واحلل عقدة من لساني . يفقهوا قولي . واجعل لي وزيراً من أهلي
سورة طه (27 – 28 – 29)
And loose a knot from my tounge,
That they may understand my saying.
Appoint for me an advocate from my folk…
(Koran, Tâ Hâ 27/28/29)

My days in the Court of Ibn Saud were the happiest of my life. I had the privilege and great good fortune to be able to serve my country at a time when it was rapidly emerging from centuries of obscurity and neglect to take its place among the great nations of the world. All my colleagues in the Court shared this sense of excitement in playing a part, however small, in the vital administration of the kingdom during a historic period of growth. All of us, too, were united in our unswerving devotion and loyalty to the King. Anybody who met His Majesty, however briefly, could not fail to realize that he was in the presence of an utterly exceptional man, a born leader and a great monarch. To work for him and converse with him daily was like basking in continual sunlight. Every one of us in the Court staff would have followed him unhesitatingly to the ends of the earth. Our shared allegiance to the King bonded us together and gave us a very high moral and esprit de corps. For him we cheerfully worked long hours and endured conditions (especially when on the move) which no employee working merely for money would ever have contemplated. Although everyone in the Court had a defined job and a particular degree of seniority, there was never any feeling of regimentation. We were like a family united under a kind and wise father, with everybody making an equal contribution towards the common good. Many of my friends in the Court became in later years men of great wealth and importance, and I feel that they deserve at least a small mention for their services to His Majesty while on his staff.

The Chief of the Court was Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Muammar, whose forbears had been the Amirs of Uwainah at the time of the great reformer, Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, Ibn Muammar had been brought up by his father in Kuwait and subsequently went to India, where he set up in business for a while as a merchant trading with Kuwait. He travelled extensively in Arabia and Europe and then for a time settled in Egypt. There he contributed many articles and letters about Ibn Saud and Najd to Egyptian newspapers. His knowledge of the affairs of Arabia was profound, and he was frequently able to counter malicious or ignorant propaganda against Najd which appeared from time to time in the Egyptian press. After the conquest of Hejaz, His Majesty was in need of able administrators and Ibn Muammar was an obvious choice. A message was sent to him asking if he would come to Mecca to serve the King. Ibn Muammar gladly agreed. He was immediately appointed Chief of the Court, a role he was to perform with increasing distinction for several years. Ibn Muammar was an energetic and conscientious man, who ran a happy and efficient Court. He was devoted to the king, whom he served with utter sincerity. Unfortunately, shortly before I myself left the Court, he fell out with one of the Princes and resigned his post. The King was most reluctant to lose him completely and appointed him Ambassador to King Faisal of Iraq in Baghdad. Here his crusading talents were put to good use on behalf of the many Najdis who lived in Iraq and who often suffered from discrimination and bureaucratic harassment. His efforts on their behalf eventually made him such a thorn in the side of the Iraqi administration that Ibn Saud was requested by king Faisal to recall him. This he reluctantly did, but not before Ibn Muammar had left his mark in the form of a lasting betterment of the lot of his countrymen in Iraq.

As soon as wireless equipment and modern methods of communication began to be used regularly in the Court, it became necessary for somebody to be engaged to take charge of them. The men chosen for this post was my old friend Mohammed Dughaither. Mohammed was from a prominent family in Riyadh, noted for their loyalty to the house of Saud. Indeed, he could trace his family back to one of the wives of the Amir Mohammed Ibn Saud, who was the founder of the Saudi dynasty. Mohammed had been well educated and had studied for a time in Zubair. His duties at Court required him to inform the King immediately of any important news, whether it be good or bad. Bad news required all Mohammed’s reserves of tact, for the King’s rage could be fearsome indeed. Good news, however, often inspired His Majesty to act of generosity, and Mohammed was the recipient of many gifts made to him as the bringer of glad tidings. Once, after Mohammed had brought news of the successful crushing of a small rebellion, the King gave him some acres of land just outside the city walls. The land was then of small value but Mohammed shrewdly held on to it. Today it forms a large part of the commercial center of Riyadh!

When I joined the Court, the Deputy Chief was Abdullah Othman, who was also from a well-known family in Riyadh. He had been brought up by his father in kuwait, where he had received a first-class education. Both he and Mohammed Dughaither had been brought to Riyadh by the acting Consul in kuwait, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Niffisi, only months before I arrived in Hejaz. Abdullah Othman took over as Chief of the Court after the departure of Ibn Muammar. Like any monarch, Ibn Saud received a constant flow of written petitions from his subjects. Most of these seemed to have been composed on the principle that the greater the length and verbosity of the petition, the better would be its chances of success. To cope with this, a clerk was appointed. His task was to read through all the petitions and condense them to a manageable length, so that when they were put to the King, His Majesty could see immediately what was being asked of him. This job fell to Hamad Ibn Mudhaian, who dealt efficiently and uncomplainingly with ever-increasing mountains of paperwork throughout the time I was at the Court.

