An Uncertain Inheritance: The Imperial Travels of Legal Migrants, from British India to Ottoman Iraq

Abstract

Like many nineteenth-century travelers, Iqbal al-Daulah, a cousin of the Nawab of the Indian princely state of Awadh, navigated multiple legal systems as he migrated across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Living through the absorption of Awadh into the expanding British Empire, he eventually joined a community of Indian Shias in Ottoman Iraq, who regularly used British consular courts. While still in India, Iqbal al-Daulah composed a tribute in Persian and English to British justice. He described British courts in the following laudatory terms: “What Ease is afforded to Petitioners! The Doors of the numerous Courts being open, if any by reason of his dark fate, should be disappointed in the attainment of his desire, in one Court, in another he may obtain the Victory and Succeed.” Iqbal al-Daulah secured a sizeable pension and knighthood from the British government. However, at the end of his life, he had lost faith in British courts. In his will he lamented: “British courts are uncertain, stock in trade of bribery, wrong, delay…the seekers of redress, are captives of the paw of the Court officials; and business goes on by bribery not to be counted or described.” Despite Iqbal al-Daulah's words of caution, his friends and relatives became enmeshed in legal battles over his inheritance in British courts in India and Ottoman Iraq. In doing so, they joined the crowds of colonial subjects who flooded the courts, enduring expense and annoyance despite the prospect of uncertain outcomes.

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