'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [‎45] (60/148)

FUTURE AFTER THE WAR
45
temporary and very partial occupation of the Tihama
from Loheia to Mokha, which, was maintained for less
than ten years in the first part of the last century by the
Sherif of Abu Arish, whom the Idrisi family has sup
planted and succeeded, is hardly a more valid title
than that of the French to Sheikh Said. The only pos
sible justification for allowing or abetting Idrisi to
expand his dominion over the Yemen Tihama would
be the practical convenience of having one responsible
power controlling the Shafei tribes and protecting
them against the Zeidi Imamic State of the highlands;
and the question to be determined is whether the
aggrandisement of an external Sunnite power, proved
capable already of producing a comparatively well-
organised and peaceful State in Mikhlaf el-^emen, is
to be preferred to the experiment of calling into being
an untried native Shafei State, centred on Zebid or
some other lowland Yemen settlement.
Future of Arabia after the War
Such is the varied political complexion of Arabia
to-day. It is hardly possible for the social
organisation of the peninsula to become much more
uniform in any circumstances that can be fore
seen at the moment. No non-Moslem power
could establish or maintain a general control over
it; and, when Turkey is no longer a power, there
will be none to take its place. Among its own native
princes none could prevail over the rest without so
much foreign help that his overlordship would be un
real and regarded as non-Islamic. King Husein of
the Hejaz rests on too small and meagre a base—a land
which cannot provide for its own administrative needs,
much less bear the expense and waste of empire.
The Emir of Nejd, the Imam of Sana, the Sultan of
Muscat, Idrisi, all tinged with heresy in different
degrees, are incapable either of much aggrandisement
or of peaceful subjection to an orthodox Sherif. Even
if the vogue of Wahabism were to increase again (there