4
The First World War and its legacy for
women in Iraq
Noga Efrati
The notion that the First world war was a watershed in gender relations
in European societies, has characterised contemporary narratives and, for a
long time, also historiography. women proved their ‘patriotism and fitness
for citizenship’ and were rewarded with political and other rights.1 a similar
sentiment can be noted in post-First world war Iraq, if we stretch beyond
the generally-accepted 1914–1918 timeline, as some suggest,2 and include
the 1920 revolt. Iraqi women’s leaders portrayed the revolt against the British
occupation as a defining moment for women not only manifesting women’s
1 Birgitta Bader-Zaar, ‘Controversy: war-related Changes in Gender Relations: The Issue of
women’s Citizenship’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, heather Jones, Jennifer Keene,
alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson (eds). International Encyclopedia of the First World War (Freie
Universität Berlin, Berlin: 2014), accessed 30 January 2014. doi: 10.15463/ie1418.10036; Christa
Hämmerle, Oswald Überegger, and Birgitta Bader-Zaar, ‘Introduction: women’s and Gender
history of the First world war – Topics, Concepts, Perspectives’, in Christa Hämmerle, Oswald
Überegger, and Birgitta Bader-Zaar (eds), Gender and the First World War (Palgrave Macmillan,
houndmills, Basingstoke, hampshire: 2014), pp 10, 14 note 23.
2 Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela suggested expanding the canvas on which the history of
the Great war is written and see the fighting between 1914 and 1918 as part of a continuum
of conflict that began with the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911 and did not end until the
Lausanne Treaty of 1923, when a new order was in place not just in Europe and the Middle
East but also in Asia and Africa. See Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela (eds), Empires at War:
1911–1923 (Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2014).
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
78
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
nationalist awareness but also demonstrating their willingness to make sacrifices for their country. It broke down barriers that had prevented women
from realising their capabilities and prompted the call for rights that were
their due.3
Indeed, Iraqi women participated in the revolt in both urban and rural areas.
In Baghdad, a women’s committee was organised, headed by Na‘ima Sultan
Hamuda, wife of Ahmad al-Shaikh Da’ud, who was among the Iraqi leaders
arrested during the revolt and thereafter exiled. The committee explained the
revolt’s goals to women, encouraged their support, and collected donations of
cash and jewelry. Baghdadi women appealed to Oriental Secretary Gertrude
Bell regarding the fate of nationalist detainees and participated in mass funeral
processions, thereby transforming the funerals into nationalist demonstrations.
Dressed in black and veiled, they shouted nationalist slogans against British
imperialism. In the countryside, rural women accompanied fighting men to
battle and urged them on. They also carried equipment and provided supplies. There have been claims that women actually participated in combat,
but details of when and where were not provided. women’s contribution was
acknowledged in a letter from the leaders of the uprising.4
Recent scholarship, however, has not remained as euphoric. A more
nuanced view of war-related change concerning war’s significance for
women’s citizenship in Europe has evolved. Researchers point out that the
war did not result in full political rights, not to mention citizenship, in many
countries, including France, Italy, and even Britain.5 This chapter will focus on
the legacy of the First world war for women in Iraq.
British forces occupying Iraq during the war faced the necessity of imposing
order over the vast rural countryside, preventing assistance to the Ottoman
armies, and securing supplies. Toward this end and with their understanding
of rural areas as tribal, the British sought to enhance the authority of shaikhs,
3 Sabiha al-Shaikh Da’ud, Awwal al-Tariq Ila al-Nahda al-Niswiyya fi al-‘Iraq (al-Rabita,
Baghdad: 1958), pp 27–35; al-Fikr al-Jadid,10 March 1973, p 4.
4 For more about women’s participation in the 1920 revolt see Da’ud, Awwal al-Tariq,
pp 27–35; Rufa’il Butti, ‘Al-Mar’a al-‘Iraqiyya al-Haditha’, al-Kitab 4 (November, 1947), p 1877;
‘Abd al-Rahman Sulaiman al-Darbandi, Dirasat ‘an al-Mar’a al-‘Iraqiyya al-Mu‘asira (Dar
al-Basri, Baghdad: 1968), Vol 2, pp 250–251; ‘Ali al-Khaqani, ‘Sha‘irat fi Thawrat al-‘Ishrin’, in
Muhammad ‘Ali Kamal al-Din (ed), Thawrat al-‘Ishrin fi Dhikraha al-Khamsin, (Dar al-Tadamun,
Najaf: 1971) pp 353–375.
