File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎43r] (94/834)

considerable enemy strength from the Highland garrisons or the
Lahej Expeditionary torce, it will be of little military value to
us. Further it will bring up certain questions. ( 1 ) Ho we want
Idrisi at Hodeidah ? (2) Ho we want to see Zebid, that ancient
seat of Moslem religious learning, sacked by the wild Zaranik ?
(3) Ho we want, in the interest of future peace with the Imam,
to bring the Beni Yam, who are Ismailiyah, and truculent semi
savages, once more on to the Hodeidah-Sanaa road ? They held
Menakhah for twelve years before 1872, but were then forced
back into remote Nejran by the Turks, leaving behind them only
the small clan of the Makarimah with two or"three other Ismaili
tribelets in the hills. Once they had recovered that lost Emirate,
would they accord with Idrisi any better than with the Imam ?
As for the question of Taiz and the Udein Arabs, it would
seem to be related to future operations of our own in the Hinterland
so much more closely than to Idrisi’s plan of campaign, that it
were best considered apart from the latter. The conclusion of
the whole matter seems to be this. Should we on our side
re-occupy Lahej, and Idrisi, on his side, take Loheiya, would not
our interests be best served by our leaving Idrisi, the remnant of
the Turks and the Imam to settle among themselves and by them
selves the case of the rest of Yemen, while we held a watching
brief, perhaps from a vantage point at Hodeidah ?
The letters appended to Major Reilly’s report comprise one
from ten chiefs of the Rijal el-Ma to Idrisi, protesting their
accord, detailing desperate fighting all day and every day, and
asking for rifles and ammunition, but not for a muqaddam
(Idrisi must have been pressing one upon them). “ Our people,”
they say “are a strange folk. If one of us finds a muqaddam
or any one else set over him, he will turn away the hearts of all
his fellows .... If a muqaddam, not of us, arrives here, he
will experience trouble, worry and risk! ” In another letter, the
same writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. is still more candid about his people : “ Rijal el-Ma
and Asirare greedy people. You must put a spy among them.”
Of the remaining letters most are missives from the Imam
(we take them on Idrisi’s responsibility alone) to various chiefs,
preaching defence of the One Faith (“ This matter hangs
between Kafirdom and Islam ! ”) and reproaching some for
their defection and others for their misconception of himself.
“ We have spent all our resources for Hashid and Bekil and
others .... With thousands we buy corn for them in the
markets and always at exorbitant rates, although we do not get
such revenue from the country as was got by the Qasim dynasty
.... We have a tract of aridity, where everyone looks but to
his own interest, and to secure his needs out of the Imam, as if
the Imam were collector of the revenue of Egypt ! ” That
Yahya should speak thus of himself as not of the Qasim dynasty,
to which the Imams before his father certainly belonged, confirms
our information that he does not descend from a ruling house.
H.Gr.H.