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Civil War, Foreign Intervention, and The Question of Political Legitimacy: a Nineteenth-Century Saʿūdī Qāḍī's Dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

M. J. Crawford
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Extract

The Sa⊂ūdī Civil War, which developed after the death of the Imām Faiṣal at al-Riyāḍ in A.H. 1282/A.D. 1865, and which was largely responsible for the debilitation and ultimate demise of the Second Sa⊂ūdī State, has received relatively little attention from either Sa⊂ūdī or Western historians. In neglecting this period, modern Sa⊂ūdī scholars may have been influenced by the consideration which led Wahhābī chroniclers of an earlier generation to provide only cursory treatment of the Civil War in their accounts of Najdī history; the decade between the Imām Faiṣal's death and the resolution of the conflict in 1293/1876, characterised as it was by persistent fraternal rivalry and displays unprincipled political opportunism, does not represent a particularly creditable episode in the history of the āl Sa⊂ūd.

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 227 - 248
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

NOTES

1 See esp. Philby, H. St. J., Sa⊂udi Arabia (London, 1955);Google Scholar Rentz, G., “Muḥammad ibn ⊂Abd al-Wahhâb (1703/04–1792) and the Beginnings of the Unitarian Empire in Arabia,” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1948.Google Scholar

2 Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1965).Google Scholar

3 Taimiyya, Ibn, al-Siyāsa al-Shar⊂iyya (Baghdad, n.d.), p. 165.Google Scholar

4 See Laoust, H., Essai sur les Doctrines Sociales et Politiques de Taḳī-d-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taimīya (Cairo, 1939), pp. 297–299;Google Scholar idem., Le Traité de Droit Public d'Ibn Taimīya (Beirut, 1948), p. xxxv.Google Scholar

5 Philby, , Sa⊂udi Arabia, pp. 218–226;Google Scholar Winder, , Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 229–263.Google Scholar

6 Bishr, Ibn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd fī Tarīkh Najd (Beirut, n.d.), p. 75.Google Scholar There appears to be no mention in the sources of the Imām ⊂Abd a1-⊂Azīz himself ever having been designated in advance as successor to his father, Muḥammad ibn Sa⊂ūd (see Rentz, , “Muḥammad ibn ⊂Abd al-Wahhâb,” p. 141 n. 2).Google Scholar

7 ⊂Abd, al-Raḥīm, al-Dawla al-Sa⊂ūdiyya al-Ûlā, 2d ed. (Cairo, 1976), pp. 231, 317.Google Scholar See also Philby, , Sa⊂udi Arabia, p. 170.Google Scholar

8 See generally Gibb, H. A. R., “Constitutional Organisation” in Khadduri, M. and Liebesny, H., eds., Law in the Middle East (Washington D.C., 1955), pp. 1–27;Google Scholar idem., “Some Considerations on the Sunni Theory of the Caliphate” in his Studies on the Civilisation of Islam (London, 1962), pp. 141–150.Google Scholar

9 The works most often discussed in this connection are those of Kelsen, Hans, esp. his General Theory of Law and State (New York, 1961)Google Scholar and Pure Theory of Law (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar and Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law (Oxford, 1961).Google Scholar For some critical writings, see Simpson, A. W. B., ed., Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, 2d ser. (Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar

10 A passage from al-Ghazzālī quoted by Gibb (“Constitutional Organisation,” p. 20) is in point here: “Which is the better part, that we should declare that the qāḍīs are divested of their functions, that all wilāyāt are invalid, that no marriages can be legally contracted, that all executive actions in all parts of the earth are null and void, and to allow that the whole creation is living in sin—or to recognise that the imāmate is held by a valid contract, and that all executive acts and jurisdictions are valid, given the circumstances as they are and the necessity of these times?”

