'ARBITRATION CONCERNING BURAIMI AND THE COMMON FRONTIER BETWEEN ABU DHABI AND SA'ŪDI ARABIA' [With maps] [‎83r] (170/541)

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Moreover, ’Amin Raihanfs view of the limits of Ibn Sard’s territories, at that date
was adopted by the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Even during the period 1934-1938'
when the Sa‘udi Government was making pretensions to areas well to the east of
the frontier of Najd and Hasa, it did not, in its formal and considered statement
of claim in 1935 , claim any part of the disputed areas, other than the compara
tively small enclave at the Khaur al-‘Udaid and Khaur al-Dhuwaihin. Moreover
it based its claim to this enclave more upon a pretended need for a port than upon
any legal grounds. The absence of any Sa‘udi Arabian sovereignty to any part of
the coast east of Dauhat as-Salwah appears also to have been recognized by Fuad
Bey Hamza, the Deputy Foreign Minister, in his book The Country of Sa‘Mi Arabia,
published by the Umm al-Qura Press—/.e., by the Sa‘udi Government Press—in
1937. In that book, he described the Kingdom of King Ibn Sa‘ud as consisting of
the Kingdom of the Hijaz and the Sultanate of Najd and its Dependencies. On
page 175, he gave a detailed account of the administration of Najd and its Depen
dencies, without anywhere making the shghtest suggestion that either of the two
disputed areas were comprised in “ Najd and its Dependencies ”. On the contrary,
in his description of the boundaries of the Kingdom of Ibn Sa‘ud, on pages 242-3’
he expressly stated that the eastern boundary ran “ along the coast of the Persian
Gulf between Ra’s al-Qaliyah [the southern boundary of Kuwait] in the north
to the Qatar peninsular in the south ”. In short, like ’Amin RaihanI and the
Encyclopaedia of Islam, he gave the south-eastern limit of King Ibn Sa‘ud’s territory
as Dauhat as-Salwah at the base of the Qatar peninsula.
123. Similarly, after the Second World War, the map officially prescribed for
use in Sa‘udi Arabian schools depicted the eastern boundary of Sa‘udi Arabia, by
a line beginning at Dauhat as-Salwah, running south to the Rub‘ al-Khali, and
then following the northern rim of the Rub‘ al-Khali eastwards to the borders
of ‘Oman, whence it turned south along the eastern rim of the Rub‘ al-Khali <2) .
In other words, this official Sa‘udi Government map showed the whole region
lying to the east of the Jafurah desert and between the Rub‘ al-Khali desert and the
waters of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. as being outside the boundaries of Sa‘udi Arabia. The
official character of this map is beyond question. It is described in the legend as
a physico-political map of the Arabian Peninsula, prepared by Professor Muham
mad ‘Abdul Mun’ im, and is stated (at the foot of the map) to have been prescribed
by the Director of Public Instruction in the Sa‘udi Arabian Kingdom for use in
schools. Not the least interesting thing about the map is that it was withdrawn
from use, and disappeared from circulation, very shortly after the Sa‘udi Govern
ment formulated its 1949 claim, with which the map is, of course, completely
inconsistent. The map does not, however, stand alone as evidence of the limits
of Sa‘udi Arabian territory in the immediately post-war period. The United States
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. , Professor E. A. Speiser, in his book, The United States and the Near East,
published by the Harvard University Press, in 1947, has a map (facing page 129)
which illustrates the control of oil concessions in the Near East, and which defines
the eastern boundary of Sa‘udi Arabia by a line which closely corresponds with
that on the map issued by the Directorate of Public Instruction in the Sa udi
Arabian Kingdom* 3 *. Again, Aramco, in a special report, published in 1948,,
exhibited a map which marked the oil concessions of the various companies in
the Middle East, and which showed the eastern boundary of Sa udi Arabia by a
line beginning at the Dauhat as-Salwah, and following a course not very difterent
from the line claimed by the Ruler of Abu Dhabi in the present case (4) . In this
connexion, the Tribunal will recall that, at the time of the ‘ Stobart incident ,
in April, 1949, when Mr. Stobart, the British Political Officer, protested against t e
incursion of the Aramco survey party, and Sa‘udi armed guards into the Sabk a
Matti, one of the Aramco employees admitted that, according to their own map,
they were in Abu Dhabi territory.
124. It is, therefore, manifest that, when the Sa‘udi Government, in August,
1949, formulated the claims which it is maintaining in the present case, those c a ™
had no basis whatsoever in any existing sovereignty of Sa udi Arabia ove
territory concerned.
111 i.e., the Red Line : see Map B.
(2 > See Map C. 1.
!3) See Map C.4.
141 See Map C.5.