"ملف 61/11 V (D 95) مسائل متنوعة خاصة بالحجاز ونجد" [ظ‎‎٢‎١‎٤] (٥٣٠/٤٤٥)

520
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
[JULY
Students of Arabian history have always been somewhat
mystified by the fact that Ibn Sa'ud did not follow up the victory
of Turabah by an invasion of the Hejaz in 1919; the road to
Ta if and Mecca was open to him, but he declined the oppor
tunity. When he did actually invade the Hejaz in 1925, his
perhaps not unwilling hands were forced and he had no option
in the matter. The storm of hatred that broke out among the
Wahhabis on the assumption of the Caliphate by Husein could
have been controlled by no human force and the Hashimites
disappeared from the Holy Places of Islam, regretted by none,
save the Sharifs.
This somewhat prosaic narrative of history throws into bold
relief the fact that, up to 1926 at any rate, there is no evidence
that Ibn Sa'ud attributed his successes to the divine will of
Allah. In 1929 came the Akhwan rebellion. (I should perhaps
say that the Akhwan are Wahhabi Bedouins who have definitely
settled on the soil and have entirely given up their nomadic
habits.) In 1929 they were completely out of hand. Their
leaders sent an ultimatum to Ibn Sa'ud stating that, inasmuch
as the building of a fort by 'Iraq on the Nejd frontier was con
trary to the terms of the Treaty of Muhammarah and the 'Uqayr
Protocol, they proposed to invade 'Iraq whether their King
agreed to this or not. Ibn Sa'ud was on the horns of a dilemma.
If he sanctioned the invasion he committed himself to a conflict
with Great Britain, in view of the mandate which we had accepted
for 'Iraq; if he did not sanction the invasion, he had no other
course open to him but to chastise his recalcitrant subjects. He
chose the latter and wiser course, but it was a very near thing.
The Akhwan defeated Ibn Sa'ud's troops in at least two battles,
but eventually their forces were scattered or killed. The Akhwan
rebellion presents Ibn Sa'ud in the light of a ruler indelibly
stamped with the hallmark of genius. He was, like Bismarck,
thinking not of the time but of the future. He knew it would
be impossible for him to have a really serious disagreement
with Great Britain, especially at that time.
From the suppression of the Akhwan rebellion in 1929 Ibn
Sa'ud began to dream dreams of a united Kingdom of Arabia
with himself as King and Caliph and all his subjects professing
the Wahhabi creed. But what perhaps is more important is
that, in reviewing his own career and the countless occasions
when he had succeeded in causes apparently lost, he could not
come to any other conclusion but that Allah was guiding his
footsteps. Even a more sophisticated monarch could not