مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [ظ‎‎٩‎٦] (٥٤٠/١٩٣)

singers, and he even allowed music to be played by troops near the Haram in Mecca
o t ie scandal ol certain Indian pilgrims. Drum bands for the army and the police
are under vigorous training, and brass instruments for the creation of several
mi itary bands are being obtained from abroad. Some Wahabi tenets, however,
aie unanected by the spirit of modernism. Finding that visits to the tomb of an
alleged saint m Jedda, which had been discontinued after the Wahabi occupation
were being resumed, the authorities had the body exhumed and buried in an
01 ( mary cemetery and the building which had contained the tomb demolished.
_ oreover, a wealthy Indian pilgrim who offered to subscribe a large sum towards
the construction of a mosque on the site of the birthplace of the Prophet, so that
the ground, on which there stood a building until the Wahabis destroyed it, might
not be defiled by animals, could make no impression on Ibn Saud, who said
o\\ever hat the Government, though they could not allow a mosque to be built
w rj lte ’ . mten 5 led to kmld a library there. An amusing manifestation of the
Wahabi point of view was noticed in the exequatur granted to the honorary
-Belgian consul an Islamised Frenchman, Colonel “Ibrahim” Depui This
absurd person has taken the title of “ sharif,” and claims to be a descendant of
le rop et, and the exequatur, as published in the Mecca press, takes him at his
reason is that the Wahabi holds that the descendants of
caded^shariT” n ° better ^ ° ther Moslems ’ and do not car€ if a d °g is
Constitutional Develo'pment and A dministration.
128 What was rightly described in the 1934 report as the unpractical
proposal to provide a Constitution for the whole of Saudi Arabia has not been
dropped. It was announced m August that a draft Constitution for the Kingdom
ot Saudi Arabia, m 140 articles, had been prepared by the Legislative Council
and submitted to higher authority for sanction. No information as to the
reception it received from higher authority had become public by the end of the
year nor had any details of the proposals leaked out. Long lists of the measures
dealt with by the Legislative Council during the preceding and the current
Moslem years have appeared in the press. They have a wide range—education
public health, pilgrimage affairs, nationality, the supervision of municipal and
other local budgets, but it can be assumed that their work is closely controlled and
that nothing is passed unless it has been ascertained beforehand that its acceptance
will be pleasing to the King.
129. The announcement in the Mecca press that Sheikh Ibrahim Aziz-bin-
Ibrahim, formerly Deputy Amir of Medina, had been appointed a member of the
standing committee of the Council of Ministers, drew attention to a body whose
existence had hardly been heard of. There are only two other members, Sheikh
Abdullah Sulaiman, who holds the portfolios of Defence and Finance, and Fuad
Bey Hamza, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. His Majesty’s Minister
gathers from Fuad Bey that the committee has no well-defined duties and hardly
ever meets. J
130. Sir Andrew Ryan reported two points of interest in connexion with
the constitutional development of the country. The first was what appeared to
be a departure from the system of two-year sessions for the Legislative Council.
The Council, which had ended its regular session on the last day of the Moslem
year 1354 (23rd March), was reconstituted with effect from the 24th March by
a decree prescribing that the new session should last for one year. The second
development was more important. In a speech on the opening of the new session,
the King said that he had ordered the preparation of a regulation providing for
an annual meeting of representatives of every district in the kingdom at
pilgrimage time, in order to strengthen the bonds between the people^and the
Government. When speaking in the Legislative Council on the address of reply
to His Majesty, the Amir Feisal said that the proposed Assembly would meet
for one month on the occasion of each pilgrimage, and he justified the shortness
ol the session by the inconvenience to the representatives and the cost to the
Government which a longer period would involve. He added, however, that at
the end of each session a permanent body would be set up (a Standing Committee
m fact) to consider the views expressed by the Assembly. Whether the regulation