إنك لا تهدي من أحببت ولكن الله يهدي من يشاء وهو أعلم بالمهتدين.

سورة القصص (56)

Lo! Thou (O Mohammed) guidest not whom thou lovest, but Allah guideth whom He will. And He is best aware of those who walk aright.

(Koran, The Story 56)

No book about King Ibn Saud, particularly a book written in English, would be complete without a mention of Harry St John Philby, a strange and eccentric Englishman who became a prominent explorer, map-maker and Arabist, and was probably the only Westerner apart from Captain Shakespear to strike up a true friendship with the King. Philby was born in Ceylon in 1885. In 1908 he entered the Indian Civil Service in the Punjab, where he soon displayed a talent for languages. From 1915 to 1917 he was employed as Political Officer on the staff of Sir Percy Cox in Iraq. Then in 1917 Philby was given the opportunity of heading a British political mission to Ibn Saud. This he accepted with alacrity, first because it gave him an opportunity to get away from his colleagues – with whom he was not always on the friendliest of terms – and secondly because it allowed him to satisfy his ambition to prove himself as an explorer.

Philby’s mission has been mentioned previously. Its purpose was to persuade Ibn Saud, by gifts of money and materials, to attack Ibn Rashid and thus prevent Ibn Rashid from interfering with the British campaign against the Turks in Palestine. Philby travelled by camel from Kuwait to Riyadh, accompanied by some of the servants of the Amir of Kuwait. He brought with him approximately one hundred thousand rupees. Having struck a bargain with the King, Philby should have returned at once to Iraq to inform his superiors and gain their approval of the terms of the agreement. Characteristically, he ruined everything he had achieved by making a quite unnecessary and unauthorized journey to see the Sherif of Mecca. The Sherif was glad of an opportunity to obstruct relations between Ibn Saud and the British. By politely stopping Philby from returning to Riyadh, the Sherif was able to prevent the agreement from going any further, thus preventing Ibn Saud from obtaining the arms he needed to attack Ha’il. This did not worry Philby in the least, as his mission to Ibn Saud had enabled him to fulfil his personal ambition: to undertake the forty-four-day crossing of Arabia from Uqair to Jeddah. This journey formed the basis of his first book, The Heart of Arabia, published in 1922. Philby’s time in Arabia also convinced him that the rising star in the area was Ibn Saud, and not King Hussein of Mecca.

Philby’s next visit to Arabia was in 1924. During the last stages of the conflict between the Saudis and the Hashemite dynasty, which culminated in the siege of Jeddah, Philby managed to persuade the British political bureau in Cairo to send him to Jeddah as an intermediary between the warring forces. In fact, he achieved nothing for the British except a certain amount of embarrassment, as the British government had not authorized the journey and had been trying maintain a strict neutrality between Ibn Saud and King Ali of Hejaz. However, although Philby’s mission served little purpose, he was again able to further his own personal ambitions. His visit gave him the opportunity to have several meetings with Ibn Saud, whom he had already come to admire to a point which developed gradually into a sort of hero-worship.

Soon afterwards, Philby decided to give up his work with the British government and settle in Arabia. In 1925 he resigned from the Indian Civil Service and the following year he set up business in Jeddah with, among other things, an agency to sell Ford cars. Philby’s real desires were to continue his exploration of Arabia and to become an associate of the King. However, he obviously had to do something in the meantime to earn his living and, in the manner of any good Arab, he was ready to turn his hand to trading of any sort. Some of his ventures were successful, but generally speaking he was not a very good businessman, and certainly the Ford concession never prospered. At one stage in 1926 he was confident that he could sell a hundred Ford cars to the Saudi government at a price of around £300 per car. In fact, the deal never materialized and Philby was left with a large number of Fords on his hands which he had to dispose of locally as best he could.