5 Hämmerle, Überegger, and Bader-Zaar, Introduction, pp 10–11.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS LEGACY FOR wOMEN IN IRAQ
79
whom they saw as the tribes’ natural leaders. Appointed shaikhs were given
responsibility for maintaining order and, in return, they were given support,
arms and title to lands over which they claimed possession. Another means
to bolster the position of shaikhs was by prescribing their judicial authority
over their tribes. Toward this end the British issued in February 1916, a Tribal
Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulation (TCCDR). A few months before the end
of the war, in July 1918 the regulation was revisited and reissued.6
The TCCDR was mandated by wartime conditions, but when the war was
over the regulation remained. at the insistence of the mandate authorities,
provision for a separate tribal jurisdiction was included in Iraq’s constitution.
In 1924 the Tribal Regulation became a state law and remained in force until
the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in 1958.7 The Regulation divided
the citizens of Iraq into two groups with two different legal systems. The urban
population was subject to civil and criminal courts and fell under the jurisdiction of the Baghdad Penal Code. But the rural population was subject to the
Tribal Regulation which sanctioned and institutionalised customary practices.
Much has been written about the Tribal Regulation, the way it facilitated
the cheap, indirect administration of Iraq’s vast territories during the British
occupation, how it reflected the British occupiers’ perception of the social
structure they found therein and how it provided a basis for loyalty to the
civil administration and later to the Iraqi government.8 But its implications
for women, which stirred much controversy at the time, have received little
scholarly attention. This chapter will elaborate on the harsh implications the
regulation had for Iraqi women and, how it constructed them as non-citizens.
It seeks to add to the re-evaluation of the First world war’s significance for
women’s citizenship globally.
6 Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulations (The Times Press, Bombay: 1916), L/P&S
10/617, India Office Library, London (hereafter IO); ‘Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes
Regulation (Revised)’, in Iraq Administration Reports: 1914–1932, compiled by Robert L.
Jarman, (Archive Editions, Slough, U.K.: 1992), Vol 8, pp 144–156 (hereafter IAR).
7 ‘The Tribal and Civil Disputes Regulations Amendment Law of 1924’, in Iraq Ministry
of Justice, Compilation of Laws and Regulations Issued Between 1st January 1924 and 31st
December 1925 (Government Press, Baghdad: 1926) p 63; Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq
1914–1932 (Columbia University Press, New York: 2007) pp 169 –172.
8 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914–1932, pp 169–181; Samira Haj, The Making of Iraq 1900–1963:
Capital, Power, and Ideology (State University of New York Press, Albany: 1997); Toby Dodge,
Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied (Columbia University
Press, New York: 2003) pp 83–100.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
80
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
British occupation of Iraq brought with it an administration that was
largely shaped by the British experience in India. Sir Henry Dobbs, at the
time Revenue Commissioner, drew up the Tribal Regulation along the lines
of the colonial code used on the Indian North-west Frontier. It was designed
to arrange for the speedy settlement of tribesmen’s disputes in accordance
with tribal customs by a tribal majlis which would include mainly ‘chiefs and
shaikhs’. But, the system as a whole was supervised by, and subordinate to,
the British administration and later to the Iraqi government.
The Regulation allowed ‘tribesmen’ to settle their disputes according to
‘tribal custom’, but it did not elaborate on the term tribal custom per se. British
political officers, however, perceived ‘tribal custom’ as universal, age old, and
unchanging.9 Customs concerning women were well known and described as
uncompromising and harsh. They found evidence for this callous treatment in
numerous tenets: A woman who ‘lapsed from the strict path of virtue’, they
reported, brought a stain to the family honour that could be washed away
only by her blood; in the settlement of feuds, especially blood feuds, tribes
required the guilty party, in addition to paying blood money, to hand over one
or more women from his clan to the family of the victim for the purpose of
marriage; a woman was compelled to marry her paternal cousin or to receive
his consent to marry another man – and if overlooked, the cousin was justified
in killing the woman or the man she ultimately married. Aberrations, when
noted, were usually explained as exceptions to the rule or as deviation from
tribal custom.10
Iraqi opposition to the regulation throughout the hashemite period
included the plight of women as an important justification. Iraqi officials and
9 arnold T. wilson, Loyalties, Mesopotamia, 1914–1917: A Personal and Historical Record Vol
1 (Oxford University Press, London: 1936) p 69.
