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to a place called Rawdhat-al-Khafs. There were some slight indications in the
early summer that His Majesty might be contemplating an ultimate abdication
in favour of his eldest son, whose designation as heir apparent is dealt with
below.
107. After the collapse of the revolt in Asir Ibn Saud had no major internal
difficulties to cope with until late in the year, when his quarrel with the Imam
of the Yemen brought in its train trouble among tribes on the frontier whom
he claims as Saudi. The tribes elsewhere seemed to be loyal, even though in
parts of the Hejaz tribal loyalty may be merely the cowed submission of people
many of whom have been reduced to misery, and farther east there is probably
more discontent than appears on the surface, e.g., among the Mutair. In the
autumn there were many reports of the difficulty of inducing certain tribes to
proceed to the southern front. Some were said to have been excused, but whenever
the King insisted, he seemed to have his way in the end. Thus, despite talk
of disaffection among the Ateyba, their best-known present leader Ibn Rubayyan,
decided to obey. Of the tribes most prominent in the rebellion of 1929, the
Mutair were probably the most sullen, while the Ajman were thought to be
readier to go south, owing to their relationship with the Beni Yam of Najran.
108. The King would appear to have a good hold on the settled folk of
the so-called towns in the interior. There is at least one curious exception in
the case of the Teima oasis, which maintains a precarious quasi-independence.
It was reported in November and December that the people there were angered
by a letter from the King to their chief, Ibn Rumman, calling upon him, it was
said, to allow a wireless station to be installed and to accept the position of a
paid Saudi Governor.
109. Asir has become the heel of Saudi Arabia, and may prove to be an
Achilles’ heel. Before describing the course of events there in 1933, a mistake
in paragraph 107 of the report for 1932 needs to be corrected. It became
apparent early in 1933 that the separate force said to have been sent under the
King’s nephew, Khalid-bin-Muhammad, was a myth, and that the Commanders-
in-chief from the north and north-east were Ibn Saud’s cousin, Abdul Aziz-bin-
Musaid, Governor of Hail, and the redoubtable old warrior Khalid-bin-Luwey.
The latter died on the last march from Abha to Sabya in or about December 1932.
Ibn Musaid was invested with the supreme command in Asir.
110. By the end of 1932 the rebellion was already at an end along the
coast. The Saudi forces had swept south as far as the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Tashar, an
operation which was completed later, probably early in 1933, by the occupation
of Muwassim, a place said to be about 5 miles north of Medi. On the 1st January
the troops took the first important step towards subduing the revolt inland by
occupying Abu Arish. Hasan-al-Idrisi escaped from that place and was on the
run in the highlands toward the borders of Yemen, until he took refuge in that
country with the results described in paragraph 37 above. Ibn Musaid’s task
was to deal with the rebel remnants in the mountains. It is not known how
numerous or how coherent these were early in the year, but they included portions
of important tribes like the Masariha and others. Ibn Saud’s policy was to
combine punitive action with promises of pardon. The Government claimed in
a communique issued on the 24th February that the situation had been completely
restored. Ibn Musaid was left to reorganise Asir. He had completed this task
by May, when he returned from the south. The territory, of which the Idrisi
had been the ruler before 1926 and in which he had retained a shadow of
authority even after 1930, was made into an ordinary Saudi province under the
name of Tihamat Asir. It was to be administered by a Governor, assisted by
a council of ten, including seven local notables, under the general supervision of
a Governor-General of Asir residing at Abha.
111. The Saudi Government attached considerable importance in 1933 to
the distinction between what they had previously called the Idrisi territory and
now renamed Tihamat Asir, and the hinterland of which Abha is the capital, and
which they call Asir Surat. The reasons for this distinction have been given in
paragraph 50 ff above as they are more important on their bearing on the Saudi
Yemen situation than in connexion with the internal administration of
Saudi Arabia.
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