There were two clerks in the Court who had no specific duties but assisted wherever it was necessary. They were Mohammed Ash-Shubaily from Unayzah and Mohammed Ibn Dhawi from Harma. Both men were educated in Zubair, and both were to achieve great success in later life. Ash-Shubaily became Consul in Basra and was later appointed as Ambassador successively to Iraq, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Mohammed Ibn Dhawi impressed everybody as an extremely clever young man as soon as he had joined the Court, and after he had gained some experience, he was commissioned by the King to lead several state missions to the Yemen.

My own position was that of Chief Translator and Interpreter. I was responsible for translating into Arabic all letters and documents in English and Urdu. I also translated letters  from the King into these languages for dispatch to foreign governments. I was often obliged to try my hand at other languages as well, for the Court was distinctly short of linguists. My workload steadily mounted and it was not long before I was joined by my brother, Abdul Aziz Almana, who acted as my assistant. Eventually my cousin, Abdul Aziz Zamil Jawasir, also came to work in the Court. He was later attached to the political committee, and subsequently became Prince Faisal’s personal translator in Hejaz. My colleagues and I, together with a couple of  typists and few servants, comprised the entire Foreign Court of Ibn Saud. Naturally, we all came to know each other intimately, and the family atmosphere in the Court was something which a modern civil servant working in a vast, computerized administration would find hard to imagine.

While on the subject of the unsung heroes who helped His Majesty to build his kingdom, I feel I should give a mention to the many Najdis who represented their country abroad. Before the conquest of Hejaz, the King had no formal consular or diplomatic representation in foreign states. Instead, private businessmen from Najd who happened to be living in foreign countries would often act as the King’s agents. The Najdis have a reputation throughout Arabia as a very religious group, who live by the highest moral principles. His Majesty chose men who had been a long time in a particular place and had acquired a reputation for honesty, sincerity and moral integrity. The men thus chosen received no remuneration for their services. However, they were amply rewarded by having the honour of being the King’s representative, which gave considerable prestige and some advantages in trade. The fact that the system operated so well is a tribute to the close-knit nature of Najdi society, for all Najdis consider themselves to be part of a large family and remain loyal and faithful to each other, particularly when they are abroad. Prominent Najdis who acted as ‘ambassadors’ were Sheikh Fawzan As-Sabgh in Cairo, Abdul Latif Pasha Al-Mandil in Baghdad and Basra, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Niffisi in Kuwait, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Fawzan in Bombay, Sheikh Abu-Leila in Damascus and Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Gossaibi in Bahrain. These men spent considerable effort in promoting the interests of their country abroad, and it is sad that so many of them are now hardly ever remembered. As the King’s domain expanded, he slowly began to establish a formal consular service. This involved the gradual replacement of his previous representatives. As in all such matters, His Majesty was most tactful and considerate, and any new ambassador was usually put under the nominal supervision of the King’s previous agent until such time as the agent chose to retire.

Through my work, I came to know slightly most of the more prominent men surrounding the King, particularly those on his political committee. Some of these men, too are almost forgotten today. The numbers of the political committee varied from time to time, but there were usually about eight members, drawn not just from Central Arabia but from all over the Middle East. Sheikh Hafiz Wahba, an Egyptian by birth, was an important senior adviser. He was present at the committee meetings only when not engaged on some important mission. He eventually became Minister Plenipotentiary, and later Ambassador to the Court of St James’s in London. From Syria came Sheikh Khalid Al-Hakim, an elderly man of great wisdom, who had been an engineer associated with the Hejaz railway during the Turkish regime. Another Syrian was Sheikh Yusuf Yassin, who was in charge of the political department of the Court and was made responsible for organizing meetings of the political committee. From the Lebanon came Sheikh Fuad Hamza, the First Secretary to the King’s son and Foreign Minister, the Amir Faisal. Sheikh Fuad spent much of his time in the Foreign Office in Mecca and Jeddah, where all the foreign ambassador were to be found. Another of the King’s advisers was Sheikh Khalid Al-Ghargini, a Libyan from Tripoli, who had been Governor of that town during the Italian occupation of his country. One must also number among the King’s foreign advisers Sheikh Abdullah Philby, who was always welcome at the meetings but rarely attended them. He preferred to be with the King at his special and general majlis, where he had the occasional opportunity to be alone with His Majesty after the meeting had dispersed. Another prominent member of the committee was the King’s brother, Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul Rahman. He attended the council whenever possible, and his advice was highly valued by His Majesty.

