The discovery of oil in Al-Ahwaz .. and the beginning of the persecution of the Ahwazis

 

in 1902 george reynolds abritish engineer working for asyndicate in london
began searching for oil in the middle east, it was ahunt that would last six long frustrating year it would end in ahistoric discovery that would change the region for ever .

but for the ahwazi arabs of the centuries old emirate of arabistan , the discovery of oil on their land would prove to be acurse that haunts them to this day.

reynolds had been hired by william knox dArcy, abusinessman who in 1901 had been granted a 60 year oll concession by mozaffar al din the shah of persia

Reynolds and his men spent two years drilling in vain the chiah surkh mountains , west of tehran near the border with mesopotamia .

by 1905 the search had switched to shardin east of the town of ahwaz,  after another two fruitless years ,reynolds finally turned his attention to masjid- i- suleiman ,some 80 kilometers northwest along the zagros mountain range, time and mney was running out for daArcy and his backers.

Fresh investment from the Burmah Oil Co. had rescued the expedition financially in 1904, but with no results and D’Arcy’s personal fortune completely run out, he risked losing his two country houses and his London mansion. In Persia, staff was already being dismissed. Reynolds received orders from London for his last-chance well: Drill to 1,600 feet and then stop.

reynolds was ordered to give up and come home,  but then in the early morning of may 26th 1908 astrong smell of sulphur engulfed Reynolds is camp,it could mean only one thing at 4 am afountain of oll gushed high in to the sky.

when he received the news in london DaAracy was ecstaticm all our troubies are over he wrote but for the ahwazi on whose land the oil had been found, trouble was just beginning.

over the next few years vast reserves of oll would be found, by right it belonged to sheikh khazaal the emir of arabistan,in 1903 he had been granted the rights to the land and its resurces by the shah of persia,  but in 1921 britain until then the sheikh is ally .

conspired in the overthrow of the shah by his rival Reza khan,  backed by Britain the new shah determined to get his hands on the oil invaded arabistan, he placed sheikh khazaal under arrest and stripped the ahwazi of their territorial rights, and the autonomy they had enjoyed for hundreds of years ,for the arabs of the western gulf the discovery of il would prove ablessing , for the arabs of iran it paved the way for a century of persecution and oppression that continues to this day