Page 70 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

somewhat different to the town Arabs, being received with marked
respect by a Khalifah Shaikh. When I asked the Shaikh who the visitor
was he would say: ‘That is Shaikh Fulan, of the Jalahama tribe. His
ancestors helped us to conquer Bahrain.’
Shaikh Sulman succeeded, in 1943, to an established, stable Govern­
ment with various departments started by Bahrainis with a tew British
experts, doctors, nurses and engineers. The revenue was sufficient to pro­
vide social services, such as schools and hospitals, and wartime difficulties
over food supplies were beginning to ease. Shaikh Sulman himself had
taken an active part in building up the administration; lie had been a judge
in the court, he had been the President ot the Manama Municipal Council
and of the Minors’ Department.
I started this department in 1938 and its inception and progress arc
fairly typical of the way in which other Government departments, in the
early days, came into being. Its object was to protect the interests of
widows, minors and orphans, whose property was so often either frittered
away or embezzled by the so-called ‘guardians’ who were appointed by
will or nominated by the Kadhis, to whom the guardians used to contri­
bute substantial sums for ‘religious purposes’. The department was the
Left to right: King Abdul Aziz al Saud, C.D.B., Shaikh Hamed,
nearest approach which could be achieved in an Arab state to the office
Abdul Rahman Kozaibi. Inspecting Guard of Honour
of the Public Trustee. My opportunity came after a cause celebre in the
Bahrain court. A rich Shia merchant had died some years before, leaving King Saud and the Saudi princes at Manama Palace
a large estate, but when his heirs, who were minors at the time of his Photo by K._ P. Narayart
death, came of age and claimed their inheritance, it was found that
scarcely anything remained of the property which had belonged to their
father. The case caused a great deal of public indignation, which I did not
hesitate to encourage, and people began to recall many other instances
in which the property of minors in the charge of guardians had
mysteriously melted away.
When it was known that the Government was going to investigate
the whole question of guardianships and minors’ property the Kadhis
became most indignant at what they regarded as the uncalled-for ‘inter­
ference’ of the Government in a matter which they considered should be
dealt with entirely by themselves, and there was an outcry from a number
of fat, unctuous merchants who were doing very well out of the property
of minors which had been entrusted to their care. I called a meeting of
the leading Sunnis and Shias, excluding those whom I knew to be
guardians, and told them that we were thinking of setting up a depart­
ment to deal with minors’ estates. The Sunnis were doubtful but the
Shias were wholeheartedly in favour of action by the Government. In
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