'Koweit: A Report' [‎11r] (26/140)

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North-west of Nejd lies the mountainous district of Jebel
Shammer, residence of the Arab tribe of that name, forming
part of the Wahabi dominion.
It was in 1835 that one Abdullah ibn Rashid, with the aid of
the Amir Feysul bin Turki, became Sheikh of the Shammer tribe,
with his capital at the town of Hayil, and was appointed Muha-
fidh, or frontier governor, in dependence upon the central author
ity at Nejd. He died in 1846, but not before he had, by his
great ability, laid the foundations of a power which has since
swollen to such imposing dimensions in the hands of his even
abler son.
Tilal, the eldest of the family, at first succeeded his father
as Sheikh of Jebel Shammer, and gradually, but surely, estab
lished his independence of the Riadh ruler. Tormented,
however, by an internal malady, he shot himself in 1867. His
younger brother, Mutaab ibn Abdullah, who succeeded him,
enjoyed but a brief rule, being murdered by his nephews, the
sons of Tilal, in the following year. One of these, Bander by
name, then assumed the Government.
Meanwhile, the third and youngest son of the old Abdullah,
namely, Mohammed ibn Rashid, who had been residing at Riadh
as a fugitive, and had been kindly treated there by the Amn.
Abdullah ibn Feysul, was permitted to return to Hayil. Com
mencing by stabbing to death his nephew Bander with his own
hand, he then killed the five remaining children of his brother
Tilal, and became undisputed Amir and Muhafidh in Hayil in
1868. During the next eighteen years he consolidated his author
ity j acquiring more and more of the real power,, he even
engaged in intermittent acts of hostility against the Amir of Nejd,
to whom, however, he never actually renounced his allegiance.
At last the chance, for which he had waited so long, pre
sented itself. In 1886 the Amir Abdullah bin Feysul was seized
and imprisoned by two of his nephews, one of whom usurped
the throne. Mohammed ibn Rashid, still wearing the mask of
the loyal subject, marched from Hayil against Riadh, deposed
the pretender, and reinstated Abdullah, although his next pro
ceeding was to carry the Amir away with him to Hayil, leaving
a younger brother as deputy governor of Nejd under an agent
appointed by himself. •
The three rebellious nephews of Abdullah were put to death,
and the fourth w r as detained at Hayil, by Ibn Rashid, along with
his uncle, the old Amir, to whom the successful pretender diploma
tically conceded the spiritual title of Imam of Nejd.
Mohammed ibn Rashid w T as, however, the de facto ruler,
not only of Nejd and JebelShammer, but of the w'hole of the
Arabian desert from the confines of Syria to the Nefud, and
from the borders of Koweit to Mecca. Though he waded to his
position through the blood of his own kin, Mohammed ibn