottoman attitudes to-ward their own Shiis. The fear that Iran would use them as a beachhead in the provinces that it lost to the Ottomans (Baghdad, Shahrizor) put the Ottomans on continuous lookout for signs of heresy, especially among the notables, and discrimination against the Shiis of the empire, be they Alawites or Jafaris, continued. Hence, for example, Ashura celebrations, such as those planned in Mosul in 1573 and 1574, were a cause for concern and therefore were banned.41

Ottoman suspicions toward their Shii population continued unabated, reaching their peak toward the end of the empire. The contin-uous flow of pilgrims, merchants, and corpses from Iran continued to be a thorn in the side of the Ottomans, as did the Shii propaganda that converted many tribes of the southern border-land to Shiism. Selim Deringil shows that, even into the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman administration concerned itself with limiting the movements of Iranian visitors (zuvvars ) and restricting the time they spent in the atabat.42 As late as 1894, the governor of Baghdad urged Istanbul to appoint Sheikh Muhammed Esad Effendi as muderris (professor) to the province so that he could counter the efforts of Ayatollah Mirza Hasan Shirazi and other Shii akhunds (clerics) to spread Shiism.43 It was because of the ineffectiveness of such efforts that, four years later, the chief financial officer of Baghdad province, Vahab Bey, sent a ciphered telegram that complained about the laxity of the gov-ernor and urged Istanbul to develop a master plan to counter the akhunds and stop the spread of Shiism that threatened the foundations of Islam.44 It was not only the high- ranking Iranian

34.Faroqhi,Pilgrims and Sultans,138.

35. Ibid.

36. Colin Imber, ThePersecutionof theOtto-manShiitesaccordingtotheMhimmeDefterleri,15561585,Der Islam56(1979):246.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid,247.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.,248.

42. ForthelaterphaseofShii-Sunnicompetition,seeSelimDeringil,TheStruggleagainstShiisminHamidianIraq:AStudyinCounterPropaganda, Die Welt des Islams30(1990):51.FortheconversionofIraqtoShiism,seeNakash,Shiis of Iraq,

43.BOA,YldzMutenevviMaruzat(YMTV),73/71,17Kanun-uEvvelAH1308/21July1894.

44. BOA, YldzPeraknedeBakitabetDairesiMaruzat(YPRKBK),57/16,19Rebiul-AhirAH1312/1August1898.Apparently,acommissionoffiveclericswassenttotheregiontocounterthespreadofShiismandtheproselytizingofakhunds.YetVahabBeycon-tendedthatthemagnitudeoftheproblemrequiredseriousmeasuresandplanning.

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ulema who maintained the strong Iranian pres-ence but also Qajar princes, merchants, students in the seminaries of holy Shii cities, pilgrims who sometimes stayed for long durations, large numbers of Iranians who lived in An Najaf and especially Karbala, and petty traders.45 As such, for peace in Iraq, Istanbul had to placate Iran. However, various other issues of the borderland complicated relations.

Less then two decades after their sporadic and inconclusive war of 1821 22, Tehran and Istanbul were again at loggerheads because of rising tension on their borderlands. While par-ties were preparing for a new confrontation in 1840, the two dominant imperialist powers of the time intervened. As a result of intense dip-lomatic activity of Russian and British represen-tatives in Tehran and Istanbul, the two Muslim powers agreed to a negotiated resolution of their mutual problems and a settlement of their frontiers for good. Consequently, Ottoman and Qajar diplomats and technical teams, accompa-nied by their British and Russian counterparts, set out to delimit and demarcate the frontiers of both states, hoping to bring border cross-ing under control and defuse rising tensions over an undefined boundary line. The process, which took nearly seven decades and many a frontier commissions work, lasted from 1843 to 1914. The work of these commissions trans-formed the frontier into a boundary and an ab-stract and imprecise line into a clearly defined and increasingly monitored border.

Consequently, when a comprehensive peace treaty was negotiated at Erzurum, the is-sues under negotiation included the protection of Iranian pilgrims, the cessation of illegal or excessive taxation, and the waiving of fees for poor Iranians visiting the atabat and bringing corpses. Between the start of the Erzurum nego-tiations (1843) and the signing of the Erzurum Treaty (1847), Istanbul intermittently ordered the governors of frontier provinces (namely, Er-

zurum, Van, and Baghdad, which were respon-sible for enforcing policies regarding the bor-derland) to redress the complaints of Iranian citizens. This was to be done in accordance with the necessities of the modern state. Thus Iranians, like all other foreigners, were asked to observe the rules of murur tezkeresi, or travel pa-pers, the precursor of the passport, which was soon to be introduced.46

This was part of the process by which lax frontiers turned into tight boundaries. Thus state making at the peripheries transformed Iranians from ambivalent members of the umma to citizens of Iran. As a result of the ongoing negotiations I have described, Iranians came to enjoy special privileges similar to those given to nationals of big powers.47 Such rights came with responsibilities and new rules and regulations. They also coincided with the emergence of a phenomenon that required even tighter border controls: the spread of cholera and the ensuing medicalization of the frontier. It was becoming obvious that the uncontrolled flow of goods and people, dead or alive, must be controlled.

Bones of Contention: Sanitation, Cholera, and Corpse TrafficCorpse traffic, especially from inside Iraq, increased in scale from the mid- eighteenth through the late nineteenth century as An Najaf and Karbala emerged as the main Shii strong-holds in Iraq and the bulk of Iraqs tribes con-verted to Shiism. Shii ulama in Iraq encour-aged the corpse traffic to reinforce the position of shrine cities as the focus of devotion for Shii believers. The corpse traffic reached its peak in the late nineteenth century and became an in-tegral part of a whole set of rituals, visitations, and religious practices that helped ensure the welfare of Najaf and Karbala, as well as their hinterland. 48

An observer notes that, in early 1850s An Najaf, the burial fees charged by the authori-

45.Althoughitbelongstoamuchlaterperiod,ac-cordingtofiguresprovidedbyLawrenceG.Potter,aBritishcensusgavethenumberofIraniansinIraqin1919assomeeightythousand,althoughafigureof200,000wascitedinaBritishdiplomaticmemo-randum.LawrenceG.Potter,TheEvolutionoftheIran-IraqBorder,inThe Creation of Iraq, 1914 1921,ed.ReevaSpecterSimonandEleanorH.Tejirian(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2004),69.

