IOR/R/15/2/141

The volume is a correspondence file concerning affairs in Qatar, which came under the administration of the Political Agency, Bahrain.

The principal correspondents are the Political Agent, Bahrain; the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; the Government of India; the India Office; the War Office; Army Headquarters, Iraq Command, Hinaidi; Shaikh Abdullah bin Jasim al-Thani [‘Abdullāh bin Jāsim Āl Thānī], Ruler of Qatar; and the Director of Customs and Port Officer, Bahrain (Claud Cranbrook Lewis deGrenier).

The papers cover: negotiations over a request by the British for an emergency landing ground at Qatar, for use by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and commercial aeroplanes, April 1932 - June 1933 (folios 6-83), including discussion of whether the British Government should, in exchange, give support to Shaikh Abdullah's authority in Doha and elsewhere (e.g. folios 35-37), and the rejection by the British of the Shaikh's request for a formal treaty of full protection along the lines of those with Bahrain and Kuwait (folio 63); Shaikh Abdullah's visit to Riyadh, reportedly at the urgent summons of the King of Saudi Arabia [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd], who was said to be displeased at the granting of the Qatar oil concession to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), July-October 1933 (folios 86-94); discussions over the desire of Shaikh Abdullah to obtain 500 rifles and ammunition for his 'personal use', November 1935 - April 1937 (folios 98-182 and 210-247); the proposal to sell the Shaikh 1914 pattern British rifles (e.g. folios 146-147); the British Government's desire to supply him with rifles that would take British standard .303 ammunition (e.g. folio 179); the Shaikh's preference for new German Mauser rifles, which he had been shown (e.g. folio 244); concern about German commercial penetration into the Arab Coast (folio 250); the British refusal to allow the Shaikh to purchase Mauser rifles and ammunition under the terms of the 1916 treaty (folios 234-235); and copy of the draft Qatar Order in Council, and related correspondence from the Government of India, August 1936 (folios 183-209).

The Arabic language content of the volume consists of approximately twenty folios of correspondence (with English translations) between the Political Agent, Bahrain, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, and the Ruler of Qatar.

The date range gives the covering dates of the correspondence; the title page (folio 5) states that the file was closed on 14 November 1937.