I first met Philby in Jeddah in 1926. He had heard that there was an English-speaking Arabian translator in the Court and asked to see me. Our first meeting was not a great success. Philby’s questions to me were mostly aimed at ascertaining whether or not I did indeed have a good command of English. For my part, I was fresh from India and was so anti-British at the time that I can only describe myself as suffering from extreme Anglophobia. I lost no time in telling Philby how much I dislike the British and how strongly I supported the Indian nationalist movement against them. Not surprisingly, we did not part friends, although this was no doubt just as much my fault as his. Philby did in fact ask me if I wanted anything, and I replied that I would appreciate receiving any English books which he could provide. His response was to write a letter to me through the Chief of the Court, stating that he was regrettably unable to supply any of these items. Although I saw Philby regularly throughout the following nine years, I spoke to him only occasionally and I doubt if I had more than a dozen lengthy conversations with him in all that time. In this respect I probably did better than most other members of the Court, for Philby was a very reserved and taciturn man and tended to avoid company whenever he could.

In 1927, when the King and the Court were again in Hejaz for the annual pilgrimage, it became clear that Philby was finding that his status as a Christian was making it very difficult for him to submerge himself as fully as he would have liked in the activities of the country. In particular, he was of course quite unable to visit the cities of Mecca and Medina, and the other Holy Places. It was also difficult for him to travel, and during the pilgrimage he was only able to see the King in Jeddah. I was present when he had a discussion with the King on the subject. The King suggested to Philby that if he were to become a Moslem he would be welcome to accompany the King on his journeys, including the pilgrimage to Mecca. This was obviously a most attractive proposition, but Philby nevertheless showed some reluctance, saying that although he himself might be willing, he would have to consult his wife. Later he informed the King that, although he had been ready to consider becoming an Islamic convert, he was unable to do so because his wife was not at all happy about the idea. The King suggested that he might compensate Mrs Philby for releasing her husband by paying her the sum of £40,000. Philby politely replied that he did not think that his wife would be prepared to sell him for that amount, although I do not know if he ever put the matter to the test! There is no doubt that the King meant the offer seriously, which shows that His Majesty already placed considerable value on Philby’s advice and services.

Eventually, in 1930, when His Majesty again made the pilgrimage to Hejaz, it was found that the Light of Islam had finally dawned on Philby. He was now not only ready but anxious to be accepted into the Islamic brotherhood. With the King’s blessing he declared himself a Moslem, taking, at His Majesty’s suggestion, the name of Abdullah Philby. He was generally known afterwards as Sheikh Abdullah Philby, although the term ‘Sheikh’ was simply a mark of mild respect and was not any sort of title or rank. His Majesty arranged for an ulema to attend on Philby at the Islamic Sharia’h court. Here Philby formally declared his credence in the five cardinal doctrines of Islam, namely: to believe in Allah as the one God and Mohammed as his Prophet; to pray five times a day; to fast during the month of Ramadan; to give to the poor an annual tax of two and a half per cent on the value of all one’s property; and to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one’s lifetime, and more frequently if possible. After Philby had made this declaration before a judge declared him to be accepted in the Moslem religion and he was given a certificate to this effect. Then followed the most severe test of Philby’s sincerity, namely, the rite of circumcision, which needless to say is a most painful operation for an adult. Afterwards he was taken to the mosque for his first prayer to God to thank him for his guidance. From there he went to Mecca to pray in the Great Mosque.

Following his initiation into the faith, Philby was taken immediately to Ta’if, a pleasant town in the cool mountain region of Western Arabia near Mecca. There he rested and recovered from the effects of the circumcision. He also received two months’ instruction in the fundamentals of the Islamic faith. The King himself appointed the ulema who was to teach Philby the doctrines of Islam. The man to whom he gave this task was none other than Mohammed Ibn Ibrahim Ash-Sheikh, who was the foremost ulema in the kingdom and direct descendant of Abdul Wahhab himself. Philby naturally took this as a great honour and the King was happy that he should do so. However, His Majesty, with his usual prudence, was concerned that if a former Christian was to become his adviser and accompany him to the Holy Places, there must be no doubt in anybody’s mind that his conversion was complete and his instruction in Islamic doctrine as thorough as could be arranged. At the end of his period of tuition, Philby had to take an examination to satisfy the ulema that his conversion and indoctrination were complete. I do not know how he fared in this, but with his considerable powers of application and concentration I do not doubt that he passed with flying colours.

