The Sun. Saturday, April 14, 1928. A DESERT CROMWELL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 329, 14 April 1928, Page 8

The Sun. Saturday, April 14, 1928. A DESERT CROMWELL

SENSATIONAL reports were published recently regarding the sinister designs o£ lbn Sand. Despite liis having received large sums of money from Great Britain, he was said to he arming some of the truculent tribes of Arabia for attack against British outposts within his sphere of influence. That, it was whispered, was to be hut a prelude to rallying the whole of Islam under his banner and declaring a Holy War against Christian and Jew. Sensational as were these reports, there were many prepared to believe them; for lbn Saud is fanatically religious, and leader of the Wahabis, a tribe which considers it has a mission to restore the pristine faith of Mohammed. “A Moslem Puritan,” and “The Cromwell of the Desert,” are two of the apt titles bestowed upon him by Western writers. In soundly informed circles, however, lbn Saud’s power to promote a Holy War is very much doubted on account of the disunity which exists in the Moslem world. But the Wahabis doubtless hope fox' the rise of a gx'eat Moslem State which will overthrow the Western civilisation that has gradually encroached on “the preserves of the Prophet,” and to unite Moslems from Central Asia to Morocco. “Were this possible,” says a contemporary writer, “all the woi'k of the European powers in giving force to Western ideals in this territory would he undone. And the repercussions elsewhere would he tremendous. Persia, a country which has the possibility of a successful future, might he sadly disorganised, and India would experience a more profound unrest than ever.” Ibn Saud has long been recognised in London as one of the major threats to British imperial peace. In fact, for some years Britain paid him an annual tribute of £60,000 to keep him quiet. The discontinuance of this payment may he partly responsible for his policy. This astute Arabian raider has already given the British Foreign Office much to think about. It was Jie who gathered the Wahabi tribes, not long ago, and smashed the British-nominated ruler, Hussein, King of the Hedjaz, driving him from Arabia into exile, and completely disrupting British policy. When England named two of Hussein’s sons to the thrones of Irak and Transjordania, Ibn Saud was, as an American writer expresses it, “only kept from taking the field against them by bribes.” By “bribes,” apparently, is meant the British subsidy to lbn Saud—the readiest diplomatic means of assisting an Arab ruler to finance his State without having to resort to raiding. Irak, the centre of enormous British interests—and concerning which we almost had a war with Turkey—is where Ibn Saud could strike his hardest blow at British prestige. Irak is north of the domain of Ibn Saud: north of Irak is Moslem Turkey; east is Persia; north-west is Syria, where France has had her hands full; and a short march westward is the north-east eoi'ner of Egypt. Then, just across Trans jordania, from the Kingdom of Hedjaz, is Palestine, provided by the generosity of the British as a restored home for the Jews—whom the Arabians hate on general principles. Could Ibn Saud succeed in stirring the Moslems of Arabia to fighting pitch it would be like the dropping of a match in a powder magazine! But the saving clause is Moslem disunity. In the first place, the growth of the Arab nationalist spirit was directed against Turkish domination, and the Arabs ejected the Turks from Arabia. The King of the Hedjaz, therefore, could scarcely expect much sympathy from the Turks, and the Turkish Government which only last week completed the separation process of Religion and State has been feverishly assimilating the Western ideas of Mustapha Kemal and is unlikely to turn anything but a deaf ear to any fanatical proposal for a Holy War. Arabian tribes subjected by Ibn Sand probably hate him and his Wahabis as heartily as they hate “the cursed infidel.” And those which he has not yet subdued fear him and are jealous of his power. From the Moslem viewpoint, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud is most important as head of the Sultanate of Nejd. Victor in the Ax-abian war over the'Sheridans, he entered Mecca in 1926, and was proclaimed rxxler undei* the title of “King of Hedjaz, Sultan of Nejd and its dependencies.” It was only in the previous Oetobei* that he had concluded with Sir Gilbert Clayton, British Plenipotentiary, whom he now agrees to meet and treat with again, an agreement concerning the Irak boundary. The result of their second meeting must have a great effect on the peace of Moslem Asia alid on British interests: but Sir Gilbert Clayton will have no easy task with Ibn Saud, who is as wily in polities as he is fearless in war.