Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎84v] (169/540)

Government quite clear, and in the absence of Fuad Bey he wrote a personal
letter to the^Minister for Foreign Affairs expressing the pleasure with which
His Majesty’s Government had received the Saudi assurance, which confirmed
AT s ^PP^ slt i on the y had already formed, but pointing out that the arrival of
Mr. Fhilby in the Aden Protectorate with an armed Saudi force might have
caused an incident or have led the local tribes to suppose that Mr. Philby had
come on a mission from the Saudi Arab Government. In his personal reply, the
Amir haisal was so anxious to defend the Saudi Government that he spoiled his
case by trying to defend Mr. Philby, too, Avith arguments, moreover, which had
clearly been supplied by Mr. Philby himself. It was impossible to leave this as
tne last, word, so in another letter and in conversation with Fuad Bey His
i ^ajesty s Minister, basing his case on the visit to Shabwa, made clear the attitude
ot Mis Majesty s Government in regard to the frontier of the Aden Protectorate,
and insisted that, in obtaining a Saudi escort for a legitimate purpose and using
at “ V1 \ t0 Saudi Government, for a different and an illegitimate purpose,
Mr. Philby had played a nasty trick on them, and ought to be told so by them.
^ h ls shouid be the end of the matter as against the Saudi Government. " When
fi/’ 11 ^ T et i Urn i S . to /h e dd a ( at the end of the year he was believed to be visiting
the Farsan Islands), he will certainly have a self-righteous explanation of his
a ? 1 ^' 0 Jt is considered unlikely that Ibn Saud encouraged or authorised the
visit to Shabwa, for to do so would have been at variance with his general attitude
towards His Majesty s Government throughout the year; though he can hardly
nn! 1 t0 he secretly flattered if Mr. Philby tells him how easily, with the aid of the
H SaUd a ? d a fu Ud L eSCOrt \ he P enetrated to a town (Shabwa) which
is dimcult ot access from the Aden side.
37. The Iishad faction in Java was represented in Mecca for some months
tins year by a native of the Hadhramaut, Sheikh Uthman-al-’Amudi, who is said
o be the head of the movement in Java. He seems to have tried to induce
Ibn baud to interest himself in Hadhramaut affairs, and to have concerned himself
M TT a u? r ° J 5 0r 4- Stab i lshmg Schools ’ P resumabl y under Irshadi influence, in
the Hadhramaut His efforts apparently ended m disappointment as to Ibn Saud
who merely gave him some books for the schools, and in disillusionment as to the
state of civilisation m the Hejaz, which had been painted to him in more favour
able colours than the facts warranted. When last heard of, he was reduced to
an attempt to obtain the signatures of leading Hadhramis living in Mecca to a
petition addressed to the Sultan of Mukalla, asking for certain reforms. One
° f ^ P r °P^edReforms has a Wahabi tinge, in that it demands that the
peopln^^ 1 Saiyids should be sub ject to taxation on the same terms as other
38 Some thirty Hadhramis presented a petition to the Legation claiming
to be the only Hadhramis in the Hejaz who had not adopted Saudi nationality
and asking the Legation to appoint one of their number to represent them in
dealings with the Saudi Government and other purposes. It is true that in
former times the Hadhrami community in the Hejaz had a sheikh who performed
certain representative functions on their behalf, but he was appointed, not by
he British consulate in Jedda, but by the local authorities. Moreover this
custom had fallen into abeyance from the time of the Saudi conquest and for the
Legation to intervene to try to revive it would have been lookin'* for trouble Tt
was not even certain that all the petitioners were entitled to British protection
for only about five of them appeared to have passports. The request was refused’
Later one of the petitioners declared that the spokesman was required only for
inadvisable 1 ^ ^ Ma]6Sty 8 Le g atlon - but even this seemed unnecessaryand
(to Muscat and Oman.
S9. Thanks to the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , to whom appeal
was made the Legation is now better informed about the situation in the hfnter-
land of Muscat than it was (and than Fuad Bey was) last year when it was
supposed that A1 Kharusi and A1 Khalili, one of which is a tribe and the other
a family were both persons. The facts which are relevant to the question of the
frontier to be adopted to divide Saudi Arabia from Oman are these7—
(1) Although the Sultan of Muscat calls himself Sultan of Muscat and Oman
the Omanis are for practical purposes independent.