There has always been some doubt as to how genuine Philby’s conversion really was. For my own part, I do not think that he had any particularly strong religious convictions. Nevertheless, I believe that he had a passionate desire to be closer to the King and the Arabian people and had decided that he was not prepared to let the matter of religion stand in his way. Philby’s own explanation of his decision was that it was a logical choice. My friend Mohammed Dughaither, the telegraph operator at the Court, once asked him outright why he had become a Moslem. Philby replied that he had studied and read books about all the major religions of the world (which was probably true) and Islam stood out as being the only creed which made sense to him. Certainly one could not complain about Philby’s outward show of faith, for his observation of the rules and customs of Islam was meticulous and his knowledge of religious literature most thorough.

Following his conversion to Islam, Philby took to wearing full Arab dress. He also took advantage of Moslem law by marrying a second wife, an Arabian girl who was to bear him two fine sons. He became a regular visitor to the King, both in Riyadh and Mecca, and the King naturally kept his promise to take Philby with him on many of his travels. Philby’s stocky, bearded figure became a familiar sight to the Court staff and he was in regular attendance at the King’s general and special majlis. He was accepted by the members of the Court as a friend and adviser to His Majesty, although he was never in any sense the King’s servant for he came and went as he pleased. Philby probably understood the working of the King’s mind better than most men. Although he would never volunteer advice or information unless asked, once his advice had been requested and given, he was one of the few men who was prepared to argue strongly in support of his opinions even if His Majesty disagreed with him. The King undoubtedly found this a refreshing change from the attitude of most of his other advisers and Philby’s fierce independence impressed him. I should like to emphasize here that I do not know exactly what might have taken place between the King and Philby during their private conversations. However, working at the Court, I naturally came to hear reports of these meetings from other people who were present.

There can be no question that Philby’s assistance was of great value to Ibn Saud. For example, in about 1929 Philby recommended to the King that wireless communications should be established between the different parts of the kingdom. There was nothing new in this idea. Indeed, before I joined His Majesty, I had myself published an article in the Basra Times in which I suggested a similar arrangement to the one proposed by Philby. However, Philby had the ability and the necessary contacts to put the scheme into practice.

Once His Majesty had accepted the idea in principle, Philby organized a contract with the Marconi Company at Chelmsford, England, for the supply of the necessary wireless sets. He also recommended that some Saudis should be sent to England to be trained in the use and maintenance of the equipment. He made the necessary arrangements for the training-course and four youths from the post office at Mecca were selected for training. Philby noted that none of them spoke English and suggested that an interpreter go with them. My brother Abdul Aziz Almana was chosen, and eventually he and three of the operators went to England. The names of the operators were Ibrahim Silsila, Ibrahim Zarea and Hassan Hassoun. After a course of nine or ten months they returned with the equipment together with an Egyptian engineer who was qualified to install it. Six months later the network was put into operation. It proved such a great success that His Majesty soon purchased more sets, including a portable one which could accompany him on his travels.

Philby was the only Westerner upon whom the King could rely regularly for advice about conditions and attitudes in the outside world. The fact that Philby had managed to manoeuvre himself into this unique position led to a good deal of speculation in the Court about the true nature of his motives. Many people, including myself, feared that he was an agent of the British government and that his aim was to persuade the King to adopt policies which would favour the British. Work of this kind certainly runs in the family. One of Philby’s sons by his English wife was Kim Philby, the famous double agent who now lives in Moscow. I recently acquired a copy of Kim Philby’s book, My Silent War,*[1]  and I read it with keen interest in order to see whether I could detect and resemblance between St John’s personality and that of his son. I found Kim to be a true replica of his father. I am sure that St John Philby would have made an ideal double agent if he had ever had the opportunity or inclination, but in fact the question never arose. In the first place, Ibn Saud was far too great a judge of men to have been deceived by a political agent. Secondly, I am sure in retrospect that Philby was motivated entirely by his respect and esteem for the King. His Majesty inspired loyalty and devotion in all around him and Philby, like the rest of us, had fallen under his spell. Nevertheless, although nobody questions Philby’s devotion and loyalty to the King, it is clear that he was also working in the ultimate interests of his own country.

