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Enclosure to Serial No. (23).
Letter from His Majesty’s Minister, Jedda to the Foreign Office, No.
77 (488/411/8), dated the 18th March 1936.
With reference to my despatch. No. 59 of February 28th [Enclosure to Serial
No. (20)] relative to the recent proceedings of Ibn Saud, I have the honour to state
that the King would appear to have taken part in the pilgrimage normally, except
that unusual police precautions were taken to obviate the possibility of his being
attacked in the same way as last year.
2. The King gave his usual dinner to notable pilgrims on February 29th and
delivered his usual speech. To judge by the report published in the Umm-al-Qura,
the speech presented few features of interest. It abounded in the cust mary
commendations of Islam. His Majesty reproached Moslems with saying much and
doing little. Jews and Christians, he observed, were in the habit of not acting in
accordance with their professions. Moslems should not follow their example.
He adjured all Moslems and in particular Arabs to bethink themselves, to return
to the right path and to be united. Many of his co-religionists, he went on, held
that the reason why Moslems were backward was that they did not follow the ways
of civilisation. This was an error, because Islam did not prevent its adherents from
adopting anything useful, provided it did not touch their faith. He urged fidelity
to religious duties, the most important of which was the performance of the pil
grimage.
3. The same issue of the paper quoted elsewhere an utterance of the King at
the banquet, which does not appear in the main report of his speech. This referred
to the closeness of the relations between the peoples of Nejd and Iraq which were
of old standing. He spoke of the Nejdi origin of many inhabitants of Iraq. Iraq
and its people°were, he said, dear to him and to all his subjects. Their progress
brought pleasure to his heart and he wished them advancement and success, t his
passage may have some political significance in connexion with the present negotia-
Sons between tie two countries, which, as you know, were suspended for the
pilgrimage and the ensuing festival.
4 The King was not so absorbed in his religious duties at pilgrimage time as
to be indifferent to developments abroad. Fuad Bey Hamza surprised me by
rinskis me up on the first day of the festival to enquire about a report that the
>i ng b v ,1 wav or other, which I did not quite grasp, made a move for
Negus, had, in s 7 h j k 0 f the appeal to both combatants by the
peace. Leithat the King was worried by the difficulty of
Committee of Thirteen, be expmi , ■ b It seems 0 dd that the Saudis
getting trustworthy news of what “3?,, . g • , tg They seem to listen
should be able to take -Fuad Bey
in principally to Camm ^“^ojulted Mr. Philby, who telephoned to
his^dfe^who hadieTourse to mine, who was able to supply some particulars about
wavelengths and all that.
5. I am sending copies of this despatch to the Government of India and
Bagdad.
(24)
Memorandum No. 27 (454/86/14), dated the Uth Marc H ^
Tis Majesty's Minister at Jedda presents his ^rnp men ® to transmit to
fdia (Foreign and PohticalDe^^ the 11th March
i< copy of despatch to the ( | rel S {< £ ^ sar ” 0 n a reef near Jedda.
regarding the stranding of the s.s. Kawsar
Reference to previous correspondence - .
, printed So. [denial
: No. 1-N./35].
MS132P1)