Perhaps the most important of the King’s advisers was a man who almost never attended the political committee because of his many engagements outside it, Sheikh Abdullah Suleiman, the Finance Minister. Suleiman was from Unayzah in Najd. As a youth he had left Arabia for Bombay, which was about the only avenue then open for young Arabs who sought adventure and fortune. He grew up without any formal education as a servant in the house of Sheikh Abdullah Al-Fawzan, who was one of the leading Najdi merchants in Bombay during its heyday as a trading metropolis. Suleiman never forget his venerable old master, a man both religious and astute, who taught him much about the skills of a successful trader. Anxious to try his hand in commerce, Suleiman left Bombay for Bahrain, where he started up a small business of his own. It was not a great success and he soon found himself looking round for some more secure employment.

Suleiman’s brother occupied a minor position as a finance clerk in His Majesty’s Domestic Court. He was somewhat overworked and, having obtained permission to take on an assistant, asked Suleiman to join him. Suleiman, lacking anything more promising to do, agreed to come. Thus, as a lowly assistant to a clerk, he began his career at Court. He showed an immediate flair for financial administration but, following the usual custom in such matters, he received no official credit for his work while his brother continued to occupy a position senior to him. However, on his brother’s death, he immediately took over the post, and it was not long before Ibn Saud came to recognize the abilities of this hardworking, intelligent and enterprising young man. Gradually the King’s admiration for Suleiman grew, and by the time I joined the Court, the former assistant clerk had been appointed Finance Minister wholly responsible for the state treasury.

Suleiman remained Finance Minister throughout the King’s life. Seldom can any man have presided over such a dramatic improvement in his country’s fortunes as took place in the latter part of those years. When Ibn Saud captured Riyadh in 1902, it was literally true that the royal treasury was contained in its entirety in his saddle-bags. Twenty years later the situation was often little better, and His Majesty was almost always drastically short of money. When the king conquered Hejaz in 1926, Suleiman travelled with him to organize the financial side of the take-over, and was immediately faced with an established bureaucracy of infinitely greater sophistication than the one he was used to in Najd. It is a tribute to his ability and hard work that the finances of Hejaz and Najd were linked together with so little trouble. From this date, Suleiman was based permanently in Hejaz, while the King’s Court remained in Riyadh. Although the Finance Minister rarely interfered in foreign affairs, he was in sole charge of all domestic affairs in the Kingdom.

Hejaz brought to the King a substantially increased revenue, and Suleiman now controlled the money from Customs and the post Office, as well as the important taxes on pilgrims. These taxes were charged whenever a pilgrim travelled from one part of Hejaz to another, particularly between Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, and provided a high percentage of the country’s revenue. But even with these increased revenues, the King remained in continual financial difficulty. Somehow, Suleiman always managed to keep some white coins for black days, and when funds were really short, he could always turn to the market-place and milk the merchants. If one was a wealthy trader, it was as well to be out of town when the King was in sudden need of cash. I remember one occasion when I was at the Court in Riyadh, shortly before the battle of Sibillah. His Majesty needed money to finance his military expedition, so he sent Suleiman’s deputy in Riyadh to see what he could collect from the merchants of the town. The deputy was a man called Shalhowb, who had been with the King since the capture of Riyadh in 1902. Unfortunately for Shalhowb, the merchants heard he was coming and made themselves scarce. As a result, his quest proved less fruitful than the King had hoped. We all joked with Shalhowb about his failure to collect more money, but he took it in good heart and replied, ‘Oh, these little troubles are nothing. When I came out of exile in Kuwait with the King, I had the whole royal treasury in my purse.’

Suleiman was the ultimate éminence grise, always selfeffacing and keeping himself in the wings. Nevertheless, his power and influence became so monumental that I often thought of him as the uncrowned King of Arabia. Although he claimed never to have done anything without consulting the King, in fact he frequently implemented and enforced his own decisions entirely without royal permission. This is not to suggest that he was in any way disloyal. On the contrary, his devotion to the King was absolute and he worked tirelessly for the good of the kingdom.