10 See, for example, ‘Administration Report of Suq al-Shuyukh and Hammar District for
the Year 1918’, in IAR, Vol 2, p 363; ‘Report on the Administration of Justice for the Year
1919’, in IAR Vol 3, p 380; ‘Monthly Report of Arbil District for the Month of October 1919’,
L/P&S11/168, IO; ‘Monthly Report A.P.O. Basrah for the Month of December 1919’, L/P&S
10/621, IO; ‘Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia for 1920’, in IAR Vol 5
p 18; ‘Annual Administration Report of the Mosul Division for the Year 1921’, Foreign Office
(hereafter FO) 371/7801/E10742, The National Archives, London, Kew (hereafter, TNA); E. S.
Stevens, By Tigris and Euphrates (Hurst and Blackett, London: 1923), pp 275, 280–281; ‘Report
by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to
the Council of the League of Nations on the administration of ‘Iraq for the Year 1929’, in IAR
Vol 9, p 221.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS LEGACY FOR wOMEN IN IRAQ
81
intellectuals, Sunnis and Shi‘is, men and women, protested the harsh implications the regulation had for rural women. Muhammad Fadil al-Jamali, a Shi‘i
who in the 1930s held high positions in the Ministry of Education, argued in
his dissertation on Bedouin education, written at Columbia University Teachers’ College where he studied between 1929 and 1932, that tribal women
were perceived as inferior beings and the possessions of men. He underscored
the use of women in dispute settlements stating that ‘this means of atonement
for murder is certainly degrading to those women handed over to an enemy
tribe.’ Ja‘far hamandi, the Shi‘i director of legal affairs in the Ministry of the
Interior expressed his disapproval of practices that treated women as property
and criticised the nahwa (the right of men to prevent their female agnates’
marriage) as a vehicle for restricting personal liberty. In 1929, the Ministry
of the Interior instructed its officials to urge arbitrators in tribal councils to
use money rather than women to settle disputes, and steps were taken to
encourage the annulment of the nahwa. Hamandi claimed it was he who
convinced the ministry heads to issue the decree urging the settlement of
disputes monetarily and it was during his term as director of legal affairs, that
the government made agreements with several shaikhs and village leaders to
annul the nahwa.11
The renowned poet Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi harshly attacked the Tribal regulation’s recognition of ‘barbaric’ and ‘pre-Islamic’ customs. Guardians, he
protested, perceived their daughters as their property, selling women like
‘sheep and cows’ for the purpose of marriage. Guardians of married women
would force husbands to divorce their wives to obtain a higher mahr.12 If the
women’s husbands were absent, the guardians could give their wards in marriage again without bothering first to have them divorced, simply out of greed
for another mahr. Because women were perceived as property, men who
had many daughters thought themselves rich. women, he protested, were
not only excluded from inheritance, but were also inheritable themselves; a
woman handed over in dispute settlement was disdained, humiliated, and put
to work like a slave. To demonstrate the role the TCCDR played in preserving
such practices, al-Rusafi described first-hand the proceedings of several cases
11 Mohammed Fadhel Jamali, The New Iraq: Its Problem of Bedouin Education (Bureau
of Publication, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York: 1934), pp 73–74, 144;
‘Al-Nahwa’ Lughat al-‘Arab, 8 (1930), p 187. (No author was mentioned)
12 Mahr pl. Muhur – according to Islamic law, a sum of money or other property given by the
husband to the wife as an obligation of marriage.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
82
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
brought before Iraqi administrative official to be tried under the regulation.
