Resistance to Economic Penetration

The Kārguzār and Foreign Firms in Qajar Iran

Bibliographic Data

ID8965660
AuthorsGad G Gilbar (corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume43
Issue1
Pages5-23
Publication date2011-01-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743810001170
OpenAlexW2037278692
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited30

European merchants and investors doing business in the Middle East during the long 19th century expected that commercial disputes in mixed cases would be conducted according to procedures and laws familiar to and accepted by them. In the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, mixed courts based on the French commercial code were established during that century. The Qajars, however, offered the foreign commercial community a different judicial institution: the local kārguzār (agent) and his majlis (court). By the beginning of the 20th century, thirty-six kārguzār offices operated in Iranian towns and harbors. Nevertheless, foreign (mainly British) merchants and their consuls complained bitterly that it was not an effective institution and that it clearly favored the local tujjār (big merchants). They claimed that these defects meant huge financial losses to them. The Qajars viewed this institution and its functioning differently. It served their policy of discouraging foreign penetration, and it contributed to the competitiveness of the Iranian tujjār in their struggle for commercial superiority

Ancient history · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Institution · Management · Ottoman empire · Penetration (warfare · Political science · Resistance (ecology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law