As Suleiman grew in stature and importance, he naturally attracted enemies. When Hejaz was conquered, the King asked all the government employees of the former Hashemite kingdom to remain at their posts. However, there were still gaps in the bureaucratic structure, so His Majesty invited Najidis from all the more advanced areas of the Arab world, such as Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, to come to take positions in the administration of Hejaz. His Majesty hoped that such men would not only prove loyal, but would also have a more sophisticated, cosmopolitan education and outlook gained through working in foreign countries. Some of his recruite were hard-working and able men like Ibrahim Ibn Muammar, the Chief of the Court. Many others, however, turned out to lack the most rudimentary knowledge or ability. A number of such men were placed under Suleiman’s control. It was not long before it became obvious that they were total novices, conducting their duties haphazardly, with no understanding of what they were supposed to be doing. Suleiman quickly saw their defects. He was not a man to suffer fools gladly and he criticized them mercilessly. In their turn the Najdis came to begrudge Suleiman his power, seeing him as no better than themselves. They conspired against him and probed into his personal life, which was not entirely above questions. Then they wrote petitions to the King, making complaints against Suleiman and listing what they thought to be his personal shortcomings. This could have been a dangerous moment for Suleiman, but the King showed his faith in his Finance Minister by gathering all the letters together and sending them to Suleiman, authorizing him to take whatever action he thought best. Not surprisingly, Suleiman lost no time in dismissing the individuals concerned, all of whom were sent back to their native towns or wherever else they wished to go. Suleiman was then able to replace them with men of his own choosing. The resulting improvement in efficiency was so marked that the King henceforth gave Suleiman his complete support in any plans he wished to initiate and left entirely to him the choice of his own staff. From that moment, Suleiman’s position and power became unassailable. By remaining strictly within the fields of administration and finance, he eventually controlled all the directorates. He appointed the staff, with the King’s approval, and this gave him enormous power. In fact, Suleiman was the real founder of the newly emerging bureaucratic system; his work laid the corner-stone of the fully-fledged ministries which were to grow out of the old directorates.

Although Suleiman craved power, he had little time for its trappings. He shunned publicity, for he knew this could be bad as well as good. He realized that the greater his public recognition the more bitter would be the jealousy of his enemies. Nor did popularity concern him. He was by nature reserved and aloof, and made little attempt to gain the love of his subordinates. Indeed, he often made himself unpopular with them. Although he was quick to criticize inefficiency or incompetence, he often refused to give advancement to men who displayed talent, for fear they might endanger his own position. He was always reluctant to delegate responsibility; as a result, his own work-load became quite astonishing. At the zenith of his career he was working eighteen or nineteen hours a day, stopping only for such sleep as was absolutely necessary before resuming his labours.

Suleiman was a man of boundless resource and was forever conceiving new ideas to assist the King with his financial problems. An example of this occurred towards the end of my period of service with the King in about 1935, when the state finances became so bad that our salaries could no longer be paid. Suleiman surmounted this problem by devising a scheme whereby the state official and civil servants were paid only one-third of their salary in cash. Another third was paid in the form of provisions, and the remaining third was retained by the state as a compulsory loan. This situation lasted for about six or seven months until money became available. A simpler scheme used by Suleiman to conserve money was simply to refuse to pay it out. The King’s son Prince Faisal was Governor of Hejaz, and frequently gave authority to tribal chiefs to collect money or provisions from Suleiman. The Finance Minister often infuriated the Prince by paying out less than the amount shown on these authorization, or sometimes refusing to pay anything at all. However, the Prince never took any action against Suleiman, no doubt because of all the money he was saving. A more difficult problem for Suleiman arose when the Royal Princess came to him for money. Although the Princess had authorization from the King to draw money from the Treasury, Suleiman often refused to pay out these sums when funds were particularly low. Although the king did not openly condone Suleiman’s behaviour in this respect, I am sure he was secretly in agreement with him. The Princes sometimes threatened Suleiman with physical violence if did not pay. During one such incident, Prince Saud became so enraged with Suleiman that the unfortunate Finance Minister had to leap into car and drive from Mecca to Jeddah to escape the Prince’s wrath. Saud followed in another car, obliging Sulieman to borrow a launch and take refuge in one of the ships anchored in Jeddah harbour until the royal anger had subsided. I am sure that the King was very grateful for Suleiman’s steadfast obstinacy in such matters. However, this kind of thrift could go too far. On another occasion, Suleiman’s brother Hamad, who worked as his assistant, inadvisedly refused to pay out money to one of the King’s wives who had been given authority by His Majesty to collect it. The King was furious, and sent two of his servants in a car with instructions to grab Hamad and take him to a far-off hill outside the city and leave him without food or water. He was there for two days before Suleiman was able to obtain permission to fetch him back.