46. BOA,SadaretMektubiKalemi(AMKT)21/97,AH1260/1844.Murur tezkeresi wasadocumentusedforindividualstravelingbeyondtheirplaceofinhab-itance.Itwasoriginallyintroducedtopreventinter-nalmigrationtothecities.Formurur tezkeresi,seeMusaadrc,Tanzimat Dneminde Anadolu Kentleri-nin Sosyal ve Ekonomik Yaps(Social and Economic Structures of the Anatolian Towns in the Tanzimat Era)(Ankara:TTKBasmevi,1997),46.

47.Alawpassedin1875gaveIranianconsulsexclu-siveauthorityoverIraniansubjectsincivilandcrimi-nalmatters,andIranianswereexemptedfromtaxespaidbytheOttomansubjects.Nakash,Shiis of Iraq,16768.

48. Ibid.,187.

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ties of the mosque ranged from ten to two hun-dred tomans (5 100) and sometimes much more. He also maintains that the fee was en-tirely at the discretion of the mullas, and they proportion it according to the wealth or rank of the deceased. 49 On arrival, the coffins were left outside the city walls, while the persons in charge of them (frequently the muleteer of the caravan) bargained for their final resting place. While those able to pay for a vault within the sa-cred precincts of the mosque would be ushered through the city doors, the poorer classes (or the muleteers accompanying the coffins) would bury their dead outside the walls on the north side of the city, where the graves are neatly con-structed with bricks, and covered with gravel or cement to preserve them from injury. 50

In the late Ottoman period, corpse traf-fic became more regulated by the state and the fees were not at the discretion of the mul-lahs. Burial dues were set for the benefit of the Awqaf, or Foundations Department. The Otto-man cabinet minutes of 1 June 1891 show that the amount collected for the year was two hun-dred thousand kuru, after the cost of collec-tion had been deducted. The Ottoman Awqaf farmed out the collection of dues (cenaze definesi rusumu or dafniyya ) on burials in Shii cemeter-ies and shrines, theoretically to the highest bid-

der, to local merchants for specific periods of time.51 The merchants [known as mltezim, or tax farmers] or their agents traveled to cities and villages in Iran to collect corpses and then transferred them to the shrine cities. 52 The Ot-toman cabinet minutes of 1 June 1891 show that the amount collected for the year was two hun-dred thousand kuru, after the cost of collection had been deducted.53

It is estimated that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, twenty thousand corpses from inside Iraq and from Iran were brought to An Najaf alone for burial. All corpses brought to shrine cities for burial, regardless of country of origin, were subject to certain fees. Ottoman Shii subjects paid less than Iranian ones. As Na-kash quotes from John Gordon Lorimers Gaze-teer, in the late nineteenth century the cost of transporting a corpse from Kermanshah to Kar-bala could be as high as 1.35 Ottoman gold lira (or about 1). This included the fees collected by the Ottoman consulate at Kermanshah to ob-tain a pass for importation of the corpse and by the sanitary officials at Khanaqin, where it was later inspected. Additionally, a burial tax (dafni-yya or turabiyya ) was levied in the main cemeter-ies of the shrine cities and in the precincts of the shrines. Each site also charged a fixed tariff that varied according to its sanctity and ranged from

Caravan of pilgrims, with corpses, going to Karbala, in Lady Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, 179

49. Loftus,Travels and Researches,55

50. Ibid.

51.Cenaze definesi rusumuwasnotalwaysgiventothehighestbidder.AcertainNajafiSeyyidMahmudtelegraphedtheYldzPalacetocomplainthat,eventhoughhewasthehighestbidder,thekaimmakam(districtgovernor)threatenedhimandcontracted

thebidtoacloseassociateforhisownbenefit.Afterthekaimmakam whothreatenedhimwasdismissed,NajafiSeyyidMahmudofferedtooutbidthewinningcontractorbyonethousandOttomanliraiftheprevi-ousbidwascancelledandthecontractgiventohim.BOA,IradeDahiliye(IDH),1252/98190,6Rebiul-AhirAH1309/10November1891.

52.Nakash,Shiis of Iraq,199.

53.Deringil,StruggleagainstShiism,56.

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forty gold piastres for al- Tarima of Samarra to five thousand gold piastres for al- Riwaq (the portico of the shrine) in An Najaf.54 Ottoman records of the sanitary administration show that while a small number of Iranian zuvvars were exempted from the sanitary tax, no corpse was exempted. Hence the poor gentlemans hiding his fathers bones in a bag of barley.55

A range of other mostly private and local economic activities were also closely connected to corpse traffic, including caravan organizers, corpse driers, smugglers, shroud makers, grave-diggers, tomb builders, servants in the shrines, and ulema and students who would read the holy book at the cemeteries. Indeed, by the mid- nineteenth century, as Russian and British manufactured goods arrived in the region, the declining prosperity of Baghdads local econ-omy made it increasingly dependent on pilgrim and corpse traffic. Hence when, because of the inconveniences and exactions, which Persian pilgrims experienced, the shah prohibited pil-grimage and corpse traffic around 1850, Bagh-dads fortunes further dimmed.56 Similarly, when, due to serious health risks, corpse traf-fic was stopped in 1905, under the leadership of Muhammad Hussein al- Jaberi and Muham-mad Baqir, the people of Karbala immediately petitioned the palace and asked for the ban to be lifted.57 It was because of such benefits and high demand that, in spite of their utter disgust with the practice and its religio- sectarian impli-cations, at other times the Ottoman authorities did not stop the lucrative corpse traffic and at times overtaxed Iranians who participated in it. Such policies were a cause of constant Iranian complaints to the Bab- li, or Sublime Porte.58

