Summary
The Arabic word at the centre of the 1939 committee’s dispute over the district phrase in Henry McMahon’s letter of 24 October 1915: Annex A of the committee report argues that wilaya in Arabic means a province, region or district without administrative connotation, while its Turkish form vilayet denoted specified Ottoman administrative divisions, and that reading the correspondence’s Arabic word as vilayet is what makes the British exclusion argument possible (Report of a Committee set up to consider certain correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, lines 329-345).
Details
- Annex A: the Arabic text speaks of the wilaya of Mersin, of Alexandretta, of Damascus, of Homs and of “Kama” (as printed, for Hama), none of which ever existed as Ottoman administrative divisions, so the phrases make sense only in the Arabic significance of region or district (lines 329-340).
- Annex A: the English translation circulated by the United Kingdom Delegation renders the Arabic word, printed there as “ivilaya” (as printed), in its Turkish form vilayet throughout, which Annex A calls a misleading rendering; the Cairo notes were issued in Arabic translated from an English original that used “district”, and district should be restored wherever it occurred (lines 335-345).
- Annex A against Winston Churchill’s 1922 argument: there was one single Vilayet of Syria, with Damascus as its capital, and no Vilayet of Damascus, Homs or Hama, so “districts” cannot be the equivalent of vilayets (lines 340-352).
- Annex B answers: there were no Vilayets of Homs or Hama, but Damascus and Aleppo were capitals of Vilayets and the reference to Damascus should alone have sufficed; “Obviously no reference was intended to non-existent Vilayets.” (lines 429-436).
Where sources disagree
The two memoranda disagree on what follows from the word: for Annex A the Arabic sense defeats the British reading of the exclusion phrase; for Annex B the Damascus vilayet reference establishes McMahon’s meaning regardless. Both accounts are held here with their attribution, from the same source.
Related pages
Report of a Committee set up to consider certain correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, McMahon–Hussein correspondence, Damascus, Aleppo, Syria