مجموعة ٦/ ٩ "تقارير جدة يناير ١٩٣١ -" [و‎‎٣‎٧‎٣] (٨٠٢/٧٤٦)

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18. ihe importance of the rumours lies, not in their individual value, for i
those ^ that are easiest to check are the most palpably absurd, but in their
prevalence and persistency. Whether or no there is real trouble around places
like Jauf and Hail, or in Asir, there is an uneasy general situation, which a
strong push from any quarter might make critical. Up to the end of June,
however, there was nothing to point to the possibility of such a push, or of there
^ 3m o anyone to administer it. Rumours of Shereehan activity were put about
m some quarters, but there was no reason to suppose that they ^ad any substance.
19. Ihe King himself became increasingly conscious after the pilgrimage
that things were in a bad way. Towards the end of May he decided to convoke
an assembly of representatives of the principal Hejazi towns to advise on a wide
range of current affairs. It was announced that he was in personal touch with
the Bedouin, and that he now wished, in accordance with the best Islamic
traditions of consultation with wise and thoughtful men, to enable the people
of the towns to give expression to their views. An assembly of elected urban
representatives would be held annually in the month following the pilgrimage.
This apparently important constitutional innovation was not introduced by any
published organic regulation, nor was it clear who were to be the electors.
Elections, however, took place, and a “National Conference’’ of town notables
and representatives of the ulema, with various official personages added, sat
from the 2nd to the 11th June. Certain parliamentary forms were observed.
The King made a speech and the conference produced a loyal address. They
formed three committees to consider different sections of the agenda. A good
deal was published, and it would appear that many subjects were discussed. The
capital subject was naturally finance. Some delegates were bold enough to
proclaim the necessity for a budget, and to attack the administration of the
present Director-General (see paragraph 3 above). The King is said to have
met the first suggestion with an answer amounting to “ le budget, c’est moi ”;
and the position of Sheikh Abdullah Suleiman remained unimpaired.
20. In the situation described above the lack of capable men is more than
ever felt. In this connexion, mention may be made of a curious incident. An
ex-Turkish officer of Syrian and remoter Yemeni origin, named Tewfik Sherif Bey,
has been much in evidence in the Hejaz at various times in recent years. He is
an itinerant soldier of fortune, with political aspirations and a' wide radius
of action. He came from India just before the 1931 pilgrimage, in the company
of the well-known Indian Wahhabi, Ismail Ghuznavi, and soon after made his
peace with the King, with whom he had fallen out last year. It
was supposed that he would receive employment. He suddenly disappeared,
however, and it was discovered that he had embarked surreptitiously
in a pilgrim ship sailing for India on the 14th June. This incident,
which seems to have created a little panic in high circles, is worth
recording, because the man is intelligent, though restless and volatile, and it
illustrates the King’s difficulty in binding to him men of even moderate value,
except a handful of people of the Fuad Hamza and Hafiz Wahba type, and a
tail of subservient Hejazis and untrained Nejdis.
21. Reference was made in paragraph 10 of the January-February report,
and paragraph 8 of the March-April report, to the growing signs of a iendency
on the part of Ibn Sand to work out the future of his country on the basis of
greater toleration in the Hejaz, a relaxation of some of the stricter Wahhabi
doctrines in Nejd itself, and an unification of the two. This policy encountered
a set-back in June. It was announced in the “ Umm-al-Qiira ” of the
26th June that the Ulema of Nejd had remonstrated with the King on the
repetition this year (see January-February report, paragraph 8) of the accession
day celebrations instituted in 1930, and that the King had deferred to their view
The remonstrance of the ulema, a long letter which admitted that there mio-ht
have been political reasons for the first celebration, but denounced recurrm^
celebrations as un-Islamic, was published, as was the King’s gracefully penitent
; * reply. It became known at the same time that the regulations against vicious
practices were to be enforced more vigorously, and that the former Committees
of Public Virtue were to be reconstituted, though apparently with a different
allocation of duties between them and the municipalities. The committees were
to see to the regular saying of the five daily prayers. The public sale and
smoking of tobacco were to be repressed, although it may still be imported
There was to be a round-up of gramophones and their accessories. Part at least