However, some Ottoman authorities ar-gued that corpse traffic made no essential con-

tribution to the economy. In his detailed records of the frontier region, Mehmed Hurid Pasha, the secretary of the Ottoman commissioner to the first international Ottoman- Iranian Frontier Survey Commission, claims that Iranians used coffins to smuggle precious goods like silk and sometimes even hid apples, quince, and other fruits they brought as gifts for their friends. Hurid Pasha gives the following numbers for the economic activities of the Khanaqin custom-house, the main Ottoman point of entry, which he draws from one annual account (likely that of 1850) of the quarantine registers of the town: pilgrims (males) and merchants, 52,969; mule-teers, 3,348; beasts of burden, 64,065; corpses, 3,176; bales of commercial good, 9,815; and sheep, 24,957.59

He informs us that children and women are not included in the accounts. Moreover, he adds, since the quarantine and customs offi-cials retired at sunset, after which time nobody controlled the passages, the number of males crossing the frontier most likely exceeded one hundred thousand. A British member of the Turco- Persian Frontier Commission would seem to support this upward revision when he reports that, between 1849 and 1852, at a low average, 80,000 persons annually flock to pay their vows at the sacred shrine, and from 5000 to 8000 corpses are brought every year from Persia and elsewhere to be buried. 60 Despite such large numbers, Pasha disputes the economic value of pilgrim and corpse caravans, claiming that they did their utmost to avoid buying anything on the Ottoman side of the frontier and even went so far as to bring their own fodder.61 No doubt such practices continued to ruffle Ottoman feathers.

However, disagreements over the economic value of the corpse traffic and Ottoman unease

54.Nakash,Shiis of Iraq,18790.

55. Forexample,intheperiodfrom1March1874to28February1875,outof24,675zuvvars,only341wereconsideredpoorandcouldnotpaythesanitarytax.Fortheperiodof19034,thenumberwas333outof58,801.TocompareandshowthesectariantakeonvisitstoIraq,comparethefactthatforthe187475periodofhajjtoMecca,of65,675hajjis,7,533wereexemptedbecausetheywerepoor.SeeRapport Sur la Perception de la Taxe Sanitaire et Statistique de la Na-vigation dans les Ports Ottomans Du 1er Mars 1874 au 28 Fvrier 1875(Report on the Collection of the Sanitary Tax and Navigation Statistics in the Ottoman Ports from 1 March 1874 to 28 February 1875)(Constantino-ple:TypographieetLithographieCentrales,1875).

56. JamesFelixJones,Memoirs of Baghdad, Kurdis-tan, and Turkish Arabia, 1857(Slough,England:Ar-chiveEditions,1998),362.

57.PrimeMinistrytoMinistryofHealth,16EyllAH1321/29September1905,BOA,SadaretMektubiMuhimme,AMKTMHM,588/27.

58. Inonesuchcase,on12August1841,theIranianrepresentativeinIstanbul,MirzaJfarKhan,askedtheOttomanForeignMinistrywhyithadallowedthere-introductionoftheforbiddenpracticeofchargingIranianswhobroughtcorpsestodifferentcustomstationsinBaghdadprovinceandurgedsuchprac-ticesbeterminated.OnesuchcomplaintwasmadebyIranianambassadorMirzaJafarKa.SeeBOA,Sa-

daret,Divan-HmaynKalemleri,DveliEcnebiye(ADVNDVE),11/27AH6.23.1257/12March1841.

59.MehmedHurid,Seyahatname- i Hudud(The Bor-der Journal),transcriptionbyAlaatttinEser(Istanbul:Simurg,1997),92.

60. Loftus,Travels and Researches,54.

61.Hurid,Seyahatname,9193.

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with its religious implications were only one side of the coin. About two decades before the preced-ing observations were made, cholera appeared in the region. Although it could be considered just another, more novel, addition to the rather un-healthy state of public hygiene, choleras appear-ance fundamentally changed negotiations sur-rounding the transition of the Ottoman- Iranian frontier into a boundary and the transfer of corpses from Iran to Ottoman Iraq.

In 1821, while the plague was still perva-sive in the Ottoman Empire, cholera arrived via Russia. In the next three decades, seven epi-demics of cholera spread through the Ottoman world, having arrived with pilgrims to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. 62 Similarly, from 1820 to 1902, seven deadly outbreaks were iden-tified in Qajar Iran.63 Immediately following the initial cholera epidemic in Istanbul, in 1822, the first quarantine stations were established around the city. Fifteen years later, in 1837, the Higher Commission of Quarantine and the Higher Quarantine Bureau were established.64 In 1838 the sultan asked the Austrian government to send experienced quarantine officials to assist in establishing quarantine stations throughout the Ottoman provinces, and various medical bodies were combined under the name Karan-tina Nezareti (Ministry of Quarantine).65 Two years later, with the participation of European powers, the Constantinople Council of Health was established. European representatives were included on the council to address the recurrent complaints of European states. In 1851 the first Quarantine Regulation required that travelers with contagious diseases be put under quaran-tine.66 Similar waves of cholera and the plague awakened consciousness about public health in Iran. By 1858 some of the first graduates of Dar

al- Fonun, the Iranian polytechnic, had received medical education. However, public health mea-sures outside Tehran remained in dismal condi-tion. As a result of pressure by the International Sanitary Conferences, the government estab-lished a Majles- e Hefz al- Sehheh, or Sanitary Council, in 1868, under the presidency of the shahs chief physician, Joseph Desire Tholozan, but it only lasted a few months. Yet by the early 1880s, sanitary councils had been established in most major cities.67

Until that time, methods to fend off the epidemic diseases were ad hoc at best, and quar-antine stations were isolated and their practices irregular.68 However, quarantine gradually came to be identified with national interests and the welfare of humanity in general, at the same time that sanitary matters began to figure prominently in international relations.69 The globalization of what was called Asiatic cholera required global measures for the prevention of its further spread. The problem was exacer-bated by the continuing growth of steamship technology, which allowed people, but also dis-eases, to travel speedily. Because of the lack of uniform guidelines for dealing with the resul-tant epidemics, there arose a need for an inter-national convention.70 Because European states wanted the first line of defense against conta-gious diseases to be as far to the east as possible, Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran were pressured to take necessary measures.71

This pressure was exerted at a series of International Sanitary Conferences, the first of which was convened in Paris, in 1851, to find a modus operandi befitting an age of technical and industrial progress, and to strike a mutu-ally beneficial balance between the needs of commerce and public health. 72 The conference

62.GldenSaryldz,introductiontoHicaz Karantina Tekilat (1865 1914)(Hijaz Quarantine Organization [1865 1914])(Ankara:TTKBasmevi,1996).

