'Handbook of Arabia. Vol. I. 1917' [‎39] (48/748)

POLITICS
39
fflgim chapter on the Gulf Coast. But the Sheikh or Sultan of Koweit
aspires and to some extent attains to a wider territorial control.
As more than a petty town sheikhdom the Sultanate of Koweit is
d to 1 quite modern. The actual ruler, indeed, is only the second either to be
a si generally styled Sultan or to claim a wider area of jurisdiction than
s, to it the immediate neighbourhood of the fort and townlet, which
backed I an ancest or, driven by the Turks out of his small h olding at Umm
) then Qasr on the Khor 'Abdullah, built on the south side of the Grane Inlet
and k early in the eighteenth century. Growth has been fostered by the
unsujii increased trade of the Gulf, since piracy was suppressed and the
region,k pearl-fishing industry encouraged, and by the interest taken in
of Sliiji the place by all concerned in the question of the Baghdad Railway's
limsali outlet on the sea. Nominally Koweit was, until less than twenty
merli years ago, included in the Ottoman province of Basra, the Sheikh
r an 4 as de facto ruler being accepted by the Porte as governor ;
[thepra and in 1871, when Midhat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. occupied Hasa, the then Sheikh
subscribed to this interpretation of his status. But the British
the M Government of India, which had never accepted it, insisted on
nifrad dealing with him directly when the Baghdad Railway question
nwasati began to loom on the horizon, and has since supported his house
■ ten I® against the Turks, with whom the late Sultan formally repudiated
a y e tot all relations in 1914. In 1899 the latter signed an agreement with
atid* us a si rn ^ ar nature to that entered into by the Sultan of Oman,
■ and four years later he accepted a British Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. at his
1 ' 0 i court. In return we paid him a subsidy. He subsequently regarded
pj, guljei himself as under British protection, and made important exclusive
•■•A ( , fJ[ ir concessions to us.
I His son, the present Sultan, claims territorial jurisdiction over the
j coast from Safwan (near the head of the Khor Zobeir, of which
atl , j the Khor 'Abdullah is a lower continuation) a little north of parallel
; n0 u eS 30° N., to the Bay of Musallamiyah, north of parallel 27° N.—a stretch
" ' of about 200 miles ; and over the inner country, which is entirely
I eif of steppe-desert character, from the head of the Inlet up to the
1 . P, Batin, the lower course of Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Rummah. But these boundaries are
^ j disputed north by the Muntefiq tribe (formerly by the Turks of
' '' a Basra); south by Ibn Sa'ud and the Beni Khalid ; west by Ibn
^ er , a jj Rashid. Effectively he rules from about Umm Qasr on the Khor
jj 'Abdullah to Ras ez-Zor, and inland to about a day's distance. His
ijfieP 8 territory includes the large island of Bubiyan.
j The Sultan maintains a small permanent force distributed in
^ , !jj posts on the coast round, and for a short distance north and south
li^,, of, the Inlet. He has residences in Koweit itself and at Jahrah.
estriet^ jj- g has a considerable interest in the pearl fishery and Gulf