IOR/L/PS/10/1125/1

Correspondence concerning the British Government’s policy of neutrality in response to the invasion of the Hejaz by Wahabi [Wahhabi] troops under the rule of the Sultan of Najd, Ibn Saud [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd]. The correspondence covers: responses to the invasion by the Muslim League of Bombay [Mumbai], the Khalifat Committee and its leader, Maulana Shaukat Ali, and the President of the Supreme Religious Court in Egypt; the question of the fate of Islam’s holy cities; reports of attempts by the King of Hejaz, ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī al-Hāshimī, to recruit troops in the Aden Protectorate; the British Government’s disapproval of King Ali’s attempts to recruit troops in a British territory; the enlistment of Palestinians, Trans Jordanians and Egyptians in to the Hejaz army.

The principal correspondents are: the Home Department of the Government of India; the Foreign Office; the British Consul at Jeddah, Reader William Bullard.