IOR/R/15/1/757

This file consists of correspondence from various British officials in the Political Residency in the Persian Gulf at Bushire to Khān Bahādur ‘Īsá bin ‘Abd al-Laṭīf, the Residency Agent on the Trucial Coast at Sharjah. These letters cover the year 1930, between 13 January (12 Sha‘bān 1348) and 20 December 1930 (28 Rajab 1349). The file has its original file cover (ff. 2 and 133) which includes the title of the file in Arabic ['fīl khaṭūṭ al-bālyūz al-wāṣilah lil-wikālah ‘umān al-mutaṣāliḥ sanat 1930']. Each letter is numbered, running from No. 5 on folio 130 to 234 on folio 3. The letters are almost entirely in Arabic, while some appear in both English and Arabic (for example, ff. 38, 59 and 131). Some letters have accompanying enclosures, some of which are copies of letters to or from the Political Resident and the ruling shaikhs of the Trucial Coast, including Shaikh Shakhbūṭ bin Sulṭān Āl Nahyān, ruler of Abu Dhabi; Shaikh Sa‘īd bin Maktūm Āl Maktūm, ruler of Dubai; and Shaikh Sulṭan bin Ṣaqr Āl Qāsimī, ruler of Sharjah (for example, ff. 20 and 97).

The file subjects of the correspondence relate to British relations with the ruler; commercial and consular matters concerning claims of British Indian subjects and other merchants, mostly residing in Dubai; and various slavery cases, mostly forwarded from the British Agency at Muscat, many of which enclose manumission statements (ff. 26-27). There is also correspondence concerning the administration of the Agency at Sharjah (ff. 38 and 123) and a tour of the Trucial Coast by the Political Resident in May 1930 (f. 93).