11 Laoust, , La Traité, p. xxiii.Google Scholar

12 Laoust, , Essai sur … Ibn Taimīya, pp. 255, 312–313.Google Scholar

13 Taimiyya, Ibn, al-Siyāsa al-Shar⊂iyya, pp. 161–162;Google Scholar Laoust, , Essai sur … Ibn Taimiyya, pp. 301–302.Google Scholar

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15 Ibid., pp. 259–260.

16 Ibid., pp. 260, 375–376 (editor's note).

17 Palgrave, W. G., Central and Eastern Arabia (2 vols.; London, 1865), 1, 379.Google Scholar A picture of Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf is given by Palgrave, Ibid., II, 20–22. Pelly, L. observes in his Report on a Journey to Riyadh (Cambridge, 1978), p. 4, that at the time of his visit (A.D. 1865) Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Raḥmān was living in retirement.Google Scholar

18 Philby, , Sa⊂udi Arabia, p. 218.Google Scholar Palgrave, writing of A.D. 1862–63, states that ⊂Abd Allāh was heir apparent and active administrator of the kingdom (Central and Eastern Arabia, II, 36, 64–65, 73).Google Scholar

19 Pelly, , Report, p. 69.Google Scholar

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21 Kitāb al-īmān wa-⊃l-Radd ⊂alā Ahl al-Bida⊂, pp. 7–8,Google Scholar in Rashīd, Riṭā, ed., Majmū⊂at al-Rasā⊃il wa-⊃l-Masā⊃il al-Najdiyya (4 vols.; Cairo, 1346/1928), II, pt. I.Google Scholar

22 al-ālūsī, , Tarīkh Najd, 2d ed. (Cairo, 1347/1928–1929), p. 107.Google Scholar

23 So declared by the lmām Faiṣal to the inhabitants of al-Qaṣīm (Bishr, Ibn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 367).Google Scholar

24 Public risāla of the lmām Faiṣal quoted in Bishr, lbn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 349.Google Scholar

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26 Riḍā, , ed., Majmū⊂at al-Rasā⊃il, IV, p. 555.Google Scholar

27 Public risāla quoted in Bishr, Ibn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 266.Google Scholar

28 Ibn, Saḥmān, ed., al-Hadiyya al-Sunniyya wa-⊃l-Tuḥfa al-Wahhābiyya, 2d ed. (Cairo, 1344/1925–1926), p. 109.Google Scholar

29 Essai sur … Ibn Taimīya, p. 527.Google Scholar

30 Bishr, Ibn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 308.Google Scholar

31 See ibid., p. 308; Palgrave, , Central and Eastern Arabia, II, 74.Google Scholar

32 Ibn, ⊂īsa, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, pp. 173–174.Google Scholar See also Philby, , Sa⊂udi Arabia, pp. 210–212;Google Scholar Winder, , Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 170–172.Google Scholar

33 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, pp. 177–178.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., p. 178.

35 Risāla, xi, pp. 69–70,Google Scholar composed by Shaikh, ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf, in Riḍā, , ed., Majmū⊂at al-Rasā⊃il, Vol. III. This volume comprises 76 risālas written by Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf and collected by lbn Saḥmān, one of his pupils and an eminent ⊂ālim during the early decades of the third Sa⊂ūdī state. All subsequent references to numbered risālas relate to epistles by Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf contained in this collection.Google Scholar

36 Risāla, xxvi, p. 171.Google Scholar Parts of this risāla and of the one specifically referred to in the preceding note have been translated in Helms, C., The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia (London, 1981), pp. 104–108. But her translations of these two important risālas should be treated with great caution.Google Scholar

37 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, pp. 179–181.Google Scholar

38 Lorimer, J. G., Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf (2 vols.; Calcutta, 1915), 1, 1131–1132;Google Scholar Ḍārī, al Rashīd, Nubdha Tarīkhiyya ⊂an Najd (al-Riyāḍ, 1386/1966), p. 89.Google Scholar

