IOR/R/15/1/755

This file includes a partially bound ledger book (ff. 2-138) containing drafts of letters sent by the Khān Bahādur bin ‘Abd al-Laṭīf bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, Residency Agent on the Trucial Coast at Sharjah, in 1907 and 1908. The ledger book includes drafts of letters mainly sent to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, but also other members of the Residency staff, as well as the Political Agents at Muscat and Bahrain and native agents at Lingah and Bandar ‘Abbās. These draft letters include enclosures which are generally copies of letters to or from Trucial Coast rulers and other notable personalities, including merchants and British protected subjects, as well as copies of reports, translated correspondence and other documents. The correspondence is generally concerned with commercial and consular matters, as well as relations between British and the rulers of the Trucial Coast shaikhs, including Zāyid bin Khalīfah Āl Nahyān, ruler of Abu Dhabi; Buṭṭī bin Suhayl Āl Maktūm, ruler of Dubai; Ṣaqr bin Khālid Āl Qāsimī, ruler of Sharjah; Rāshid bin Aḥmad Āl Mu‘allā, ruler of Umm al-Qaywayn; ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin Ḥumayd Āl Nu‘aymī, ruler of Ajman; Khālid bin Aḥmad Āl Qāsimī, ruler of Dibba; and Sa‘id bin Ḥamad Āl Qāsimī, ruler of Kalba. Subjects covered include claims and petitions of merchants and British Indian subjects (banyans), trade, slavery cases, pearling issues maintaining the maritime peace, arms importation and smuggling, and intelligence gathering, as well as administrative matters concerning the Sharjah agency. Folio 100v includes a small labelled sketched diagram of a baqqālah boat. Also included in the file are additional loose letters in Arabic (ff. 140-148) from the years 1920 and 1921 from the Political Residency in the Persian Gulf to the ‘Īsá bin ‘Abd al-Laṭīf, and a telegraph in Arabic and transliterated Arabic in Latin script (f. 139).