'File 61/14 II (D 46) Relations between Nejd and 'Iraq' [‎9r] (28/466)

practically all its remittances of money to foreign countries (there being no banking
facilities in the Hejaz) was asked to send a telegraphic remittance of £1,000 to the
Emir Feisal in London. The Treasury had not got the £1,000, but promised to
repay it in five days. To the astonishment of the firm concerned, repayment was
made, in four days, but this commendable promptitude was counterbalanced by
another request for a remittance of £1,000, which sum is still owing. The Govern
ment has practically no credit. It appears to exist at present on forced loans, which
are recuperated by the victims in various devious ways. Between the pilgrimage of
one year and that of another come barren months when the bowels of the public
Treasury rumble with emptiness. But, apart from the irregular flow of income into
the country, there appears to be no system in expenditure. As funds come in, or,
rather, before they come in, they are spent. The friends of Ibn Saud may well wish
him strong and loyal counsellors. At present his loneliness seems almost tragic.
22. While the King was in Jeddah he asked for a new loan of £25,000 from
the leading merchants of the place. It was said .at the time that the last loan of
£13,000 had not yet been repaid, and that the King was so short of money that he
would not be able to proceed to Medina before the steamship '' Alavi'' came in from
Bombay. The latter proved to be an exaggeration, as is doubtless the rumour that
the British Government has advanced £500,000 on the Jeddah customs ! However,
pilgrim dues are to be higher next Haj.
23. The Sudan Government is desirous of regulating the pilgrim traffic between
Suakin and Port Sudan, on the one hand, and the Holy Land, on the other, and is
considering regulations by which the trip across the Red Sea will henceforward be
made in special conditions which will ensure efficient quarantine and passport
control. The local Government, for financial reasons, has willingly agreed to assist,
and has promised to prevent such pilgrims landing surreptitiously from dhows on
the coast, as well as to concentrate all disembarkation from Sudanese ports on
Jeddah. The Nigerians and Sudanese who take this route are notoriously
impecunious, and are not really welcome in a country which is only slightly better
provided than they are.
24. Up to the present, under the Saudian regime, the duty and privilege of
leading the prayers in the Haram at Mecca have fallen to a Wahabi imam.
Dispositions are now being taken to broaden this arrangement, which has caused
considerable annoyance throughout Islam, and has been a subject of discussion by
the committee left behind in the Hejaz by the Islamic Conference. For the future,
at each of the five prayers of the day, there will be one Jama'a (session) only, not
two or three as heretofore. But there will be five imams, one each for the Hanafi,
Shafi'i and Maliki sects, and two for the Wahabi (Hanbali) sect, and these will
take duty in turn. The outcome of this will be that worshippers of all the sects of
Islam, Wahabis included, will, as occasion dictates, have to pray behind an imam
of another sect or miss that particular prayer. This change, in the liberal sense,
corresponds with the replacement of the chief imam at Mecca, Sheikh Abdullah-bin-
Hassan, the zealot who had an Egyptian chauffeur whipped for smoking, as
described in a previous report, and who has left for Medina. His place is taken by
an Egyptian sheikh named Abdul Dhar, whose reputation is less fanatic. The latter,
at the Friday prayers last week, urged Moslems to forget their sects and to unite.
25. Seven hundred destitute African pilgrims have been repatriated during the
month, as have also five slaves.
NORMAN MAYERS.
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