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File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎21v] (51/834)

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The record is made up of 1 volume (411 folios). It was created in 1917-1920. 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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— 440 —
become external protectors ; and of such the successive lords of
Etrvpt have filled the part during almost the whole period—from
the dynasty of the Tulunids to that of Mohammed Ah. It was
so as early as the tenth century. Snouck-Hurgronje, the most
competent European historian of Hejaz, writes (Mekka I. p. 54):
“In the year 969, as the chronicles tell us, the Fatimites
acquired at a great price first place in the Pilgrimage to the
exclusion of the Abbasids, and ever since then the honour of
mention in the Friday prayer has gone to the highest bidder...
‘ Hejaz is always dependent on Egypt for its means of life ’
wrote a geographer (Mokadassi) a few years later ; and if the
Nile flood did not reach its accustomed height, Mecca went
hungry for a year.”
Whoever possessed himself of Egypt, conquered, ipso facto,
p[ e j az —Saladin first, then the Mamelukes, then the Circassian
Sultans, and finally the Ottoman Turks. The lord of the Nile
for the time being needed no more display of armed force, than
usually escorted the Mahmal, to assert himself in Mecca.
He held the key of the larder and that was enough. The sub
servience of the Grand Sherifs left little to be desired for many
centuries. They professed Shiah tenets with the first Fatimites,
and proclaimed their faith in the Caliph Hakim. When Selim
“the Grim” sent to claim the dependencies of Egypt, they were
as good Sunnis as any Turk. Their subsequent access of
independence in the eighteenth century was independence not
of Egyptian supplies, but of political control, while anarchy
reigned on the Nile and dry rot on the Bosphorus. The moment
Egypt passed once more under a single strong ruler Hejaz
came obediently to heel—the more readily for having experienced,
during a decade of Wahabite supremacy, what it is to hanker
after flesh-pots.
It is onl y since the middle of the nineteenth century that this
economic, and consequently political, bond has been somewhat
relaxed. With the opening of the overland route and the
frequentation of the Red Sea by steam craft, the Indian granary
entered into more serious competition with the Egyptian than
theretofore, and by 1858 Indian traders had grown numerous
enough at Jiddah to bring about our first armed intervention in
Hejaz affairs. At the same time the Porte, seeing Egypt
slipping ever more and more out of its control, initiated a policy
designed to knit Hejaz and the other Arabian provinces
directly to Constantinople—a policy which was to lead ultimately
to the construction of the Hejaz railway. Symptoms of this
policy were drastic interference in the succession of the Sherifate,
the reigning house being dispossessed twice, in 1851 and 1880,
by Ottoman mandate ; increase of the Hejaz garrisons ;
taken in regard to Yemen from 1870
onwards, and in regard to Hejaz by Othman Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. in the
eighties ; and, as important as any, Midhat’s occupation of Hasa

About this item

Content

The volume consists of individual copies of the Arab Bulletin produced by the Arab Bureau at the Savoy Hotel, Cairo numbers 66-114. These publications contain wartime, and post-war intelligence obtained by British sources. They deal with economic, military, and political matters in Turkey, the Middle East, Arabia, and elsewhere, which – in the opinion of British officials – affect the ‘Arab movement’; the bulletins cover a wide range of topics and key personalities.

The volume contains the following maps:

  • A map of Central Arabia showing St John Philby's route from Uqair to Jidda 17 November to 31 December 1917: folio 103.
  • Sketch map prepared from RNAS photographs and reconnaissance by HMS City of Oxford of Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Mur February to March 1918 : folio 170.
  • Sketch map of Hejaz (1919): folio 317.
  • Tribal sketch map of the Hadhramaut ‘showing only tribes of fighting value’: folios 333v.

Towards the back of the volume is a small amount of correspondence respecting the distribution of Notes on the Middle East ; the Arab Bulletin was superseded by this publication. Copies of numbers 3-4 of this publication can also be found at the back of the volume.

Tables of content can be found at the front of each issue. A small amount of content is in French.

Extent and format
1 volume (411 folios)
Arrangement

The Arab Bulletins are arranged in numerical order from the front to the back of the file. The Notes on the Middle East follow on from the bulletins at the back of the file in reverse numerical order.

The subject 759 (Arab Bulletins) consists of two volumes. IOR/L/PS/10/657-658.

Physical characteristics

Condition: the edges of some of the folios towards the back of the volume have suffered damage to their edges due to general wear and tear. The affected folios are 389-390, 407-409, and 412.

Foliation: the foliation sequence for this description commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 413; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The front cover and the leading flyleaf have not been foliated. A previous foliation sequence, which is present between ff 357-363 and ff 374-412 and is also circled, has been superseded and therefore crossed out.

Written in
English in Latin script
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File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎21v] (51/834), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/658, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100048056854.0x000034> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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