IOR/R/15/2/27

This file contains correspondence between British officials at Bushire and Bahrain, Dr Samuel Zwemer of the Arabian Mission, and Captain Kemp aboard HMS Phoenix.

These correspondence primarily concern the presence of Turkish local governors (mudīrs) in the Qatar peninsula, in particular Yūsuf Beg at al-Wakrah and al-‘Udayd, as a part of a Turkish plan to establish a series of guardhouses along the eastern coast of Arabia.

The file contains details of John Calcott Gaskin's visit to Shaikh Jāsim bin Muḥammad Āl Thānī in retirement at Lusayl in 1903 (folio 47), as well as relations between Shaikh ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Jāsim and Aḥmad bin Muḥammad Āl Thānī. There are also details concerning the attempted assassination of Shaikh ‘Abd al-Raḥmān by a member of the Āl Bū ‘Aynayn tribe at al-Wakrah in December 1907, and subsequent relations between the Āl Thānī family and Āl Bū ‘Aynayn tribe in 1908.

There are incidental mentions of the 1903 outbreak of the plague in the Gulf, the Arabian Mission hospital at Bahrain (folio 15), the opening of a dispensary by the Agency in Bahrain (folios 18-19), and protests by pearl divers at the proposal of a Frenchman to dive with ‘modern appliances’ (folio 25).