39 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar

40 Risāla, xlvi, p. 274.Google Scholar

41 Risālas, xi, p. 70, xlvi, p. 274.Google Scholar

42 Philby, , Sa⊂udi Arabia, p. 221.Google Scholar

43 Risāla, xxviii, p. 180.Google Scholar

44 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar Helms points out that the number forty generally refers in Najd to an unknown quantity (The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia, p. 124, n. 63).Google Scholar

45 Risāla, xxviii, p. 179.Google Scholar

46 Ibn⊂īsā, , Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, pp. 181–182.Google Scholar

47 Risāla, xxviii, p. 179.Google Scholar

48 Risāla, xlvi, pp. 274–275.Google Scholar By way of justification for his actions, the Shaikh cites as a historical precedent the truce sought and obtained from Ibrāhīm Pasha of Egypt by the people of al-Dar⊂iyya, including members of the āl al-Shaikh and other ⊂ulamā⊃ during the last days of the first Sa⊂ūdī state (Risāla, xxviii, p. 180).Google Scholar

49 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar

50 Risāla, xlvi, p. 275.Google Scholar

51 Arabia of the Wahhabis (London, 1977), p. 73Google Scholar n. 2. See also al-Jāsir, , Madīnat al-Riyāḍ (al-Riyāḍ, 1386/1966), p. 110;Google Scholar Ḍārī, al-Rashīd, Nubdha, p. 50.Google Scholar

52 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar See also Riḍā, , ed., Majmū⊂at al-Rasā⊃il, I, 411.Google Scholar

53 Risāla, xxvi, pp. 170–171.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., p 172.

55 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar

56 Risālas, xxv, pp. 167–168, xxvi, pp. 172–173.Google Scholar

57 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar

58 Risāla, xxv, p. 168. This risāla dates from Sa⊂ūd's second period as imām. Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf adopted an identical position on each occasion.Google Scholar

59 See Ibn, Bisḥr, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 374.Google Scholar Palgrave encountered āAbd al-⊂Azīz and speaks unfavourably of him (Central and Eastern Arabia, 1, 275–277, 292).Google Scholar

60 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 181;Google Scholar Amīn, Sa⊂īd, Tarīkh al-Dawla al-Sa⊂ūdiyya (Beirut, 1964), I, 173.Google Scholar

61 Risāla, xi, p. 70.Google Scholar

62 Riāla, xxvi, p. 172.Google Scholar

63 Risāla, xlvi, p. 274.Google Scholar

64 Ibid.

65 Winder, , Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 237–238.Google Scholar

66 Kelly, J. B., Britain and the Persian Gulf 1795–1880 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 719–720.Google Scholar

67 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, pp. 182–183. For the Ottoman expedition in the context Anglo-Ottoman relations and the affairs of the Arabian Gulf generally, see Kelly, Britain and the Peisian Gulf, chap. 15.Google Scholar

68 Risāla, xlvi, p. 275.Google Scholar

69 Ibn⊂rsā, , Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawaādith, p. 177. ⊂Abd al-⊂Azīz himself died fighting for the lmām ⊂Abd Allāh against Muḥammad ibn Rashīd in 1301/1884Google Scholar (ibid., p. 192).

70 Bishr, Ibn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 261.Google Scholar

71 Risāla, xxiv, p. 161.Google Scholar

72 Risāla, ix, p. 61.Google Scholar

73 Risāla, iv, p. 38.Google Scholar

74 Ibid., p. 39.

75 Bishr, Ibn, ⊂Unwān al-Majd, p. 261;Google Scholar Ibn, ⊂īsā Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 192, n. 1.Google Scholar

76 Risāla, xxiv, pp. 160–165.Google Scholar See also Riḍā, , ed., Majmū⊂at al-Rasā⊃il, 1,412–413.Google Scholar

77 Risāla, x, p. 67.Google Scholar

78 Ibn Saḥmān, the ⊂ālim who collected Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf's risālas, observes at one point that the Shaikh is wrong in thinking that the basic requirement that the help be necessary relates to the dire need of the ruler in terms of his own power. What is in question is necessity from the point of view of religion (Risāla, xxiv, p. 165).Google Scholar