63.WillemFloor,Public Health in Qajar Iran(Wash-ington,DC:Mage,2004),18.

64. Saryldz, introduction toHicaz Karantina Tekilat.

65.MarkHarrison,Disease,Diplomacy,andInterna-tionalCommerce:TheOriginsofInternationalSani-taryRegulationintheNineteenthCentury,Journal of Global History 1(2006):210.

66.AyeglD.Erdemirandztanncel,Develop-mentoftheFoundationsofQuarantineinTurkeyintheNineteenthCenturyandItsPlaceinthePublicHealth,Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine2(2003):4244.

67.HormozEbrahimnejad,Medicine, Public Health, and the Qajar State: Patterns of Medical Moderniza-tion in Nineteenth- Century Iran,SirHenryWellcomeAsianStudiesSeries,4(Leiden:Brill,2004),3149.

68.Harrison,Disease,199;andValeskaHuber,TheUnificationoftheGlobebyDisease?TheInterna-tionalSanitaryConferencesonCholera,18511894, Historical Journal49(2006):456.

69.Harrison,Disease,198202.

70.Huber,UnificationoftheGlobe,457.

71.MarcelChahrour,ACivilizingMission?AustrianMedicineandReformofMedicalStructuresintheOttomanEmpire,18381850,Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38(2007): 694.

72. TheconferencewasconvenedwithdelegatesfromAustria-Hungary,France,GreatBritain,Greece,thePapalStates,Portugal,Russia,Sardinia,theTwoSicilies,Spain,Turkey,andTuscany.

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failed to reach conclusions on key issues, but participants agreed in principle upon the basic aim of achieving agreement internationally over sanitary regulations, as well as the desirability of some specific measures, including the strength-ening of sanitary surveillance in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. 73 Increasing surveillance was only possible with the demarcation and delimi-tation of the frontiers and by marking the limits of Ottoman and Iranian sovereignties. Indeed, concurrent with the conference was the first sur-vey of the Ottoman- Iranian frontier (1849 52), carried out over the frontier region by British, Russian, Ottoman, and Iranian technical and diplomatic teams.

While such conferences and commissions were at work, a contemporary observer de-scribed a corpse caravan she spotted in January 1851, between Hamadan and Tehran:

A number of mules were laden with long nar-row boxes attached upright, one on each side of the mule. A most dreadful and almost unendur-

able smell proceeded from the caravan . . . these boxes contained corpses which have been col-lected from various towns for a length of time, and were now on their way to Kerbella for inter-ment. It is a revolting practice. The boxes are nailed in the most imperfect manner, admitting of the free exit of the most dangerous exhala-tions.74

At a time that cholera epidemics were affecting the whole world, such caravans were seen not merely as a nuisance but also as a public health risk that required a solution. To this end, more than a dozen International Sanitary Confer-ences were convened between 1851 and 1912. Following an inconclusive second Paris confer-ence in 1859, the third conference was held in Constantinople in 1866. It followed the fourth cholera epidemic, which had traveled at an un-usual speed into Europe after a cholera out-break in Mecca in 1865.75 Even though it was

agreed that cholera originated in India, where it exists permanently as an endemic, pilgrims to Mecca were seen as one of the main agents spreading the disease to the whole world. Con-sequently, clauses specifically related to Mecca appeared for the first time in the resolutions of the Constantinople conference. Moreover, the transfer of corpses became a topic of discussion at the conference. Additionally, the conference raised the question of whether dead bodies of cholera patients could import and transmit the disease. Maintaining that Persian pilgrims to the environs of Baghdad have the custom of bringing with them a great number of dead bodies in all degrees of decomposition, from bones enclosed in sacks or boxes, to the dead of the day before placed in badly joined coffins, the conference report went on to argue: Often enough, too, these pilgrims bring with them the cholera, which spreads more or less in Baghdad and throughout the province. The commission concluded: Although it is not proved by con-clusive facts that the dead bodies of cholera pa-tients can transmit cholera, it is prudent to con-sider them as dangerous. 76 Even if there was no proof that Iran or Iranian corpses were a source of contamination, the fear of contagious dead bodies expressed in such clauses made corpse transfer part of international sanitary concerns. As the steamship significantly reduced the tran-sit time between India and Mecca, and Mecca and the Mediterranean basin, thus making the European continent more vulnerable, pressure on the Ottoman Empire, and consequently on Iran, increased.77

Such conferences, as Valeska Huber ar-gues, were prototypes of internationalism and also venues in which to claim a share of moder-nity. Hence the delegates of the oriental pow-ers of Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Iran tried hard to project the image of hygienically trustworthy, reforming, and modern states

73.Harrison,Disease,197,21516.

74. Sheil,Glimpses of Life and Manners,197.Com-manderJamesFelixJonesalsonotedthenotverycarefullysealedcoffinsandtheunpleasantsmellarisingfromthem.Jones,Memoirs of Baghdad,166.

75.Huber,UnificationoftheGlobe,462.

76. International Sanitary Conference: Report to the International Sanitary Conference of a commission from that body, to which were referred the questions

relative to the origin, endemicity, transmissibility, and propagation of Asiatic cholera,trans.SamuelL.Abbot(Boston:AlfredMudge&Son,1867),5557.

77.Between1831and1865therewerefiveoutbreaksinHejaz.AmedicalreportquotedbySaryldzin-dicatesthatinthe1893choleraoutbreakinMecca,30,336personsdied.Saryldz,Hicaz Karantina Tekilat,4.