In one, a man had attempted to seduce the sister of another man. The state
official instructed the seducer to give his sister as a wife without mahr to the
brother of the woman he tried to seduce. Al-Rusafi questioned this ruling,
inquiring of the administrative officials what transgression the criminal’s sister
had committed that would justify her being handed over in this way for a
crime perpetrated by her brother. The official admitted that a woman handed
over in this manner enjoys no respect – indeed, she is disdained, humiliated,
and put to work like a slave – but he stressed that ‘tribal law’ demanded such
a verdict.13
Prominent women such as the poet Nazik al-Mala’ika and women’s leaders
Sabiha al-Shaikh Da’ud and Naziha al-Dulaimi protested against the legitimisation of honour murders. Nazik al-Mala’ika lamented in her poem ‘washing
off Disgrace’ the brutal murder of a young woman in the name of honour. The
poem was seen as expressing a new generation’s aversion to the archaic practices preserved in society.14 However, her description of the murderer as he
sat in a tavern boasting of his deeds and cleaning his dagger also bemoaned
the fact that he could get away with it. Her criticism, subtle though it was,
clearly conveyed the notion that women lived in fear and submissiveness
because there was no law to protect them from their kin.15 Da’ud and alDulaimi concurred that rural women were subjected to ‘double servitude’enslaved like rural men to the landlords and enslaved by their husbands as
well. Rural women, both argued, were overworked, abused, and lost any
personal freedom. Like beasts of burden, al-Dulaimi charged, rural women
might, without recourse, bear the brunt of their husbands’ anger, be beaten,
or otherwise maltreated. They understood that opposition might have harsh
consequences for they could be easily disposed of. Such an act was readily
explained away under the pretext of ‘washing away the shame’, which was
officially recognised as justification for murder.16 The importance of such
13 Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi, ‘Al-Zu‘ama fi al-‘Iraq’, in Sa‘id al-Badri (ed), Ara’ al-Rusafi fi al-Siyasa wa-1
-Din wa-1 -Ijtima‘, 2nd ed. (al-Ma‘arif, Baghdad: 1951) pp 9 –15.
14 Khalid Kishtainy, ‘women in Art and Literature’, in Doreen Ingrams, The Awakened:
Women in Iraq (Third world Center, London: 1983) pp 149–150.
15 Nazik al-Mala’ika, Diwan Nazik al-Mala’ika (Dar al-‘Awda, Beirut: 1986), Vol 2, pp 351–
354. For an English translation see Ingrams, The Awakened, pp 150–151.
16 Naziha al-Dulaimi, Al-Mar’a al-‘Iraqiyya (al-Rabita, Baghdad: [1950?]), pp 8–11; Da’ud,
Awwal al-Tariq, pp 223–229.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS LEGACY FOR wOMEN IN IRAQ
83
critiques lies in their bringing to light the ramifications of the TCCDR. The
regulation constructed women as tribal possessions and allowed men unbridled power over their lives.
British officials were not unaware of these aspects of the Tribal Regulation.
Many depicted customs affecting women as ‘barbaric’ and their implementation through the Regulation as ‘foreign to British judicial tradition’ or ‘a travesty
of justice’.17 Some political officers were reluctant to sanction the handing
over of women in dispute settlements; others imposed punishments on perpetrators of honour murders.18 One of these political officers Stuart Edwin Hedgcock documented the harsh treatment of women under customary law in his
1927 book Haji Rikkan”, which he published with his wife.19 Moreover, British
legal experts and advisers in Iraq such as Edgar Bonham-Carter (who became
senior judicial officer in Baghdad in 1917 and later served as judicial adviser
in Mesopotamia from 1919 until 1921) and Edwin Drower (adviser to the Iraqi
Ministry of Justice, from 1922 until 1946) favoured the transference of tribal
criminal cases to the civil courts, which would allow punishment of ‘crimes of
honour’ under the penal code. Such crimes, lamented Bonham-Carter, were
regrettably common and would be difficult to eradicate.20
However, the Office of the Civil Commissioner cautioned against political
officers’ intervention, noting that such intrusion tends to undermine the force
and the appeal of this method of settlement. Oriental Secretary Gertrude Bell
advised that such interference was incompatible with the valued “local justice”
17 See, for example, ‘Administration Report of the Amarah Division for the Year 1920–21’,
in IAR Vol 5, p 175; ‘Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia for 1920’, in IAR Vol
5, p 18; ‘The Court of Cassation, Annual Report for 1929’, Baghdad High Commission File
(hereafter, BHCF), Judicial Matters, 8/219, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter,
NaI); Stevens, By Tigris and Euphrates, p 275.
18 See James Saumarez Mann (ed), An Administrator in the Making: James Saumarez Mann,
1893–1920 (Longmans, Green, London: 1921) pp 220–22; ‘administration Report for the
Qurnah Area for the Year 1919’, in IAR Vol 4, p 269.
19 Fulanain (pseudonym for Stuart Edwin Hedgcock and his wife Monica Grace Hedgcock),
Haji Rikkan: Marsh Arab (Chatto & windus, London: 1927).