An interesting sidelight is thrown on Philby’s motives when one considers his later involvement in the question of Palestine. I remember Philby having asked His Majesty in open Court in Mecca what he thought about the Jewish question. The King replied that, although the Jews had been their enemies since the time of the time of the Prophet Mohammed, and would continue to be so, he was confident that Great Britain would hold the balance of fair play between the two sides and would not do anything which could harm the interests of the Arabs. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Philby (who was by this time in England) became more directly involved in the Palestine issue. He had come to the conclusion that there was a simple solution to the problem: Palestine should be given to the Jews, and the Arabs resettled elsewhere. The expenses of resettlement were to be borne by the Jews, who were to pay £20 million as a contribution towards these expenses. In return, the Western powers were to give a free hand to Ibn Saud in the southern states of the Arabian peninsula.

In October 1939 Philby met Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization and of the Jewish Agency, and mentioned the plan to him. Weizmann was about to leave for America, where he hoped to raise the proposed plan with President Roosevelt. Philby, meanwhile, was to try to obtain the agreement of Ibn Saud. Weizmann’s mission achieved no concrete results, and in 1942 he made another attempt. In March of that year, just before he left for the States, he met Churchill, who referred to the plan. Churchill made it clear that the success of the plan depended upon its acceptance by Ibn Saud, as the leading Arab head of state, but that Britain and the United Stated were prepared to help Weizmann get the best terms he could. Again, Weizmann’s mission came to nothing. Meanwhile, Philby had had no more success in Arabia. He was able to gain a private audience with the King in January 1940, but although Philby was very anxious to interest His Majesty in the plan and gain his consent to its implementation, the King was not prepared to discuss any scheme which was so utterly contrary to the interests of the Arabs. He advised Philby not to mention the subject again, and thus the mission was a complete failure.

One could speculate endlessly on the true reasons behind Philby’s backing of such a project. (He later advised the Arabs to accept the partition of Palestine, although this was almost certainly because he feared a worse fate for them if they refused.) However, during my time at the Court, Philby’s loyalty to the King and concern for his interests was demonstrated on many occasions. One example occurred when Philby was supervising a shipment of arms to Riyadh for His Majesty’s army. Just as the caravan was about to leave, news reached him that a small tribe on the proposed route had risen in revolt. He immediately stopped the shipment until he had satisfied himself personally that the tribe had been driven off the road which the caravan would take. Another of Philby’s virtues was that he never sought to gain any material advantage from his association with the King. His Majesty once said that there were only two men who had never asked him for anything; one was Abdul Rahman Subai, the King’s agent at Shaqra in Najd, and the other was Philby.

I think there is a danger of overestimating the influence which Philby had over the King. His Majesty was always ready to listen to advice from anybody competent to give it. Philby was often the only source of information and advice about the Western world, so it is not surprising that the King found his assistance extremely helpful. But it is important to realize, first, that Philby never had any real power. His posItion was simply that of an adviser and friend, never a decision-maker; all the decisions were taken by His Majesty. On one occasion, while Dame Freya Stark was in Iraq, Philby approached the King and asked him if he would invite her to Arabia. The King replied, ‘If she comes she will be welcome, but I will not invite her.’ Naturally, Dame Freya did not make the trip. Secondly, Philby’s influence was limited purely to foreign affairs. His Majesty never sought his advice on internal problems and, indeed, hardly ever discussed such matters with him.

Yet another of the reasons why I doubt that Philby would ever have wished to act as a British agent is that he seldom gave the impression of being a supporter of his own country. He was often most critical of England, particularly when the Conservative Party was in power. During the Second World War, his criticism of British policy was so vitriolic that the King became angry and ordered him away from the Court for a while. Philby had at one time considered entering British politics himself. In 1939 he offered himself as Labour candidate at Epping but was rejected. In about 1945 he moved over to the short-lived Commonwealth Party, but soon afterwards he abandoned his interest in home politics. Once I asked him if he belonged to any British political party and I seem to remember him mentioning Mosley.