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that could carry out sanitary surveillance of their frontiers. Since it was argued that the stan-dardization of administrative structures and a concomitant increase in their efficiency would make cholera detectable and manageable, re-form of the sanitary administration of the Ot-toman Empire emerged as the central concern at the conferences. Therefore when the confer-ences suggested the creation of various boards and councils and the perfection of measures of identification through visas, bills of health, sanitary passports, verification cards, permits, and so forth, the Ottoman government, also desiring to stake its claim in modernity, and pro-tect its population against contagious diseases, wholeheartedly moved to act.78 One measure taken was the establishment of the Hejaz Health Administration to control pilgrim traffic.79

This was the time of Tanzimat in the Ot-toman Empire, the period of reform and rise in the capacity of the state, which resulted in the institutionalization and standardization of state practices, as well as the states penetration of the peripheries, and therefore in a decrease of the porosity of what I call the frontier fil-ter. 80 As the Ottomans continued to perceive theirs as a modern empire on par with those they saw as epitomizing modernity, maintain-ing a healthy public through proper sanitation gained urgency, as did the need to distance themselves from their unsanitary half brothers. Hence the pilgrim and corpse traffic from Iran and India to Hejaz and Iraq became a concern that extended far beyond the Ottoman- Iranian frontiers. Thenceforth, Ottoman control of frontiers and of border crossings by Iranian subjects and, by extension, Ottoman percep-tions of Iran in general would be articulated in terms of sanitation and modernity. Literally and figuratively designated as the sick man of Europe, the empire needed to take action, so that Europe would not get sick. The conten-

tious bones and pilgrims that tied Iran to Iraq had become too contagious. Something had to be done, something more than the issuance of yet another fatwa from the sheikh al- Islam de-nouncing Iranians.

The establishment of a regular civil sani-tary system, which would not only direct mili-tary and commercial affairs but also regulate the life of Ottoman citizens in a novel way, thus became a concern of Ottoman politics, creating a major incentive for the formation of a medi-cal establishment.81 Additionally, following the recommendations of the International Sanitary Conferences, quarantines and lazarettos were introduced at major entry points for Iranian and Indian Shiis into Khanaqin, Qasr- i Shirin, and Basra. By 1875 fourteen quarantine stations were active between Erzurum and Basra. These increased the Ottoman and Iranian states sani-tary control of the pilgrim and corpse traffic, allowing them not only to scrutinize, inspect, direct, and, if necessary, impede dead or living bodies from crossing the frontier but also to closely follow the movement of epidemics.

However, such measures only created new sources of complaint. In an 1858 memorandum to the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, the Iranian representative in Istanbul, Farah Khan, com-plained about the well- known treatment Irani-ans were receiving in the quarantine stations of the Baghdad and Erzurum frontiers. He urged the Bab- li to take necessary measures for the security and well- being of the Iranian pilgrims and passengers and to treat them like other for-eigners.82 Event though Farah Khan implies that his countrymen were singled out for maltreat-ment, others also complained about the quaran-tine regulations and the long periods they had to spend in quarantine houses. Very much like Iranians with insufficient papers, British ships with invalid bills of health were held in quar-antine for a minimum of ten days or until such

78. ThisparagraphisadoptedfrompartsofHuber,UnificationoftheGlobe,47176.

79.Saryldz,Hijaz Karantina Tekilat,2229.

80.TheconceptofstatecapacityisadaptedfromDougMcAdam,SidneyTarrow,andCharlesTilly,Dy-namics of Contention(NewYork:CambridgeUniver-sityPress,2001).Seenfromthispointofview,bordersarefilters,whichintransitionfromafrontier/border toa boundary becamelesspermeablethroughtime.

81.Chahrour,CivilizingMission,690.

82.BOA,HariciyeSiyasi(HRSYS),737/68,20April1858.ThefirstOttomanQuarantineCommissionwasestablishedin1838,andthefirstquarantinestationswereestablishedonIranianfrontiersatErzurumandTrabzonin1841.

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time that the Quarantine Board authorities felt reasonably certain that they were not carrying persons sick with cholera who might bring yet an-other major cholera epidemic to the West. Such measures were based on the medical- scientific findings of leading experts on cholera.83

These processes affected discussions about naql al- janaiz and forced Tehran to take measures to improve sanitary conditions and control pilgrim and corpse traffic. As a result, when, in 1867, cholera appeared in Karbala, la grande ncropole de Persans, the shah banned the transport of cadavers.84 The order was re-voked and reissued later depending on which side of the frontier cholera or plague appeared. Ottoman authorities also frequently raised the issue, and Tholozan, the shahs chief physician, requested the introduction of policies to prevent the spread of epidemics caused by the practice. Moreover, during his visit to Iraq in 1870, Nasir al- Din Shah met the famous Ottoman reform-ist Ahmed Midhat Pasha, governor of Baghdad, who raised the issue of sanitary problems cre-ated by the transfer of moist corpses from Iran to the shrine cities of Iraq.85

As a result of such appeals, meetings, and of course resolutions of the International Sanitary Conferences, on 8 January 1871, the fa-mous reformers and statesmen Mushir al- Dawla Husayn Khan, on the Iranian side, and Midhat Pasha, on the Ottoman side, signed a treaty concerning the transfer of corpses, with the purpose of confronting the dangers posed by the corpses brought from Iran, protecting pub-lic health, and making the border region part of the new sanitized international order. To avoid the harmful medical consequences of the transfer of moist corpses from Iran for burial in the atabat, the treaty imposed a three- year wait-

