Page 937 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

935

1935

Paid calls in the morning, called on Shaikh Abdulla, Abdu Ali and the other Shia Kadi. All of them full of
talk about the Shia petition which they all approve of. Had an interesting morning & heard various bits of
news about local politics. There is going to be a move to make the Shia Kadi sit together in court as the
Sunnis do, but I doubt if they can be made to do so. In afternoon we motored out to Sitrah taking Steele. M
went on to the camp & returned a call there & Steele & I went over the values again & looked at the tanker
with a view to the oil boat which is coming in on Friday or saturday. I had a parade at the Fort in the
morning, the Police have an easy time & don't need so many holidays. After dinner I went to see the Shaikh
Abdul Latif the leading Sunni kadi. Discussed the Shia petition & various other matters, he seems to approve
of it on the whole but talked a lot about shera control over women. He complained that morals were much
worse than they used to be because women complain to Government when "punished" by their men relations.
It is a difficult matter, the men consider it right to kill women relations who go wrong, this we cannot allow,
but its true that if the men have no authority to punish their women then there are more going s on. The
Kadi's idea is that the solution would be to refer all cases about women to the Shera court which would try