IOR/R/15/2/618

The file contains correspondence, mainly between British officials in the Persian Gulf, discussing the actions of Shaikh Saeed Bin Maktoom [Shaikh Saʻīd bin Maktūm bin Ḥashr Āl Maktūm], Ruler of Dubai, covering the years 1941, 1944, 1946 and 1948-49.

The correspondents are as follows: John Baron Howes and his successors Roy Douglas Metcalfe and Patrick Desmond Stobart as Political Officer, Trucial Coast, Sharjah; Major Reginald George Evelyn William Alban and his successors Tom Hickinbotham and Cornelius James Pelly as Political Agent, Bahrain; Sayid Abdur Razzaq [Khān Ṣāḥib Sayyid ‘Abd al-Razzāq] and his successor Jassim [Jāsim bin Muḥammad Kadmārī] as British Residency Native Agent, Sharjah; and Lieutenant-Colonel William Rupert Hay as Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain.

The correspondence includes English translations of Arabic letters as follows: Saeed Bin Maktoom to Reza Pahlavi the Emperor of Iran [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran], dated 1948 (folio 11), and an exchange of letters between the Political Agent at Bahrain and Saeed Bin Maktoom, dated 1944 (folios 13 and 16).

Topics discussed include:

• British policy discussions about co-operative measures to be taken for the maintenance of law and order on the Trucial Coast, 1941 (folios 2-7)
• British interception of two letters from the Ruler of Dubai to the King of Iraq and the Shah of Iran, in 1944 and 1949 respectively, written on behalf of two Dubai subjects, the one case regarding the importation of rice into Dubai from Iraq and the other case regarding the confiscation of merchant goods by Iranian Customs (folios 9-14)
• British remonstrations to the Ruler of Dubai for making direct representations and requests to foreign rulers on behalf of his subjects, in breach of his agreement of 7 March 1892 with the British Government, 1949 (folios 15-21).