Coll 6/10 'Hejaz-Nejd Affairs: Financial Situation and Internal Situation' [‎37r] (80/1310)

4^
_ £.
1
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
EASTERN (Arabia).
CONFIDENTIAL.
>5SL
July 6 , 1937.
Section 3.
[E 3720/1022/25]
Copy No. 110
Sir R. Bullard to Mr. Eden.—{Received July 6 .)
(No. 115.)
Sir s Jedda, June 15, 1937.
I HAVE the honour to report the promulgation by the authorities of two
measures which appear to be part of the ‘ ‘ Back to Religion campaign about
which I reported in my despatch No. 91 dated the 8 th May.
2. The first is an order which was issued by town crier, forbidding all
Moslems to shave their beards. The penalty for infringement of this regulation
is a fine of 7 riyals. Any barber who shaves the beard of a Moslem is also liable to
a fine. It was understood from the beginning that the employees of foreign
missions in Jedda would not be interfered with in this respect, but a messengei
attached to the California Arabian Standard Oil Company has been fined for a
breach of the regulation. It is understood that a considerable sum m fines has
been collected in Mecca, but that on at least one occasion the authorities were
disappointed by a Javanese who, after being kept in prison and under obseivation
for several days, was still without the rudiments of a beard and had to be
discharged unpunished. . . , ^ ^
3 . Most Javanese, in fact, sometimes through natural inability, but otten
from choice, do not wear beards, and the Netherlands Charge d Affaires, who is
himself a Javanese, recently visited Mecca to investigate this question. He was
assured by the authorities that if any foreigners had been punished under the
beards regulation it was through a misunderstanding, and that if M. W idjo-
ioatmoio heard of the application of the regulation to a Netherlands subject he
had only to inform the authorities to have the mistake rectified. This decision is
more generous than the regulation itself, which certainly applied to all Moslems,
though as it has never been put in writing that cannot be proved. I may say that
no case has been heard of where any British subject has been called upon to
comply with the regulation. A .
4. The regulation on beards is not new, but is merely the re-enactment ot a
measure which has been allowed to fall into disuse. The renewal of official
hostility to shaving is said to be due to Ibn Baud’s annoyance at the discovery
of a Saudi youth movement and to his determination to teach its adherents not to
be modernising toads. I learn from a good source that there is at least one tact
behind the story of the youth movement, viz., the discovery by the Saudi Govern
ment that one of the Hejazi students in Egypt was in touch with Salama Musa
with a view to the ventilation of Hejazi grievances. It is said that the young man
was recalled to Mecca, discovered most conveniently writing an incriminating
letter, measure i s a prohibition published by the Ministry of Finance
forbidding the importation and sale of what were assumed at first to be statuettes,
but turn out to be all representations in three dimensions of any living creatuie.
from a bust of Mustafa Kemal to a Teddy bear. It appears that the measure was
prompted by the discovery that some of the children in Mecca had dolls to play
photographed, an£thisyear a ^ the
consent! '’But'perhaps there is some “ Ct ’^ b i" s
ES^peXpVp^ - a " d t0
Allah.
[55 f—3]