On an earlier occasion in about 1930, after there had been an election in England, I met Philby in the Court at Mecca and asked him what he thought of the new British cabinet. ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘they are useless.’ I asked him why he despised his own government and he said, ‘Because they are not fit to govern England.’ During this conversation he went on to tell me that there were two schools of thought in England regarding the Arab countries. One was that of Allenby and Lawrence. The other – to which Philby subscribed – was that of Hogarth.*[2] Philby explained that the Allenby school favoured the Hashemite dynasty because they were thought to be more cosmopolitan and sophisticated.

Hogarth’s school, on the other hand, favoured the Saudi dynasty, feeling that history showed the Saudis to be better fitted to rule the Arabs.

This was about the longest conversation I ever had with Philby. He must have been in a good mood that day, as generally speaking he was not an easy man to get to know and was always aloof and reserved. Indeed, his reticence in the midst of our hospitable Arabian society verged on the ridiculous. Most people kept him at arm’s length and tolerated him only out of respect for the King. Philby had a most effective way of stopping a conversation before it started. For instance, on one occasion when we were returning on camel-back from Arafat after completing the hajj, I found myself riding beside him. I asked out of courtesy, ‘How are you?’, to which he answered, ‘Oh, I am always well,’ and rode away from me. On another occasion, my brother had sent me a book on astronomy called The Mysterious Universe. I showed Philby the book and asked him what he thought of it. He took one look at it and handed it back to me, saying, ‘Don’t bother with it. You certainly won’t understand it.’

Philby was by nature an uncommunicative man. Even if he had tried, I do not think that he would have been capable of joining in the conversation of the bedouin in the same easy manner that Englishmen like Glubb Pash achieved so effortlessly. I believe that there were two further reasons why he was reluctant to become involved in discussions with the Court staff. One was that he suffered from slight speech impediment which he could obviously conceal best by speaking as little as possible. The other was that his conversational Arabic was in fact only moderate. For a man who liked to think of himself as a better Arab than the Arabs, it would have been embarrassing to have engaged regularly in conversations in which his grasp of the language would be shown to be less than perfect. However, he could be very intolerant of me if I seemed to him to be displaying an ignorance of English idiom. One day, shortly after his conversation to Islam, he strutted into the Court office at Mecca and came straight up to my desk, saying ‘What’s the news?’ I replied, ‘What news do you want?’ and explained that I had news from all over the world on my desk. ‘Oh,’ said Philby, ‘I just said “What’s the news?” – it’s a common English saying.’ I was a little confused and asked him again which country he was interested in. ‘Oh you don’t know English,’ he said and went off in a huff. After this incident he tended to avoid me, for which never very sorry.

Philby regularly wrote articles and stories about Arabia intended for publication in the West. One of the magazines he wrote for was called The Near East and India. As far as I know, Philby was never asked to submit his articles to the Court before sending them off. Nevertheless, he chose to do so quite voluntarily and a number of them appeared on my desk from time to time. Presumably I was intended to censor them, although I never had explicit instructions to this effect. There was never anything in the articles which I would have wished to remove. There was nothing of particular interest or significance in them for us; they were just dry reporting of some event, or the comings and goings of the King and his Court from place to place. Only on rare occasions did Philby have anything substantial to report. The articles were all written in his characteristically dry style and all contained factual and favourable comments about the King and his country. Perhaps by presenting his writings to the Court, Philby was hoping to impress His Majesty with his loyalty. If so, the effort was wasted as His Majesty never asked me to translate any of the articles for him.

Philby’s dearest ambition was to be known as a great explorer and he would disappear for long periods on various expeditions, sometimes turning up in the most unlikely places. I remember one occasion in about 1929, during the Ikhwan revolt, when I was with the King’s caravan as it returned from Riyadh after a successful foray against some rebel tribes in the Eastern Region. All of a sudden, the unexpected noise of an engine was heard and Philby appeared in a Ford car and a cloud of dust. He had been commissioned by the Ford Motor Company to drive the car from the Red Sea in the west to the Arabian Gulf in the east as a publicity stunt to demonstrate the car’s reliability over rough, uncharted tracs. He had heard that the King was present in the area and had made a detour in order to meet him. Philby took the opportunity of joining our group and he drove with the King into the large oasis town of Hufuf where he stayed for a few days.

