ملف ١٩٢٤/١٧٠٧ "الجزيره العربية - تقارير عن الوضع في جدة. (١٩٢٤-١٩٣٠)" [ظ‎‎٢‎٤‎١] (٨٩٨/٤٨٧)

7. This visit, which as far as Great Britain is concerned is a private one, is
avowedly intended as a step towards asserting the position of Nejd and the Hejaz as
a nation among the nations. Ibn Sand sends his son to bear his thanks to the heads
of the States which have recognised his sovereignty, and hopes at the same time to
cement friendly relations with three of the great Moslem Powers from whose colonies
and empires the pilgrims of the future will come. By the Islamic Congress early in,
the year the King, as Guardian of the Holy Places, plainly marked his spiritual
influence, although he was too wise to press the point too far. By visits such as the
present one he hopes gradually to affirm his temporal power.
8. Ibn Baud is, in fact, keenly desirous on general recognition of his sovereignty.
He is at present seeking official Italian recognition with a certain insistence, and
when the first news of the recent attempted assassination of Signor Mussolini reached
him, made a great point of special telegrams of enquiry and congratulation being sent
in his name to Rome.
9. It was rumoured, though I discredit the report, that Turkish official
recognition was brought to Ibn Sand by the new Turkish representative, who arrived
in Jeddah by the boat on which the Emir Saud was also a passenger. This is
Suleiman Shevket Bey, whose mission in the Hejaz may prove as interesting as that
of our Russian colleague, if in some ways dissimilar. Shevket Bey has not yet started
to pay his official calls. In spite of that, a spontaneous acquaintance has rapidly
developed between him and the Soviet consul-general, the spontaneity being
apparently of Russian origin.
10. Can there be any sympathy of purpose or attitude between the Russian and
the Turkish representatives in the Hejaz ? In a recent Bagdad Intelligence Report
an Iraqi politician is reported to have written, after talking with “leading Islamic
politicians” in Egypt, that he “found everywhere a growing desire for a united
Islamic front. Turkey was the source of the new inspiration, and Ibn Saud and the
Imam Yahya of the Yemen were sympathetic. ’ ’ Russia would naturally be interested
in such an excellent weapon of anti-European propaganda as a united Islamic front,
and perhaps Shevket Bey has been instructed to be interested in the same ideal. He
is a middle-aged man, who wears a dinner-jacket, is far too enlightened to have much
in common with your Wahabi medievalisms, and has been making enquiries as to the
best method of securing a regular supply of whisky from over the water.
11. His second-in-command is a less formal and more interesting figure than
his chief. He is Mahmud Nadim Bey, Vali of the Yemen in Turkish days, a small,
rotund and jolly man, who also openly professes devotion to the best-known produce
of Scotland. He will be remembered as the official who was deputed by the Imam
T ahya (Colonel Jacob’s book is my informant) to go to Bazil when Colonel H. I.
Jacob was detained there, along with his mission to the Imam, in 1919; indeed, he
boasts that he was instrumental in obtaining Colonel Jacob’s release. He speaks
Arabic well and is obviously well versed in Arabian affairs. Nadim Bey has already
been here for some considerable time awaiting the arrival of Shevket Bey, who on his
way has spent some months in Egypt.
12. Before the latter’s advent, the prestige of the Soviet mission was on the
wane, a tendency exemplified by its reduction from a diplomatic agency to a
consulate-general. M. Khakimoff may possibly find his influence buttressed by the
new Turkish arrivals; but it remains to be seen whether the two work in amicable
conjunction.
13. Ibn Saud wrote on the 18th September showing some impatience at the
small measure of success which his representative had achieved in his parleys at
Amman with the Transjordan authorities regarding Nejd claims for recent robberies
in the frontier zone. Abdul Aziz-bin-Zeid having already been almost three months
in Transjordan, the King ordered him to proceed to Palestine to get satisfaction
there. In informing the King that I had passed this information on to the propel
authorities, I reminded him that time and patience were always necessary in getting
to the bottom of such claims.
14. Ibn Sand’s neighbours to the south are the subject of a considerable amoum
of speculation. It is generally known that the Italians are supplying the Imam
Yahya of the Yemen with arms, and the outlook for the Idrisi is not of the brightest,
but conjecture regarding Ibn Sand’s attitude to both is extremely diversified.
15. Sayed Ali, the deposed Idrisi, has been for some time now in Mecca, but i
does not follow that he has been able to induce the King to render him active
assistance. At the end of September another member of the family, Sheikh Murgam
el-Idrisi, arrived in Jeddah by dhow from Qunfuda, was hospitably treated, am
passed also on his way to Mecca. He arrived from Asir, and may have been sent, a^