Second Saud-Sharif War 1924

Ibn Sa'ud now ruled central Arabia except for the Hejaz region along the Red Sea. This was the territory of Sharif Husayn of Mecca, who had become king of the Hejaz during the war and who declared himself caliph (head of the Muslim community) in 1924. Sharif Husayn's son 'Abd Allah had become ruler of Transjordan in 1921, and another son, Faysal, king of Iraq. Ibn Sa'ud, fearing encirclement by this rival dynasty, decided to invade the Hejaz. He was then at the height of his powers; his strong personality and extraordinary charm had won the devotion of all his subjects. A skillful politician, he worked closely with the religious leaders, who always supported him. Relying on the Ikhwan to eliminate his Arab rivals, he sent them to raid his neighbours, then cabled the British, whose imperial interests were involved, that the raid was against his orders. In 1924 the Ikhwan took Mecca, and the Hejaz was added to his dominions.

[Sharif Husayn of Mecca] sowed the seeds of future trouble by deliberately courting the enmity of Ibn Sa'ud. In March 1924 he proclaimed himself caliph, but war with Ibn Sa'ud was imminent, and the Wahhabiyah attack on at-Ta'if in September found him unprepared. On October 5 he abdicated. The British conveyed him to Cyprus, where he lived until 1930.

In 1916 Jiddah and its Turkish garrisons surrendered to British forces. It then formed part of the Kingdom of the Hejaz until 1925, when it was captured by Ibn Sa'ud. In the 1927 Treaty of Jiddah the British recognized Saudi sovereignty over the Hejaz and Najd regions. Jiddah eventually was incorporated into Saudi Arabia.

Ikhwan (Arabic: Brethren), in Arabia, members of a religious and military brotherhood that figured prominently in the unification of the Arabian Peninsula under Ibn Sa'ud (1912-30); in modern Saudi Arabia they constitute the National Guard.

Ibn Sa'ud began organizing the Ikhwan in 1912 with hopes of making them a reliable and stable source of an elite army corps. In order to break their traditional tribal allegiances and feuds, the Ikhwan were settled in colonies known as hijrahs. These settlements, established around desert oases to promote agricultural reclamation of the land, further forced the Bedouin to abandon their nomadic way of life. The hijrahs, whose populations ranged from 10 to 10,000, offered tribesmen living quarters, mosques, schools, agricultural equipment and instruction, and arms and ammunition. Most important, religious teachers were brought in to instruct the Bedouin in the fundamentalist precepts of Islam taught by the religious reformer Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in the 19th century. As a result the Ikhwan became archtraditionalists. By 1918 they were ready to enter Ibn Sa'ud's elite army...

In 1924, when Husayn was proclaimed caliph in Mecca, the Ikhwan labelled the act heretical and accused Husayn of obstructing their performance of the pilgrimage to Mecca. They then moved against Transjordan, Iraq, and the Hejaz simultaneously, besieged at-Ta'if outside Mecca, and massacred several hundred of its inhabitants. Mecca fell to the Ikhwan, and, with the subsequent surrenders (1925) of Jiddah and Medina, they won all of the Hejaz for Ibn Sa'ud.

In the matter of the Hijaz, Abd al Aziz was rewarded for his patience. By 1924 Hussein had grown no stronger militarily and had been weakened politically. When the Ottoman sultan, who had held the title of caliph, was deposed at the end of World War I, the Sharif took the title for himself. He had hoped that the new honor would gain him greater Muslim support, but the opposite happened. Many Muslims were offended that Hussein should handle Muslim tradition in such cavalier fashion and began to object strongly to his rule. To make matters worse for Hussein, the British were no longer willing to prop him up after the war. Abd al Aziz's efforts to control the Ikhwan in Transjordan as well as his accommodation of British interests in the gulf had proved to them he could act responsibly.

The Al Saud conquest of the Hijaz had been possible since the battle at Turabah in 1919. Abd al Aziz had been waiting for the right moment and in 1924, he found it. The British did not encourage him to move into Mecca and Medina, but they also gave no indication that they would oppose him. So the Wahhabi armies took over the area with little opposition.

He entered Mecca and laid siege to Jiddah and Medina, which were occupied by the end of 1924. These successes led to the capitulation of the Hashimite kingdom of the Hijaz, leaving the Al Saud in control of the entire peninsula, except for Yemen in the southwest and the British gulf protectorates.

In 1923 the British government invited all the rulers concerned in these sporadic hostilities to attend a conference at Kuwait and if possible to agree on a settlement of their differences. The British also made it clear that the subsidies theretofore paid to Ibn Sa'ud and Sharif Husayn would be terminated.

The conference ended in complete disagreement, and in September 1924 the Wahhabis attacked the Hejaz. They captured At-Ta'if after a brief struggle but with an accompanying massacre of male civilians, and then they occupied Mecca without opposition. Ibn Sa'ud then laid siege to Jiddah and Medina, while Sharif Husayn abdicated his throne in favour of his son 'Ali. By the end of 1925 both Medina and Jiddah had surrendered to the Sa'udis. The 'Aqabah-Ma 'an district adjacent to the northern Hejaz was occupied by Transjordan to prevent its falling into Wahhabi hands. On Jan. 8, 1926, Ibn Sa'ud, who had adopted the title of sultan of Najd in 1921, was proclaimed king of the Hejaz in the Great Mosque of Mecca. In 1927 he also changed his title of sultan to king of Najd and its dependencies, the two parts of his dual kingdom being administered for the time being as separate units. In the same year the Treaty of Jiddah, negotiated by him with Sir Gilbert Clayton, placed his relations with Great Britain on a permanent footing as the British fully acknowledged Sa'udi independence. The results of Muslim conferences sponsored by the Sa'udis in the Hejaz were to legitimize their presence as rulers.

References

Husayn ibn Ali; Ibn Saud; Ikhwan; Jiddah; Saudi Arabia; Saudi Arabia - A Country Study.

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