Philby was very anxious to be the first Western explorer to cross the Rub‘ Al-Khali from Hufuf in the east to the Arabian Sea in the south. After he had researched the project in some detail, he finally raised the matter with the King. It was essential for Philby to obtain the King’s assistance as His Majesty would be able to provide him with camels for the journey and, even more important, some of his own men to act as an escort. Once it became known among the bedouin in the Empty Quarter that the expedition was accompanied by the King’s men, Philby would be relatively safe from attack. If he had gone without such an escort his chances of survival would have been slim indeed. His Majesty told Philby that he had objection to the expedition provided the Governor of the Eastern Province, Amir Abdullah Ibn Jelawi, also agreed to the project. Unfortunately for Philby, the Amir refused to give his permission, saying that a tribe in the region was in revolt and was likely to molest Philby’s expedition and not allow it to pass safely. The Amir recommended the postponement of the expedition until the trouble had been settled.

Philby had little choice but to accept the situation and he again accompanied the King and his Court on the annual pilgrimage to Hejaz. On our arrival at Mecca we were greeted by the news that Bertram Thomas had crossed the Empty Quarter from Salalah, a coastal town in Oman on the Arabian Sea, to Qatar in the Arabian Gulf, and had travelled from there to Bahrain. Bertram Thomas had not obtained the King’s blessing for this venture, as he had no connection with the King whatsoever. However, he had the assistance of the sultan of Oman, to whom he was a financial adviser, and this may have been one reason why his expedition was successful. Thomas had also taken the precaution of including in his expedition one member of each of the tribe he was likely to encounter on his way, thus taking advantage of the bedouin custom that a tribe would not attack a caravan if a member of that tribe was accompanying it to guarantee its safety.

I was with Philby when he first heard of Thomas’s achievement and it was obvious that he was bitterly disappointed at the news. However, he was not a man given to displays of emotion and he bore the set-back manfully. He immediately wrote a telegram to Thomas, who was by now back in England receiving a hero’s welcome. Philby asked me to send the telegram; it congratulated Thomas on his great achievement and winning the ‘race against time’ with Philby himself. Philby paid Thomas the compliment of quoting to him an Arabian proverb which says, ‘He is not mistaken who gives the bow to its master,’ meaning that Thomas had well deserved the opportunity given him to attempt the crossing.

Philby immediately put in hand his own preparations to cross the Rub‘ Al-Khali the following year. Thomas had crossed from south to north; Philby would therefore cross it in the opposite direction. He was given the King’s blessing and the following winter, at the time of the religious fast in the month of Ramadan, he was ready to set off. He started from north, in the vicinity of Hufuf, with about twenty-five followers and some Najdi servants who had been handpicked by him in Riyadh. In one of our few lengthy conversation, Philby later told me about the expedition. He said it had taken him about the whole month of Ramadan. As a traveler, Philby was not obliged to observe the religious fast. Nevertheless, he chose to do so and ate and drank nothing between sunrise and sunset. This was confirmed to me by his personal servants and was no mean achievement for a foreigner in the desert. Knowing Philby, I suspect that the hardships of fast were mitigated by the pleasure of being able to show his followers that he was a better Arab than they were. Philby told me that he drank no water at all during the expedition, only camel’s milk, tea without sugar and Arab coffee. This, too, was not strictly necessary as there were tiny springs in the desert which were used by the bedouin. The tribesmen kept these springs secret by placing slabs of stone over them and covering the stones with sand as camouflage. The location of some of these springs was known to Philby’s men and expedition was never seriously short of water. Philby at least had the advantage of a slightly more varied diet than was usual in the desert, as he had taken with him a plentiful supply of biscuits and canned food.

