IOR/L/PS/10/156/2

Part 4 contains correspondence relating to attacks against Bahrain pearling dhows, committed by members of the Beni Hajir tribe and led by an individual named Ahmed bin Selman, in the waters around Bahrain and the Turkish administered territories of Katif [Al-Qaṭīf] and El Katr [Qatar]. The part’s principal correspondents include: the Political Agent at Bahrain (John Calcott Gaskin; Captain Francis Beville Prideaux); the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Major Percy Zachariah Cox); the British Ambassador at Constantinople [Istanbul] (Sir Walter Beaupre Townley); the Ambassador to the Court of the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire (Sir Nicholas Roderick O’Conor).

The correspondence covers:

• reports of the activities of Ahmed bin Selman and his followers in around the waters of Bahrain, Nejd, and the Qatar peninsula, including accounts of theft and violence committed against pearling dhows, as reported by the Political Agent at Bahrain;
• representations made by British officials to their Turkish counterparts, protesting against the acts described as piracy being committed from Turkish-administered territories in the Persian Gulf;
• Government of India proposals for the provision of a boat for the Political Agent at Bahrain, and gunboat patrols of the pearl banks;
• a visit made by HMS Sphinx to the Nejd coast in 1905, in order to pursue enquiries against Ahmed bin Selman, which provokes an official complaint from the Ottoman Turkish Government (in French, f 108);
• the appearance in 1906 of Ahmed bin Selman in Doha of Al Bidda [Doha], representations made by British officials to the ruler of Qatar Shaikh Jasim bin Thani [Jāsim bin Muḥammad Āl Thānī], and further Turkish complaint at British interference on the Qatar peninsula;
• the visit of HMS Lapwing to Katif in 1907 in pursuit of Ahmed bin Selman, resulting in a show of ‘discourtesy’ by a Turkish official towards British naval officers, and subsequent British demands for an official apology, which is tendered by the kaimmakam [kaimakam] of Katif in June 1908 (f 8).