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‘Araby the Blest* 229

obtaining recognition from the British as independent ruler of Najd and Hasa.
The second was that of gaining the mastery over his old enemies, the house of
Rashid, and of bringing Hail and Jabal Shammar under his sway. Luckily for
him, Ibn Rashid was to remain loyal to the Turks throughout the war, so that
Abdul Aziz could argue plausibly to the British that by underwriting a cam­
paign by him against Ibn Rashid they would be striking indirectly at the Turks
themselves. It took some time for the bargain to be struck. The British wanted
Abdul Aziz - or Ibn Saud, as we might henceforth call him, after the style by
which he, like his predecessors, was known to his people, and was to become
known to the rest of the world - to take a more active role in the field against the
Turks than simply raiding into Shammar territory. On his side, Ibn Saud
refused to disavow his status as an Ottoman dependant until he had a formal
guarantee of the security and future independence of his possessions. After a
leisurely negotiation conducted at intervals over twelve months an Anglo-
Saudi treaty was signed on 26 December 1915. It recognized Ibn Saud as the
independent ruler of Najd, Hasa and their dependencies, obliged the British
government to assist him in the event of aggression upon his territories, and
bound him to refrain from entering into relations with foreign powers or
alienating any portion of his territories. He was also required to safeguard the
pilgrim routes to the holy places and to abstain from aggression upon Kuwait,
Bahrain, Qatar and Trucial Oman.
Arms and money were supplied to Ibn Saud by the British throughout the
war, to no readily measurable advantage. The truth was that Ibn Saud was not
strong enough to make any appreciable contribution to the defeat of the Turks
and their Arab allies. His own attitude to the Turks, moreover, was highly
equivocal. While his dislike of them was genuine, he did not actually carry it to
the point of open conflict. Thus supplies from Jabal Shammar and Kuwait
continued to reach the Turkish garrison at Madina by way of the caravan routes
through the Qasim right up to the closing days of the war. Against the Rashidi
allies of the Turks Ibn Saud was similarly ineffective. A few skirmishes apart,
he did not take the field against them in any force until the summer of 1918, and
the results of his campaign were inconclusive at best.
Ibn Saud’s equivocations were due in no small degree to his hatred of the
sharif of Mecca, Husain ibn Ali, the head of the Hashimite family, de facto ruler
of the Hijaz, guardian of the holy places, putative leader of the Arab Revolt and
self-styled King of the Arabs. The animosity between the house of Hashim and
the Al Saud extended back to the late eighteenth century and the early years of
the first Wahhabi expansion. It arose as much from territorial and economic
rivalry as it did from religious friction, for what was at issue between the two
rival dynasties was dominance over the Qasim and the other districts inter­
mediate to Najd and the Hijaz, and hence over the valuable merchant traffic
and pilgrim caravans which passed through them. Husain ibn Ali viewed the
resurgence of Wahhabi power under Ibn Saud in the first and second decades