Page 184 - Arabian Studies (II)

176 Arabian Studies II
town had collected subscriptions in aid of the Turkish Government
and were remitting them by instalments. The total amount was Rs.
43,000. Although the British kept up a strict surveillance over the
Trucial Coast, secret correspondence was exchanged between
important figures in Sharjah and Basrah. A letter dated 1913, in the
possession of the al-Midfa‘ family, shows that Talib al-Naqlb,
president of a committee set up in Basrah to raise funds for the
Ottoman Navy, corresponded with the ‘Mayor’ of Sharjah, ‘Abdullah
Hasan al-Midfa‘, asking him to collect money and send it to Basrah.
Ibn Manx’s scholarly teachings and liberal religious ideas had
perhaps their greatest impact on the Trucial Coast through his school
in Doha, where many young students from the Coast went to study.
Ibn Mani‘ enriched contemporary religious thinking through the
broad scope of his studies, and helped his students towards an
understanding and appreciation of the ideas of Muhammad ‘Abduh
and Rashid Rida. These Islamic reformers discussed the social
question of the decline of the Muslims and growth of the West, as
well as advocating the purification of the Islamic faith on which the
Unitarian (Muwahljidun) movement focused its teachings. They
stressed the importance of modern science to the prosperity and
liberation of Islamic society. The students of Ibn Mani‘ occupied
leading positions during the 1930s as judges, teachers and business­
men, and some of them produced outstanding poems.
After the First World War, the political map of the Middle East
changed, and new states based on Arab national identity, emerged.
Revolutions against the French and British Mandates in Syria and
Iraq aroused strong interest and sympathy on the Trucial Coast.
During this period, two important men visited the Gulf — Amin
al-Raihanl, the Arab writer, and Tha‘alibl, the Tunisian nationalist
leader. Tha‘alibl, who in 1923 met Shaikh Mani‘ b. Rashid, head of
the future Dubai reform movement, in Bombay, was invited by him
to visit Dubai during his tour of the Gulf. This visit was an occasion
for nationalist and literary celebrations in Dubai, held by members of
the ruling family and the wealthy merchants. Ahmad b. Sulayyim, a
young student at this time, composed a poem of welcome for
Tha'alibT, which v/as read at the house of Shaikh Mani‘. He still
remembers the impact of Tha‘alib7’s remark, ‘My son, do not forget
that you are a young Arab poet, and your poems should in the future
embrace the wider Arab struggle for liberation and progress.’
'I he Palestinian cause, which was a main factor in uniting Arab
feelings in the Middle Hast, also occupied the political attention of
the Coast, particularly of educated young people. In response to the