20 Copy of Memorandum No.A.12/1571, Dated April 12, 1921, from the Judicial Adviser to
the Adviser to the Ministry of Interior, Baghdad, CO 730/6, TNA; ‘Report by His Britannic
Majesty’s Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the administration of ‘Iraq
for the Year 1927’, in IAR Vol 8, p 466; ‘Report on the Administration of Justice for the Year
1919’, in IAR Vol 3, p 380.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
84
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
that promoted good conduct and order.21 In 1923, when the Iraqi minister of
justice, Naji al-Suwaidi, suggested a broad revision of the Regulation, including
a section stipulating that offences affecting sexual morals and honour be punishable under the Penal Code, High Commissioner Dobbs objected – remarking that ‘if there is any case in which tribal feeling is keen and tribal custom
necessary to follow, it is the case of adultery and the like.’22 In 1926, Dobbs
threatened to invoke his powers under the Military Agreement should the Iraqi
government attempt to ‘emasculate’ so effective a system of maintaining order
in tribal areas.23 Thus, British actions often seemed dissonant or contradictory.
A model suggested by Toby Dodge – which identified two competing British
perceptions of how best to govern an alien society – at first glance seems to
explain these conflicting positions. Those advocating non-intervention were
those Dodge classified as adhering to romantic collectivism. Collectivists saw Iraq
as premodern and tribal and thus endeavoured to rule the country on the basis
of the tribal system with its tribal leaders and its distinct tribal law and customs.
Their subscription to the notion of distinct ‘tribal custom’ was a major justification
for deploying the regulation. Interference with practices affecting women challenged this notion and threatened to undermine an effective tool for controlling
the countryside. On the other hand, those advocating ideas Dodge classifies as
rational individualism, saw Iraq destined for modernisation and viewed the individual as the fundamental unit of society. They perceived the tribal system as in
decay, were sensitive to the lot of individuals, men and women, under tribal law,
and felt that the Regulation should be abolished and tribal law overruled.24
Yet it would be incorrect to conclude that overall British reticence to intervene in practices pertaining to rural women resulted only from romantic collectivism’s dominance. In fact, those touting rational individualism revealed
a tendency toward the marginalisation of women not unlike that of their colleagues. ‘Saving brown women from brown men’,25 although a goal, was not
21 ‘Review of the Civil Administration of the Occupied Territories of Al ‘Iraq, 1914–1918’, in IAR
Vol 1, p 57; ‘Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia for 1920’, in IAR Vol 5, pp 17–18.
22 Proposed Amendments to the Tribal Disputes Law, from H. Dobbs to E. M. Drower,18
October 1923, Colonial Office (hereafter, CO) 730/103, TNA.
23 See correspondence between Henry Dobbs and Kinahan Cornwallis, dated 7 and 8 June
1926, CO 730/103, TNA.
24 Dodge, Inventing Iraq, especially pp 1–2, 83–100, 175–176.
25 Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Cary Nelson and Laurence
Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (University of Illinois Press, Urbana:
1988) p 296.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS LEGACY FOR wOMEN IN IRAQ
85
high on their agenda. Higher priority was given to building a progressive legal
system within a ‘civilised government’ and imposing order. Thus, for example,
the main concern of those political officers who punished men who had murdered female relatives, was not the lot of women, but rather that a ‘civilised
government’ could not condone such brutal acts of murder.26 Bonham-Carter
and Drower’s support for abolishing the Regulation and transferring tribal
murder cases to the civil courts reveals a similar set of priorities. To them,
building a progressive legal system required a unified system, with the responsibility for punishment solely in the hands of the government. The elimination
of ‘tribal custom’, however, was not an immediate concern. Both men suggested that the civil courts exercise the authority given to them by Article 41
of the Penal Code to punish tribal offenders according to tribal custom.27
The Hedgcocks’ book was no exception. It indeed places great emphasis
on the importance of the individual. written in the form of tales told to the
authors by Haji Rikkan, a marsh peddler and guide, women figures are given
names and voices. The book touches repeatedly on themes of killing in the
name of honour and the use of women as a means for settling disputes. Tragedies unfold, one after another: a father feels compelled to kill his beloved
daughter for falling in love with a man from a tribe of lower status; a brother
is taunted into murdering his sister; a girl fleeing with her cousin, whom she
loves, from a forced marriage begs him to kill her when their escape fails; a
grieving father laments the cruel fate of his daughter, who is to be handed
over in a dispute settlement. The language the authors used in describing the
women’s plight is explicit. A woman handed over to a hostile tribe is torn from
her parents and ‘becomes the absolute chattel of the stranger to whom she is
allotted. However bad her treatment – and it is not likely to be over-good –
she cannot demand a divorce.’28 However, in spite of their grim descriptions,
implicit in the authors’ narration is resignation to the fact that other considerations took precedence over women’s well-being. Referring to the TCCDR as
legislation that ‘makes full allowance for the binding obligation on a tribesman
26 ‘Administration Report of the ‘Amarah Division for the Year 1919’, in IAR, Vol 4, p 9.
