"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎١‎٦‎٩] (١٧٨٢/١٣٢٤)

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1169
Gradual subversion of the power of the Shammar Amir by the
Wahhabis, 1899-1906.
; »■
In I 899, not apparently without incitement on the part of the Turks,
Ibn-Haslrid assumed a threatening- attitude towards the Shaikh of
Kuwait; and in the next year open warfare began between the Shammar
Amir and J Abdur Rahman, the head of the Wahhabi ruling family,
who had for some time been harboured, and was now openly assisted,
by the Shaikh of Kuwait. The course of the campaign has been fully
related in the chapter on the history of Najd. and here it will suffice
merely to mention the principal events.' In August 1900 the Wahhabi
chief left Kuwait for the interior and achieved some preliminary successes ;
and two or three months later a collision between Ibn-Rashid and
the Shaikh of Kuwait on the borders of "'Iraq was with difficulty
averted by the Turks, whose assistance the former had invoked. Early
in 1901 the Shaikh of Kuwait advanced into Qasim, accompanied by
'Abdur Rahman, Ibn-Sa^ud, and the position of Ibn-Rashid appeared
somewhat critical; but on the 17th of March, at the battle of Sarif,
the Shammar Amir succeeded in inflicting a serious defeat on the
invaders, by which their force was entirely broken up; on the side of
the Shammar, however, Salim and Mahanna, sons of Hamud-bin-^Obaid,
were killed. In autumn of the same year Ibn-Rashid took the offensive
against Kuwait, making his headquarters at Hafar; and in September
a panic was caused at Kuwait by the raids of his partisans in the
surrounding district. From November 1901 to January 1902 acute
anxiety prevailed in consequence of a movement by Ibn-Rashid to
Safwan not far from Basrah, where he remained in close correspondence
with the Turkish officials, and an attack upon Kuwait was believed to
be imminent. Dispositions were made, however, by the British naval
authorities to assist the Shaikh in repelling any act of aggression ; and in
the end the Shammar Amir returned quietly to his country via the wells
of the Lainah. About the time that Ibn-Rashid withdrew from Safwan,
the son of Ibn-Sa^ud recovered Riyadh and the districts of Kharj and Hariq
for his father ; and the Shammar Amir then sought aid from the Wall of
Basrah and from the Grand Wazir at Constantinople, enforcing his appeal
by insinuations that the British Government were assisting his adver
sary. Qasim generally had now become favourable to the Wahhabi
cause; and in November 1902, having attempted an invasion of Southern
Najd, Ibn-Rashid sustained a serious reverse in Kharj by which, appa
rently, the whole of that province except Sadair, Washam and Wadi-
as-Sirr was lost to him. At the beginning of 1903 the Shammar Amir
still held Zilfi in Sadair; but by the end of the year that town, too,
had been regained by the Wahhabis; and in February 1901, on the
defeat of a Shammar force in Wadi-as-Sirr, Southern Najd in its
entirety reverted to Ibn-Sa'ud.
The Wahhabis immediately followed up their successes by advancing
into Qasim; and on the 22nd of March ] 904 a decisive battle was
under the walls of 'Anaizah in which Majid-bin-Hamud, the
Invasion of
Qasim by the
Shaikh of
Kuwait and
reconquost of
Southern
Najd by the
Wahhabis,
1900-03.
fought
Recovery of
Qasim by the
Wahbabis,
1904.