IOR/L/PS/5/272, ff 569-576

This item comprises a despatch and enclosures from the Government of India, Foreign Department, to the Duke of Argyll, HM Secretary of State for India, Number 37 of 1873, dated 10 April 1873. The enclosures are dated from 16 January to 17 February 1873, consist of printed correspondence, and relate to affairs in Nejd [Najd]. The correspondence comes from the following: the Government of Bombay; Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Charles Ross, Acting Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; Captain Charles Grant, Assistant Resident in the Persian Gulf; Ahmed Abdool Russool [Aḥmad bin ‘Abd al-Rasūl], Native Agent in Bahrein [Bahrain]; and the Political Agent in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq].

The correspondence mainly comprises intelligence, much of it contradictory, on the political affairs of Nejd, including:

• The whereabouts and activities of the rival brothers Abdulla bin Feysul [‘Abdullāh bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd] and Saood bin Feysul [Sa‘ūd bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd]
• Changes in the Ottoman governorship of Lahsah [Al-Hasa]
• The allegiances of the Nejd tribes
• The possibility of Saood becoming the Ottoman Kaimakam [Kaymakam] of Lahsah.

Included is an abstract of contents, with details of the enclosures (folio 571), and an India Office minute, dated 6 May 1873, stating that the intelligence is only useful as a record (folio 569).