Philby travelled deep into the south until he reached the remains of the ancient town of Wabbra, which had also been passed by Thomas when travelling in the opposite direction. Philby noted two extinct volcanoes there, and also examined a block of iron lying in the sand which was well known to the bedouin and was reputed to have been as large as a camel. In fact, it was only about twenty-four inches long by twelve wide, and was probably a small meteorite. The story of the camel-sized ingot was refuted by Thomas and Philby but both men verified the legend of the singing sands which is also mentioned in the Koran. From Wabbra, Philby did not continue his journey south to the shores of the Arabian Sea and safety. Instead, he struck south-west to the outskirts of As-Saffa and then went north to a point adjacent to Najran. He next returned south-east to the point from where he had started near Wabbra, having then travelled in an almost perfect triangle in the middle of the Rub‘ Al-Khali. Such an erratic route was typical of the behavior of this unusual and willful man. During the time that Philby was in the middle triangle of the Empty Quarter, he searched for the remains of the ancient cities which were reputed to have existed in the region. He reported that in this area he found no trace of animal or plant life whatsoever. Philby finally ended his journey in Najran province and then travelled to Hejaz via Ta’if, expecting to find the King there. However, His Majesty had not yet arrived, so Philby immediately set off in the direction of Najd, finally meeting the King half-way.

During his travels in the Rub‘ Al-Khali Philby carefully collected, bottled and preserved examples of plant and insect life; he also collected geological specimens. This was his usual practice during all his expeditions and he took justifiable pride in being able to present large and varied collections of specimens to museums in England and to the Royal Geographical Society in London. Probably the most lasting contribution which Philby made to the development of Arabia was his map-making. On all his travels he took the opportunity of making detailed maps. These proved most reliable and form the basis of many present-days maps of the country. Oil prospectors found Philby’s assistance invaluable. When I was working for Aramco after leaving the King’s service, Philby was a frequent visitor and used to give lectures to the company staff on the geography and culture of Saudi Arabia.

While Philby was undoubtedly a great cartographer, one aspect of his mapping activities revealed his very limited sense of humour. He was most  anxious to show on his maps the correct Arab name of every geographical feature. It did not take him long to find out that almost every recognizable lump or dimple in the landscape, however small, had a name given to it by the local bedouin. In consequence, whenever be was on a mapping expedition he would be asking his bedouin guides incessantly for the name of everything he saw. Not surprisingly, towards the end of a long day the bedouin would become more than a little bored and irritated with this constant barrage of questions, and would often try to enliven the proceedings by inventing names of their own. Philby never seemed to realize that his leg was being pulled. Indeed, he commented in one of his books, ‘The vagaries of Arabian nomenclature in the mouths of different guides are the bane of the Arabian explorer.’ Although he invented names were frequently bawdy, and often positively obscene, he faithfully wrote them all down and had them printed on his maps. The embarrassing positions in which this sometimes put future users of the maps can easily be imagined. I remember that the King was once given a copy of Philby’s map of the Dahna, which His Majesty personally knew very well. The map showed Arab names for all the local features, but as the names were written in English script the King asked me to read them out to him. I did so, and found that one of the ridges of the Dahna was shown as ‘the ridge of the buttocks’. (This was one of the milder examples of bedouin wit appearing on the map.) I hesitated when I came to this name, but the King ordered me to read it out and so I was obliged to do so. His Majesty then became very angry with me and I had to point out that I was only reading what had been written. The King immediately realized what had happened and burst out laughing.

In the chapter I have not sought to disguise the fact that Philby was not a man whom I personally liked. I was not alone in this for, as I have already implied, his reserved and abrupt manner earned him few friends amongst the Arabs. However, I shared with everyone who met him a great respect for his obvious courage and ability. As a historian and geographer he had the unique advantage of the patronage of the King, and he was the only Arabist at the time who could truly claim to have made all his observations at first hand. During his lifetime he was well known in his own country. This is well illustrated by the fact that on his death in 1960 he merited a two-column obituary in The Times. Although he was in fact buried in Lebanon where he died, it was his last wish that he should be buried in Riyadh in an unmarked grave in the manner of true Moslem.

[1] *MacGibbon & Kee, 1968.

[2] *Commander D. G. Hogarth of the Arab Bureau in Cairo.