79 See Risālas, x, pp. 67–68, xxiv, pp. 163–165, xxvi, pp. 172–173, xlvi, pp. 275–276.Google Scholar

80 See Risāla, xxvi, pp. 171–173.Google Scholar

81 Risālas, ix, p. 63, xxvi, p. 174.Google Scholar

82 Risāla, xxviii, p. 180.Google Scholar

83 See Risālas, xlvii, pp. 277–278, xlviii, pp. 280–281.Google Scholar

84 Risāla, xxxix, p. 229.Google Scholar

85 Risālas, iv, p. 39, viii, pp. 57–58, xxvii, p. 177.Google Scholar

86 Risāla, xxviii, p. 180.Google Scholar

87 See Kelly, , Britain and the Persian Gulf, pp. 721, 727;Google Scholar Lorimer, , Gazetteer, I, 1132–1133;Google Scholar Winder, , Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 257–258. Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf's views on Sa⊂ūd's diplomatic manoeuvres are unrecorded but, in general, he seems to have regarded the British as being in league with the Ottomans.Google Scholar

88 The most elaborate discussions by Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laṭīf of the duty of hijra are contained in Risālas ii-ix, xxvii, xxix.

89 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 184.Google Scholar Shaikh ⊂Abd al-Laḍīf complained at this time of desertion by the badū (Risāla, xlviii, p. 281).Google Scholar

90 See Risālas, ii, p. 23, iii, p. 33, iv, p. 38, vii, p. 53.Google Scholar

91 For this period, see Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 183;Google Scholarx al-Jāsir, , Madīnat al-Riyāḍ, p. 109;Google Scholar Kelly, , Britain and the Persian Gulf, pp. 736–737.Google Scholar

92 See Risālas, xi, pp. 70–71, xxvi, p. 172.Google Scholar

93 Risāla, lxi, p. 318. The references in this risāla to ⊂Abd Allāh's return and to jihād support the conclusion that it was written during the period of ⊂Abd Allāh's second reign as imām.Google Scholar

94 For the history of Sa⊂ūd's negotiations with the Ottomans, see Lorimer, , Gazetteer, 1, 971, 1131;Google Scholar al-⊂Azzāwī, , Tarīkh al-⊂Irāq (Baghdad, 1353/1935–1376/1956), VIII, 15;Google Scholar Kelly, , Britain and the Persian Gulf, pp. 739–741.Google Scholar

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96 Risāla, xi, p. 71.Google Scholar

97 Risāla, xxv, pp. 167–168.Google Scholar

98 See Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, pp. 186–187.Google Scholar According to Kelly, ⊂Abd al-Raḥmān's original object was not so much to fall out with the Ottomans as to compel them to appoint him mutaṣarrif of al-Aḥsā⊃ (Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 762).Google Scholar

99 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 187.Google Scholar

100 Risāla, xi, pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

101 Risāla, xxv, p. 168.Google Scholar

102 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 188.Google Scholar

103 Risāla, xi, p. 72.Google Scholar Lorimer seems to have misread the situation because he states that after the death of Sa⊂ūd. ⊂Abd al-Raḥmān “was inclined to make terms with his half-brother ⊃Abdullah, but the Wahhābi priesthood, on account of the latter's connection with the Turks, would have none of him ‖” (Gazetteer, I, 1134).Google Scholar

104 Ibn, ⊂īsā, Tarīkh ba⊂ḍ al-Ḥawādith, p. 188.Google Scholar

105 Pelly, , Report, p. 4.Google Scholar

106 It is worth remembering in this context that the Imām Faiṣal had himself paid tribute to the Ottomans (see Winder, , Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 206–207).Google Scholar

107 Palgrave, , Central and Eastern Arabia, II, 74.Google Scholar

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109 Risāla, ii, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

110 Kelly, , Britain and the Persian Gulf, p. 717.Google Scholar

111 Pelly, , Report, p. 69.Google Scholar

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