At the height of his power, Suleiman was by far the most important man in the kingdom outside the royal family. I remember that on our annual visits to Hejaz, there were many impressive meetings and conferences between the King and the tribal chiefs and religious leaders of the region. But the real business of state was done in the cool of the early morning, when Suleiman used to come with his books, alone and unobserved, to His Majesty’s private chamber immediately after the morning prayer.

Suleiman had never received any formal training in book-keeping or accountancy. The book-keeping methods he used for administering the state finances worked efficiently enough while he was in charge, but they utterly confused foreign financial experts who came into contact with them. Suleiman was aware of this problem and made tentative efforts to modernize the system. Once he sent for an old retired Dutchman who was a noted financial expert and asked him for general advice. The Dutchman spent some weeks investigating the problem and started to prepare a lengthy report which would have recommended the introduction of orthodox Western method of administration, including a sophisticated system of double-entry book-keeping. However, as he progressed, it became obvious that Suleiman did not understand his system any more than he could understand Suleiman’s. So the Dutchman packed his bags and left. On the one occasion when (rather to my surprise) Suleiman requested my advice, it was to ask if I knew any Najdi who was well versed in modern techniques of banking. As it happened, I did and was able to recommend my cousin Abdul Aziz Zamil Jawasir. Suleiman sent for my cousin but, rather to my embarrassment, Abdul Aziz politely declined to come. However, as I have already mentioned, he did later join the Court, where he enjoyed a distinguished career as a translator.

Towards the end of the King’s reign, as the country expanded rapidly under the influx of oil revenues, Suleiman’s accounting system began to break up under the strains imposed upon it. By that time he was an old man, but still as obstinate as ever. Prince Saud and Prince Faisal began gently to ease him out of his position of power, and appointed other men to take over some of the ministries and directorates which he had previously controlled. Eventually, a few years after the king’s death and following an investigation into the affairs of a German construction company with which Suleiman had been involved, the Finance Minister was persuaded to resign and go into a well-earned retirement.

I personally knew Suleiman only slightly. I seldom met him because he spent most of his time in Hejaz, which we visited only once a year. Whenever I spoke to him, his manner was hostile and peremptory. (Perhaps this was a compliment, as he tended to behave like this towards anybody whom he thought might have influence with the King.) This does not prevent me from regarding him as one of the foremost characters in the recent history of our country, for it was he who laid the foundations of our modern administration and fully justified the King’s affectionate nickname, ‘my support’.

The main street at Mecca in the 1920s, with part of the outer wall of the great Mosque on the right.
Popperfoto

The ceremony of the washing of the Kaaba, just before the start of the hajj. The black cloth which covers the Kaaba is the Kiswah. Until the incident of the Egyptian Guards of the Mahmal in 1925, the Kiswah was made in Egypt and sent to Mecca with the annual Egyptian caravan. Keystone Press Agency

Harry St John Philby, at the end of his journey across Arabia in 1917. Royal Geographical Society

St John Philby in 1960, shortly before his death in Beirut. Popperfoto

Sheikh Yusuf Yassin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of State, who was in charge of the political section of the Court. Camera press

Sheikh Abdullah Suleiman, Minister of Finance. Middle East institute, Washington D.C.

Sheikh Hafiz Wahba, important senior adviser and later Saudi Ambassador to London, shown here with Prince Faisal at the UN General Assembly in 1946. KeyStone Press Agency

Crown Prince Saud, second son of Ibn Saud. Press Agency

Prince Faisal, Viceroy of Hejaz and Foreign Secretary, and members of his staff in France. Popperfoto

Imam Ahmed, Crown Prince of the Yemen, known as ‘Abu Jinnah’. Sir Tom Hickinbotham

The Sultan’s palace at shibam in the Hadramaut. Popperfoto

Home of the Zaidi Imam Yahya in the Yemen in the 1930s. Royal Geographical Society

Major Frank Holmes, who, as representative of the Eastern and General Syndicate, was granted the Al-Hasa oil concession in 1923. British Petroleum

A dinner given in May 1939 to celebrate the first tankerload of oil. on Ibn Saud’s right, L. N. Hamilton, on his left, F. W. Ohliger, both of Aramco. Aramco World

His Majesty King Ibn Saud joining in a war-dance during celebrations at Riyadh. Popperfoto

Ibn Saud’s state visit to Egypt in 1945. The picture shows King Ibn Saud and King Farouq leaving Cairo station to drive through the streets of the city. Keystone Press Agency

King Ibn Saud and President Roosevelt during their meeting in Egypt in 1945. MEPhA

King Amanullah of Afghanistan, deposed in a coup in 1928. Later, his warm welcome at Mecca by Ibn Saud helped scotch the rumour that he had become a Roman Catholic. Popperfoto