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Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎261r] (522/540)

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The record is made up of 1 file (268 folios). It was created in 18 Apr 1931-18 May 1945. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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49
Z6/
[5545] E
in Muna have been facilitated and some moderate medical provision with
accommodation has been made at Bahra. On the other hand little has in reality
been done for the roads. One section of that between Jedda and Mecca, which
was remade in 1927, has been allowed to lapse. Any increase in the facilities for
medical assistance is more than counter-balanced by the paucity and inefficiency
of the doctors employed. Complaints of pilferage and neglect to recover effects
^ lost by pilgrims on the wayside have been on the increase.
165. One of the most serious examples of deterioration is the failure to
maintain the strict control of mutawwifs or pilgrim guides which it was sought to
enforce in the first years of the new regime. The mutawwif is a constant source
of trouble unless he is kept well in hand. His activities in India, where he is
commonly called a muallim, are trenchantly criticised in the Haj Enquiry
Committee’s published report. The chief grievance against him in that country
is that he or the assistants whom mutawwifs frequently send there lure people
without adequate means of making the pilgrimage into undertaking it, and they
prey in various ways on the pilgrims who commit themselves to their charge. The
role played in the Hejaz by the mutawwifs and other persons engaged jointly
with them in the business of guiding pilgrims is very important, as law and
custom have invested them with functions which make them responsible for
everything connected with the pilgrim from the moment of his arrival at Jedda
until he departs or dies. The system is too complicated to describe at length
here, but it is fully explained in the special pilgrimage report for 1930. Its abuses
are partly due to the practice of including various taxes payable to the Govern
ment in the charges which the mutawwifs, &c., are authorised to levy. These
taxes tend to increase owing to financial stress, and the Government have an
interest in not bearing too hard on the guides, who on the one hand serve as tax
collectors and are on the other hand apt to see their own margin of profit dimmish
unless they compensate themselves by illegitimate means.
165a Two further points may be mentioned in connexion with the
mutawwif question as it presented itself in 1930. A proposal was mooted early
in the year for the re-establishment of an old system known as Taqrir, whereby
pilgrims from particular districts in the Moslem world were assigned definitely
to particular mutawwifs. This system is still in force as regards some categories
of pilgrims, but in most cases there is a freedom of choice. The generalisation
of the Taqrir system would bring financial gain to the Hejazi Government, by
enabling them to farm out the Moslem world by a kind of auction to mutawwiis.
It would deprive the pilgrim of such little benefit as he derives from a more
competitive system. It is to the credit of Ibn Saud that he postponed considera
tion of the scheme at least until 1931. Secondly, as part of the efforts which the
British authorities constantly make to confine mutawwifs and their agents
within certain limits, arrangements were made in 1930 to draw up black lists
of undesirables, with a view to their being refused passport facilities to go to
India and Malaya. The arrangements in the case of those who might wish to
go to Malaya were adopted in concert with the Netherlands legation in Jedda.
166. The increased use of motor cars has done much to revolutionise
pilgrimage conditions for those who can afford hired transport. It has turned
the camelmen, formerly employed, into a depressed and discontented class. In
a country of bad roads and incompetent drivers it leads to a certain number of
accidents It leads to various ramps, like that by which pilgrim cars are not
allowed to load at Jedda more petrol than will suffice for the single journey to
Mecca, so that further supplies must be procured from the purveyors there. On
the whole, however, the facilities for motor transport increase the ease and
rapidity with which the pilgrimage can be accomplished by the moderately
well-to-do, especially those who go to Medina as well as Mecca. In 1930 the
use of cars was for the first time allowed in certain cases for the ceremonial visits
to Muna and Arafat. The principal persons to enjoy the privilege were members
of the Royal Family and household and Nejdi officials, who made the pilgrimage
in large numbers, although the contingent of ordinary pilgrims from the interior
was small.
167. The climatic conditions at Mecca were good in 1930, and there was
unusually little disease or mortality. The dispersal of the pilgrims was effected

About this item

Content

This file contains copies of annual reports regarding the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd (later Saudi Arabia) during the years 1930-1938 and 1943-1944.

The reports were produced by the British Minister at Jedda (Sir Andrew Ryan, succeeded by Sir Reader William Bullard) and sent to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (and in the case of these copies, forwarded by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Under-Secretary of State for India), with the exception of the reports for 1943 and 1944, which appear to have been produced and sent by His Majesty's Chargé d’Affaires at Jedda, Stanley R Jordan.

The reports covering 1930-1938 discuss the following subjects: foreign relations; internal affairs; financial, economic and commercial affairs; military organisation; aviation; legislation; press; education; the pilgrimage; slavery and the slave trade; naval matters. The reports for 1943 and 1944 are rather less substantial. The 1943 report discusses Arab affairs, Saudi relations with foreign powers, finance, supplies, and the pilgrimage, whilst the 1944 report covers these subjects in addition to the following: the activities of the United States in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East Supply Centre, and the Saudi royal family.

The file includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.

Extent and format
1 file (268 folios)
Arrangement

The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the rear to the front of the file.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the main foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1 and terminates at the last folio with 269; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located at the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. An additional foliation sequence is present in parallel between ff 2-12 and ff 45-268; these numbers are also written in pencil but are not circled.

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English in Latin script
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Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎261r] (522/540), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/2085, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100036362872.0x00007b> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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