IOR/R/15/2/463

This file is entitled 'Activities of Saudi Arabians in Doha'; however, it concerns the activities of Saudi Arabians in Bahrain. The file includes correspondence between Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Gordon Loch, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; Captain George Ashmead Cole, Political Agent at Bahrain; and Charles Dalyrmple Belgrave, Adviser to the Bahrain Government.

Correspondence between 1934 and 1935 concerns a Saudi proclamation (i‘lān) posted on a wall in the Manama Pearl Bazaar without the permission of the Government of Bahrain (ff 2-3); action regarding a Nejd [Najd] travel document issued to Mohomed Ali [Muḥammad ‘Alī bin ‘Īd] and signed by Shaikh Mohomed al-Tawil [Muḥammad al-Ṭawīl], a Saudi official accompanying the Saudi Arabia Delegation in Bahrain (ff 4-8); and a case involving a Saudi subject charged with importing a rifle into Bahrain and selling it at Muharraq, plus a subsequent letter from Hamad Sulaiman [Ḥamad bin Sulaymān], a member of the Saudi Arabian Delegation in Bahrain, to Shaikh ‘Abdullāh bin ‘Īsá Āl Khalīfah regarding the matter (ff 9-13). The remainder of the file (ff 14-25) consists of copies of correspondence between the Political Resident and the India Office with regards to the issue of the flying of the Saudi Arabian flag by the Trade Agent of ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd [Ibn Saud] on Fridays at Kuwait, and how this issue pertains to the other Shaikhdoms of the Persian Gulf, including Bahrain.

Notable Arabic documents include the aforementioned proclamation, dated 23 Sha‘bān 1353 [1 December 1934], concerning plans by the Government of Saudi Arabia to offer to carry fifty pilgrims in motor cars from Hasa (al-Aḥsā’) to Mecca and Medina (f 3), with a partial translation appearing on folio 25; and the aforementioned travel document (tadhkirat huwīyat al-musāfir) issued by the Government of Saudi Arabia and including the stamps of the passport offices of Qatif [al-Qaṭīf] and Bahrain (f 5).