ing period. To ensure that corpses crossing the frontier had lain buried for three years, an offi-cial, dated burial document was to be produced upon request. It was agreed by both parties that corpses or, rather, bones not accompanied by documents would not be allowed to leave Iran or enter the Ottoman Empire. Only exhumed bones with a certificate of burial date could be transferred, and they were required to be placed in a wooden coffin stored inside of a lead chest (kurun sandk ). Those transferred overland would need to pass through Kermanshah, and those coming by sea through the Basra port, so that medical officers could examine them. In the case of the existence of contagious diseases in Iran, pilgrims and corpses would not be al-lowed to enter at all.86 Similarly, the fourth arti-cle of Tarif des droits sanitaires dans LEmpire Ottoman of 1876 fixed the sanitary tax of ten piastres per pilgrim- visitor and fifty piastres per cadaver. Table 1 gives the number of Iranian pil-grims and cadavers taxed at various quarantine stations along the frontier from 1872 to 1884 and 1898 to 1904. Gathered from the reports of the Administration sanitaire de LEmpire Otto-man: Bilans et statistiques these numbers show that in the twelve years following the Midhat Pasha Husayn Khan treaty, annually, at an av-erage, 5,744 corpses were brought from Iran to Iraq, while the median number of pilgrims and visitors was 37,665 per annum.87 The average number of pilgrims- visitors from 1898 to 1904 was 48,672 and that of corpses was 6,255. Even though we lack the necessary data to compare these numbers with the preceding years, there is no doubt that these were considerably high numbers. To give an idea, when compared to the number of pilgrims to Mecca who advanced to the holy city through the ports of entry in

83. SheldonWatts,CholeraPoliticsinBritainin1879:JohnNettenRedcliffesConfidentialMemoonQuarantineintheRedSea,Journal of the Historical Society8(2007):291.ThemembershipoftheInter-nationalQuarantineBoardincludedrepresentativesfromtheEuropeancountries,theOttomanEmpire,andEgypt.

84.Commission mixte charge de la rvision tarif des droits sanitaires dans LEmpire Ottoman(Mixed Com-mission Charged with the Revision of Tariffs of Sani-tary Rights in the Ottoman Empire)(Constantinople:TypographieetLithographieCentrales,1882),BOALi-brary,no.5296,7.

85.Nakash,Shiis of Iraq,198.Attherecommenda-tionofhisreformistambassadortoIstanbul,Nasiral-DinShahconductedhisfirstforeigntriptotheShiiholycitiesofIraqundertheauthorityofMid-hatPasha.NikkiKeddie,IranundertheLaterQajars,18481922,The Cambridge History of Iran,ed.PeterAvery,G.R.G.Hambly,C.P.Melville(NewYork:Cam-bridgeUniversityPress,1991),7:185.

86.BOA,Yldz,SadaretHususiMaruzatEvraki(YAHUS),288/47,9RecebAH1311/16January1894,signedbythesadrazam.AlsoOttomanForeignMinistrytoPrimeMinistry,YAHUS289/19,14Kanun-uSaniAH1309/26January1894;andinBOA,Divan-Hum-ayun,Name-iHumayunKatalogu(ADVNNMH),19/16,23evvalAH1278/17January1871.

87.Administration sanitaire de LEmpire Ottoman: Bilans et statistiques(The Sanitary Administration of the Ottoman Empire: Inventory and Statistics)(Con-stantinople:TypographieetLithographieCentralesandTypo-LithographieduJournalLa Turque),vol.1(1March187229February1884),vol.2(1March189929February1904).ThesestatisticsandtherecordsoftheOttomanSanitaryAdministrationareavailableattheBOALibrary,Istanbul.

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Hejaz and Yemen, it appears that at times the number of zuvvars to the atabat rivaled them.88 In spite of such numbers and the possible rev-enue that could have accrued from them, build-ing and maintaining quarantine stations staffed with doctors and other auxiliary and adminis-trative staff were costly, and at times there was a deficit in the budget of the sanitary offices of the Turco- Persian Frontier. However, in some years the sanitary tax surpassed expenses, and the surplus was transferred to different items of the budget such as retiree funds. Given that the only tax pilgrims paid was not sanitary tax, it is no exaggeration to claim that Ottoman state and society considerably benefited from the pil-grim and corpse traffic.

Because of the geographic distribution of Ottoman land, many states were interested in its

sanitary surveillance and, as a result, put pres-sure on the Ottoman Empire to introduce a se-rious quarantine regime. In May 1882, commis-sioners from various countries came together to revise the tariff des droits sanitaires of the Ottoman Empire.89 In the ensuing discussions, one delegate argued that, even though les progrs et la civilisation voudraient bien la sup-pression du transport des cadavres et du pleri-nage, because traditions and beliefs have their place, controlling the agents of contagion was a necessity.90 One delegate, a certain Dr. Dick-son, went even further. He argued that, unlike going to Mecca, visiting the atabat was not an obligation for Muslims and was only carried out because of religious devotion. Hence visitors to the atabat were not called Hadji but Zou-var. At the same meeting of the joint commis-

88. Forexample,in187273,thenumberofpilgrimstoMeccawas51,738,whilethatofzuvvarstotheata-batwas30,013.In187374thenumberofpilgrimswas65,401andthatofzuvvarswas66,789.In187677thenumberofpilgrimswas61,856andthatofzuvvarswas23,061.In188283thenumberofpilgrimswas46,519,whilethenumberofzuvvarswas71,883.NodoubtsomeindividualsproceededfromatabattoHejazandshouldbecountedamongthenumberofpilgrimstoMecca.

89. InadditiontotheOttomanEmpire,thesecoun-trieswereGermany,Austria-Hungary,Belgium,Spain,France,GreatBritain,Italy,theNetherlands,Russia,andNorway.SeeCommission mixte charge de la rvision.

90. Ibid.

Table 1. Iranian pilgrims and cadavers taxed at various quarantine stations of the Ottoman Empire (1872 84 and 1898 1904)

Year,1 March 28 February

No. of pilgrims,10 piastres each

Sanitary taxes collected, in piastres

No. of cadavers,50 piastres each

Sanitary taxes collected, in piastres

1872 73 30,013 300,150 5,085 254,100

1873 74 66,789 667,890 12,202 610,050

1874 75 24,333 243,340 1,158 57,900

1875 76 24,197 241,970 841 42,050

1876 77 23,061 230,610 1,715 85,750

1877 78 15,566 1,647 1,647 82,350

1878 79 33,523 325,230 5,592 279,600

1879 80 34,871 348,710 7,895 394,750

1880 81 41,610 416,100 7,676 338,800

1881 82 26,393 263,930 4,259 212,950

1882 83 71,883 718,830 11,977 598,850

1883 84 59,741 597,410 8,882 444,100

1898 99 35,789 357,890 5,296 264,800

1899 1900 40,822 408,220 5,478 273,900

1900 1901 47,685 476,850 6,866 343,300

1901 2 71,804 718,040 7,905 395,250

1902 3 37,131 371,310 4,743 237,150

1903 4 58,801 588,010 7,245 362,250

Figures in table are collected from Administration sanitaire de LEmpire Ottoman.

