Miscellaneous correspondence, reports, maps and other papers concerning the Middle East [‎85v] (171/220)

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Khurma holds its own, as there seems good reason to believe it will, there is-
little danger of a far-reaching extension of Wahhabi activities, but I am con
vinced that the defeat of Khalid Ibn Luwai will be a signal for the storm.
15. The Khurma Episode.
W hen I passed through the little village of Khurma, situated in the lower
reaches of the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Subai, in December, 1917, on my way to Taif, I became
aware of the existence of trouble, but the manoeuvrings of the Subai and
Buqum tribes had little in them to indicate that a storm was brewing in that
quarter which was destined to form, as it were, the Leit-motiv of Central
Arabian politics. The circumstances that the Buqum were acting under the
command of the Amir of Turaba, official representative of the King of the
Hijaz, alone differentiated the operations I saw from the eternal outridings
of Ataiba, Harb and Qahtan in the vast steppe country of the west.
According to such information as I was able to collect in Central Arabia,
Khurma, having, like the rest of Arabia, formed part of the great Wahhabi
Empire and having received from Saud himself dispensation from the obliga
tion to pay taxes to the Central treasury, had settled down under its Ashraf
headmen, who exercised a time-honoured overlordship over the Subai owners
and negro cultivators of the palm groves of the village, to the enjoyment of
practical autonomy under the vague suzerainty of Kajd. At a later period,
it passed under the similarly vague suzerainty of Turkey, and Ottoman author-
1 i" "I 18 ’ d / )ll f btless > exercised, on behalf of the Sultan, bv his representative, %.
the Sharif of Mecca. During the last decades of the 19th Century, however,
when the whole ofNajd acknowledged the sway of Ibn Kashid, there appears,
to be reason for believing that Muhammad Ibn Kashid extorted from the Turk-
ish authorities a substantial recognition of his authority and the acceptance of
tiie line of V\ adi Aqiq as the boundary between his own territories and the
area of elective lurkish domination namely, the Hijaz. By this arrangement
Khurma must have been included by implication in the territories of Ibn
Kaslnd on whose expulsion from Najd, at the beginning of the present cen
tury, ibn Saud resumed su;ay over the territories of his ancestors.
nM£ T he important facts of the case are, firstly, that, so’ far as I have been
able to ascertain, Khurma was always m the past too insignificant, either to
form a bone of contention between the authorities concerned or to be men
tioned specifically m any public agreement; secondly, that it always remained
m enjoyment °f virtual autonomy and independence; and, lastly, that it was
W ( fP end ® nt . on in virtue of its allegiance to the’
a ihabi faith. M ith that allegiance no attempt appears ever to have been,
made to interfere, and I see no reason for questioning the correctness of Tim
Saud s statement that Shara Law has always been administered rK^rma
for the benefit of its inhabitants by ecclesiastical officials of Dm \Y 1 i k*
persnasi 011 , of whom the Qadhi, actually in office at the^resenrtime suc 1
least 50 years a e ^. W ’ “ ’ 0 "' ed h “ to Faisal Ibn Sand at
writte^bt Sh7rifiL™tTi^e^l^^'rtHbTl ^ '
Luwaf thWJf the\etl 0 y Pl a e pp 0 ( finS U S i ^ 'sLL^aHd Ibn
*» fe” t ‘hi:.
attack on the Subai encanmmeTit wTimVi j ■ .i , ’ I'Bo, with an
forces with the loss of ro^r/’an^ two^l^a^
way and S^n at^nttSnT * he ^*7 BadaW “
the ostentatious announcement of th^ victor? o be th . e , ef ? ect of
on the dour spirits of the fanatiril Wabl >'• * * e over i be infidel
of a mid-summer Eamdhan WahhaJ18 ’ ^ *he painful rigours
importanW^hba'bi s^ftTenJ??"™ a Ghat GW*'’ u” T??’ through the
without delay to tile call for as^ist-mce bt l ’ lnhah 'tants responded
tonmrds the scene of action. Riyadh clamoutTtow?? ^th'thfsh”'*?”^
advocacy of ^'imam ii'XrUmSrms^
but Ibn Saud making ^
versatrons wrth me, resisted the pressure brought to bet? on h‘m “r^alledX