27 Copy of Memorandum No. A.12/1571, Dated 12 April 1921, from Judicial Adviser to the
Adviser to the Ministry of Interior, Baghdad, CO 730/6, TNA; E. M. Drower to Sir Henry
Dobbs, 21 October 1923, CO 730/103, TNA; ‘Report by His Britannic Majesty’s Government
to the Council of the League of Nations on the administration of ‘Iraq for the Year 1927’, in
IAR Vol 8, p 466.
28 Fulanain, Haji Rikkan, pp 55, 56–57.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
86
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
to take a life when his honour is at stake’, the Hedgcocks implicitly sanctioned
‘honour’ murders. although ‘appalled’ at the ‘savage act’ of a brother slaying
his sister, the Hedgcocks accepted Rikkan’s circular explanation: the woman
must have been guilty, or she would not have been accused. Thus, ancient law
required the murder to preserve tribal honour. also, although disapproving of
the handing over of women in dispute settlements, the Hedgcocks accepted
the utility of the practice and recommended noninterference: ‘To western
minds it seems intolerable that the custom of a money payment instead of
payment of a woman, sometimes adopted among the tribes, should not be
generally enforced. But the arabs have learned by long experience that the
old method of handing over women is by far the most effective for ensuring
future amity between the tribes hitherto at feud. More surely than the payment
of money, this inter-marriage brings about a lasting and real reconciliation.’29
Romantic collectivism and rational individualism, then, were not mutually
exclusive British notions as far as practices affecting women were concerned.
Those convinced of the validity of the tribal system tended to legitimise its
laws and to moderate criticism that could undermine it. Those who put a
premium on the building of a modern state allowed the utility of customary
law in a society perceived as culturally different. That customs concerning
women stirred so little British reaction followed from the marginalisation of
women that was intrinsic to both perceptions and that was effected to facilitate the maintenance of law and order. This marginalisation was a major factor
defining the nature of women’s civil status in the emerging state.
The British official position during the Mandate period and after Iraq’s reoccupation during the Second world war thwarted any attempt to interfere
with the TCCDR or with customs affecting women by British administrators,
Iraqi urban politicians, state officials, lawyers, nationalist journalists, and even
tribal leaders. In 1933, tribal leaders were engaged in a process of drafting
an amendment to the TCCDR and a detailed proposal was submitted to the
king, just before he died. These same shaikhs or their relatives resubmitted an
identical draft to the British ambassador in 1944.30 The shaikhs’ proposed law,
the ‘Tribal Code’, set broader criteria for its application than did the TCCDR.
In an effort to distance the state from tribal affairs, ‘tribal magistrates’ were to
29 Ibid., p 46, pp 55–56, 58.
30 Iraq Police, Abstract of Intelligence, No. 13, 28 March 1933, Air Ministry, Royal Air Force,
Overseas Commands, Air 23/589, vol. XV, TNA; Tribal Code: Draft Law, February 1944, FO
624/38/493, TNA.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS LEGACY FOR wOMEN IN IRAQ
87
be put at the head of the tribal judicial system in place of state administrative
officials. State officials would be prohibited not only from interfering in cases
lying within the jurisdiction of tribal arbitrators, but also and in stark contrast
to the regulation from arresting tribesmen involved in such cases.
Unlike the TCCDR, however, which left shaikhs and tribal arbitrators free
to prescribe tribal custom, several chapters in this proposal delineated certain
aspects of tribal law. Chapter VI, for example, contained several articles
directly or indirectly dealing with customs affecting women. These articles
challenged numerous British perceptions of tribal law pertaining to women.
whereas the British tended to assume that the killing of a woman for ‘sexually
inappropriate behaviour’ was a foregone conclusion, the tribal leaders’ proposal suggested otherwise. It stipulated that a woman ‘compelled to commit
adultery’ was not considered guilty of an offence providing she reported it to
her family within two days of the act. Thus, a woman who divulged to her
family that she had been raped could save herself from death. The code also
attempted to deter incidents of rape by meting out punishments to rapists. It
also allowed marriage as an alternative following the seduction of a virgin.