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sion it was reported that from 1873 to 1879 the sanitary administration of the Turco- Persian Frontier suffered an average deficit of 119,764 piastres. To put an end to the deficit and to limit the number of corpses and zuvvars crossing the frontier, it was even suggested that corpses be taxed at two hundred piastres each and zuvvars at fifty piastres.91

In spite of such calculations and continu-ous complaints, it appears that the terms of the 1871 treaty were largely upheld and the sanitary tax remained the same. Hence during a chol-era outbreak in 1892, pilgrims and corpses were not allowed to cross the frontier. However, the following year the Meclis- i Shhiye, or Public Health Commission, informed the governor of Baghdad that the epidemic was limited to the eastern parts of Iran and, as it took a month to travel from those regions to the frontier, such restrictions were unnecessary. The ban was cau-tiously lifted, and, after careful inspection of their goods and clothes, Iranians were required to spend only five days in the tahaffuzhane (quar-antine house) of Khanaqin instead of the usual ten. Such times of epidemics were costly to the Baghdad province. For instance, when the bor-der was closed to pilgrims and visitors to the atabat for the seventeen months between June 1892 and November 1893, only 5,831 individu-als, or an average of 12 persons a day, were al-lowed to cross the frontier. After the ban was lifted, the average daily flow of individuals re-quired to spend five days in quarantine before crossing rose to ninety- seven.92 No doubt larger numbers were desirable, as they meant greater opportunity for trade and transactions. Yet it was also apparent that the cost of an epidemic surpassed the benefits of pilgrim and corpse caravans.

Consequently, in spite of complaints, gov-ernment doctors in Kermanshah and Basra did not bend the rules; they checked bones and burial papers for every group before al-lowing them to cross the border. In one case,

after being petitioned by the Iranian represen-tative in the Ottoman Public Health Commis-sion, the minister of health urged the sadrazam (prime minister) to allow the remains of the ranking Iranian administrator Vakil al- Dawla to pass through Khanaqin before a three- year burial period. Special permission was granted because Vakil al- Dawla was buried for two and a half years, and his remains were perfectly sealed in a wooden coffin that was put inside a lead chest; however, underscoring the special circumstances of the case, the minister added that it should not set a precedent.93 Yet despite such efforts, in 1894 the Ninth International Paris Sanitary Conference once again identified pilgrims as the transmitters of cholera into Eu-rope.94 Istanbul specifically ordered its represen-tative at the conference, Turhan Bey, to inform the participants of its seriousness about the control of frontiers and especially corpse traf-fic. Such measures were not window dressing. The Ottoman authorities continued to take the issue seriously. Thus, for example, on 14 Janu-ary 1894, the Prime Ministry asked the Ministry of Health to promptly report what kind of scien-tific and preventive (tedabir- i fenniye ve tahaffuzn ) measures should be taken in relation to the transfer of corpses from Iran, to ensure public health (shhat- i umumyenin muhafazas nokta- i nazarndan).95 Additionally, when pilgrimage was at its peak, supplementary troops would be sent to the region.96 Such measures meant that the ghastly processions and caravans with an almost unendurable smell were increasingly difficult to spot. But they did not put an end to corpse traffic, and it was not only states that came up with additional measures when it came to crossing the borders.

Pilgrims, Corpses, and CarpetsAs parties variously introduced scientific and preventive measures, tightened border controls, and raised fees, a group of people near the bor-der posts emerged, whose task was to dry moist

91. Ibid.

92.BaghdadGovernortoPrimeMinistry,20Septem-ber[1895],BOA,"SadaretMektubiMuhimmeKalemi,"AMKTMHM570/9,1311.8.7.

93.Ministerofhealthtosadrazam,Y.A.HUS,289/33,11RecebAH1311/18January1894.

94.Huber,UnificationoftheGlobe,469.

95. BOA,IradeHususi(IHUS),20/1311/B/19,2Kanun-uSaniAH1309/14January1894.

96. BOA,SadaretMektubiMuhimmeKalemi(AMKTMHM),576/25,16June1898.

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corpses so that they could pass the inspection of the Ottoman health officials. Additionally, new restrictions and fees gave rise to the develop-ment of a brisk illegal transfer of corpses. 97

In his memo of 25 August 1899 to the sadrazam, the Ottoman minister of health ob-served that, despite the rule that no corpse be transferred before three years of burial, the smuggling of moist corpses continued to pose a serious health risk. Such smuggling, the mem-orandum noted, was carried out to evade lay-overs at quarantine stations and fees levied by the treasury. Even though the number of moist corpses smuggled from Iran was very low, the memorandum continued, the Baghdad Quar-antine Inspectorate reported that Iraqi Shiis bringing their putrefied moist corpses to bury in the atabat constituted a grave health risk for the routes through which they traveled. This, the inspectorate went on, violated the articles of related regulations. Since the plague was ravaging parts of Iran at the time, the General Board of Health asked the ministry to order au-thorities in Baghdad province, via the sadrazam, to take strong measures to put an absolute end to the trafficking of corpses from Iran and to the transfer of moist corpses within Iraq.98 Nev-ertheless, smuggling persisted, and Ottoman authorities, aware of the phenomenon, argued that the main reason for it was to avoid the fees charged by the ministry.99

