Page 369 - Records of Bahrain (3) (ii)_Neat

Reforms and unrest, 1923 785

10

his offico to hear what people had: to say about it, but-found on our way, that tho-
Khombotwcon my liouso and’his office, in which Ins Persian coolies live 4as closed"
and bolted. IIo had tho door opened and asked what tho troublo was and tli&y
told ua that tho row hajl bogun again. On emerging from the Khan wo found
a crowd of somo 30 of 40 Arabs, about. 30 per cont. of whom wero armed
with latliis, and tlirco dr four with rifles, shouting around QoBaibi’a offleo. Yusuf
Kanoo went to seo what was afoot, and was told that the Persians wero all armed,
and had closed their shops and wore mobilized in tho Khans of Abun Nabi and.
Abul Qusiin and tho Najdis wero mobilizing to defend thomsclvcs. Abdulla
Qosaibi was in his office and Yusuf and I went to see him and get him to quiet
down tho crowd of Najdis. Ho was howover absolutely hopeless as ho had no.
control over himself and was fuming and raging like a mad man, and in fact be­
haved in just the way to set things ablaze. Just a3 we were talking to him ono
man got up on a bench and began to ‘ IIawa3 * and said he was off to raise tho
Najdis of Muharraq. I got hold of him and told Qosaibi to put him in Ins offleo
and keep him there as lie was a public danger and might easily start a fresh row.
While Yusuf and Qosaibi had/argument about what was to be done, I and ono or
two others helping me, collected lathis from the crowd and threw them away
in tho back of the. Khan. Yusuf Kanoo and I then went down to tho bazaar to
see if it was really true that the Persian shops were closed and found that it was
not so ; wo therefore came back and told the Najdis this and tried to persuado
them to go and open their shops and disperse. As we wero doing this a crowd
of Najdis armed with lathis and swords come from the direction of the Mcspc:a
house, and we sent Qosaibi off to meet and disperse them. This ho managed to do.
We then got Qosaibi into Yusuf Kanoo's oflicc and tried to bring him to reason,
but he was full of bluster and quite unable to think rationally. Shortly afterwards
Simile Sclman camo along and lie and Qosaibi at once got more or less at logg»r-
heads. Shaik Sclman obviously realizing that the situation was serious wanted
to get something done to settle things down. All that Qosaibi.could talk about
however was the events of the previous day, the iniquities of the Persian Police,
who had, he declared, mo^ed down the Arabs with their rifles, while at the 6amo
time lie was full of the most absurd threats regarding what Bin Saud would do
when ho heard that one of his favourite slaves had been shot. Things were
obviously not progressing so I suggested to Yusuf that he should advise Shaik
Sclman to go to the Customs House and send officially for Qosaibi and Mohamed
Shcrif and Abdun Nabi and try to work out between them some means of keeping
order for the rest of ltamadhan at any rate. Qosaibi had rcpoatedly laid claim
that 13 Najdis are missing and claims them as casualties; he insisted too that
nearly all their casualties arc from gun-shot and that none of the Persian casual­
ties arc. I do not think that his claim is at all probable unless-casualties took
place in some other part of the bazaar. * I do not see who could have removed the-
corpses or the wounded, as we had tho greatest difficulty in getting tho wounded
and dead men shifted.
As Shaik Sclman reached the Customs house the Political Agent arrived and '
by then the crowd had mostly dispersed and everything seemed quiet again and *
I went home.
About noon I heard a lot of * Hawasing * from the direction of Muharraq and
saw four or five boats full of men coming towards Manameh. They drew in to the i I
land near tho Agency and the men got out of the boat iuto the water, put up flags
and again began to ■ Ilawas ’. Through field glasses I saw a crowd of Arabs go
to tho shore to meet them and after some time during which the ‘ Hawas ’ conti­
nued and a few shots were fired, the Muharraq men ^ot into their boats and went
back. I understood afterwards that this was a Najd contingent from Muharraq
coming to take revonge for thoso who had boon killed tho day boforo and there is
no doubt that had they got into Manameh they would have caused serious liavoo
and loss of lifo as they wero really hoavily armed wJth rifles. K&-
Wm 12th May 1923. (Sd.) J. B. MAoKp.
Mr. T. D. Bora, Dirootqr of Customs, states as follows: —
I saw tho fray between tho Najdis and Persians noar the Customs. I doii’t
know how it started, but lots of armed Najdis camo and beat and injured any