As for the handing over of women as part of a settlement in blood disputes,
whereas the British assumed that tribes favoured this choice for subduing
animosities, the proposal mentioned no such option. Under the title ‘Murder
and Blood Money’, the proposal stated that ‘blood-money in respect of a murdered person shall in general consist of 70 dinar’. A somewhat vague clause
also restricted the nahwa (sanctioning it only in a case of a man marrying a
woman ‘of a condition unbecoming of his family’).31
The British officials found the proposal presented to King Faysal ‘too fantastic’ to deserve further consideration, certainly not any legislative discussion.
when it was resubmitted in the 1940s, official noted tribal leaders’ efforts to
limit state intervention in their affairs and commented that the proposed code
left the government so little authority in tribal matters that even contemplating
its acceptance was out of the question. The fact that the proposal exhibited
a more moderate version of customary law and paved the way for legislation
dealing with customs that were perceived as ‘foreign to British judicial tradition’ either escaped officials or was considered inconsequential. In fact, in
1944 one senior official, apparently C. C. Aston, political adviser to the Iraqi
government, simply dismissed the chapter in which tribal leaders allowed
legislation emphasising the monetary settlement of blood disputes, restricted
31 Tribal Code: Draft Law.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
88
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
men’s intervention in their female relative’s marriage, set deterrents to acts that
might lead to honour murders, and enabled the marriage of lovers who had
eloped – saying merely that this section of the code was ‘inconsistent with
tribal practice’.32
whether clauses concerning women in the ‘Tribal Code’ were a better
reflection of the nature of customs prevalent in the Iraqi countryside or whether
they were the result of a strategy serving the shaikhs’ agenda is unclear. willingness to modify customs criticised by the British, the king, and Iraqi urban
intellectuals could serve shaikhs seeking to extend their influence and minimise state intervention in their affairs. It is also possible, however, that this
relative leniency regarding women was in fact a reflection of the reality in the
Iraqi countryside. There is evidence to indicate that customs prevalent in rural
areas under the mandate and the monarchy were not static. what should be
emphasised here, however, is British reaction. The British had been presented
with a golden opportunity to deal through state law with customs concerning
women that they perceived as ‘foreign to British judicial tradition’. But they
refused to do away with the TCCDR, which allowed them such firm control
over the ‘tribal system’. The TCCDR was seen as the proper tool of control,
and ‘tribal practices’, including those detrimental to women, were a main
justification for deploying it. Thus, in the 1930s, the ‘Tribal Code’, which was
intended to replace the regulation, was summarily dismissed; in 1944, when
tribal leaders resubmitted the proposal, the British again rejected it, commenting that ‘the dear old regulation of Sir Henry Dobbs has survived all attack
and continues to be the cornerstone of the administrative building [in Iraq].’33
In 1951 some amendments were introduced to the TCCDR, but despite
strong opposition calling for its annulment, the regulation remained in force.
In fact, British administrator and author Stephen Longrigg in 1953, described
the Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulation as ‘one of the most valuable
legacies of the British regime [to Iraq].’34 This legacy, however, constructed
Iraqi women as tribal possessions, abandoned outside state jurisdiction, rather
than citizens whose rights and liberties should be protected.
A century after the First world war the notion that it was a watershed in
gender relations and a catalyst of change for women’s citizenship status has
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Stephen H. Longrigg, Iraq, 1900 to 1950: A Political, Social, and Economic History (Oxford
University Press, London: 1953) p 171.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library
THE FIRST wORLD wAR AND ITS LEGACY FOR wOMEN IN IRAQ
89
been revisited. Historians’ early emphasis that the war can be viewed as a catalyst for women’s legal rights insofar as it put women’s suffrage on the political
agenda holds true only for a limited number of countries in Europe.35 The First
world war, moreover, was a world war and further study on citizenship and
the war outside the European continent is desirable. The case of Iraq supports
that such research will result not only in a more nuanced global view on warrelated change but also further erode the watershed thesis. Indeed, the First
world war was a setback rather than a catalyst for Iraqi women’s citizenship.
35 Hämmerle, Überegger, and Bader-Zaar, ‘Introduction’, p 10 and p 14 note 23.
CC-BY-NC Noga Efrati, 2015
This essay constitutes part of The First World War and its Aftermath (978 1 909942 752) published by the Gingko Library