Meanwhile, those Iranian pilgrims and corpse carriers/caravans who opted to pass through the customhouses complained al-most continuously about maltreatment and il-legal taxation, which, it was claimed, started at Khanaqin customs and continued at Qizil Rabat, Karbala, and elsewhere. At the turn of the twentieth century, the interpretation of a clause of the Erzurum Treaty (1847) stipulating that noncommercial goods of Iranian visitors would not be taxed was particularly at issue. Iranian representatives claimed that Ottoman custom officials were forcefully and illegally tax-

ing various goods, especially the qali (carpet), ghilim (rug), and seccade (carpet prayer mats) of the pilgrims, which were for personal use. Re-jecting these accusations, Ottoman authorities of the frontier provinces claimed that Iranian pilgrims, pretending that they were personal belongings, also brought aba (cloaks), firuze (turquoise stones), and saffron to sell in the markets and that these commercial goods alone were taxed. Additionally, Ottoman authorities maintained that Iranians were asked to deposit a certain amount of money for their beasts of burden and goods deemed commercial. If they returned with the registered goods and ani-mals, the money deposited was returned; if not, legal taxes were requested. When the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior asked Baghdads gover-nor about the complaints, he informed Istanbul that complainants were those caught smuggling and assured the Bab- li that Iranian visitors were treated respectfully and neither taxed multiple times nor taxed for their personal be-longings. Out of the one hundred thousand ghurush in deposits paid on goods registered as personal items in 1912, only eighteen thousand were taken back to Iran, the governor alleged, adding that the amount of unpaid dues from smuggled goods and animals was in the hun-dreds of thousands.100

In its meeting of 31 May 1913, the Otto-man cabinet evaluated the complaints of foreign embassies and supported a previous decision of the Reform Legislation Department (Tanzimat Meclisi) that held that, except for the medical examination fee, no fee should be charged to bury foreign bones in the general cemeteries of the holy cities, located outside the four conse-crated cemeteries. The same rule was valid for the bones of deceased Ottoman citizens as well. Days later, the sultan signed the Bill regarding the Burials of Corpses in An Najaf al- Ashraf, Kar-bala, and Al Kazimiyah. Regarding the high num-ber of Iranians living in Karbala and An Najaf, the first article stipulated that foreign nation-

97.Nakash,Shiis of Iraq,19091.

98.Ministerofhealthtosadrazam,17Rebi-ulAhirAH1317/25August1899,BOA,"SadaretMektubiMuhimmeKalemi,"AMKTMHM578/34.

99.BOA,DahiliyeMuhaberat-UmumiyeIdaresi(DHMUI),281/67,datedOctoberandNovember1909.

100.VariouscorrespondencesbetweenthegovernorofBaghdadandtheMinistriesofInterior,Finance,andForeignAffairsandthePrimeMinistry,191113,BOA,DahiliyeIdare(DHID),59/59.

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als who had been living in those cities, or in Al Kazimiyah, for more than one year, need not pay any taxes for burial in general cemeteries. The second article specified that the transfer of moist corpses from Iran or anywhere in the Ot-toman Empire was forbidden and that only dry corpses (bones) could be transferred after taxes had been paid. Annulling a previous rule, the following article maintained that the members of the staff of the atabat and their family mem-bers were required to pay the necessary dues for burial in the sahn al- sharif (chambers or on the grounds of the courtyard).101 This injunc-tion points to yet another bone of contention, beyond that of Iranian pilgrims and corpses: namely, the Ottoman Shiis of lower Iraq and their burial problems.

Constitution and Coffins: Iraqi Shiis and Transfer of CorpsesShiis from the Basra and Baghdad provinces also transferred their dead to the consecrated cemeteries. Yet after the Mushir al- Dawla Husayn Khan and Midhat Pasha agreement of 1871, Istanbul changed the rules for them as well. Only those living inside a twelve- hour radius of the sacred grounds were allowed to transfer moist corpses. Those living beyond that radius were subject to the same rules as Iranians: their corpses had to spend three years at the place of origin before being transferred to holy grounds. As to be expected, much com-plaint ensued, and pressure was placed on the governor of Baghdad. In 1894 Governor Namk Pasha informed the sadrazam that Jafaris in the city of Baghdad and Al Kazimiyah, together with the people of Karbala and the Diwaniya sanjaks (administrative districts), had no place to bury their dead but in the cemeteries in the atabat. Moreover, since most of the places in-habited by the Shiis were marshes, there were many complaints about sanitary restrictions re-garding the transfer of corpses. Since forcing them to abandon their tradition was politically

undesirable, the provincial council of Baghdad (meclis- i idare- i vilayat) decided that the Shiis in the greater (i.e., within a radius that could be traveled by a caravan in twelve hours time) environs of the atabat could continue to trans-fer their dead as they traditionally had. The Higher Board of Health, after the warning of Baghdads quarantine inspector, disagreed. Be-cause corpses brought from beyond the twelve- hour radius posed a serious health risk, such practices should be prevented and local govern-ments should bury the corpses wherever they were intercepted. The minister of health urged the sadrazam to remind the governor of the rules and regulations.102 Apparently, the gover-nor of Baghdad knew better. At the turn of the twentieth century, the minister was still warning the sadrazam that the transfer and smuggling of moist corpses posed a serious health risk.103

While measures regarding Iranian corpse traffic were strictly adhered to, local administra-tors, feeling the pressure of their constituency, were willing to bend the rules for Iraqi Shiis. This created tension between administrative and sanitary authorities. Various exchanges between the Ottoman ministries show that, in spite of the sanitary workers efforts, there were incessant attempts to circumvent the restrictions. Often, local authorities like the kaimmakam (district gov-ernor) of An Najaf or the quarantine officials of Al Kazimiyah and Musayyib would forge docu-ments to allow the transport of moist corpses. In some cases, the corpses would be stored in a cool place without burial and illegally transferred to the atabat. In one such case, in 1905, fourteen corpses intercepted in An Najaf were deter-mined to be those of individuals who had died of cholera a few months previously in Basra prov-ince, thus posing a serious health risk. Aware of such practices among Ottoman Shiis, Ottoman authorities also closely watched the customs cen-ter at Khanaqin, and sen