Jassim the Leader: Founder of Qatar

by Mohamed Althani

  The letter was passed from official to official until it reached the Ministry of the Interior in Istanbul a month later. An official response came in December.

  The cruel treatment of Shaikh Jassim is due to the Shaikh’s loyalty and affection for the Ottoman State and to the unrewarded excellent services he has rendered as Qayamaqam of Qatar ever since the capture of Najd. Shaikh Jassim is being deterred from serving the Ottoman State by harsh treatments in order that he may pledge allegiance to the British. This is unbearable. Jassim is an Ottoman citizen and a government official. All disputes should be settled by Ottoman courts of justice. Even in grievances related to cases of default, the courts dispensing justice should be the aforementioned ones. Under the circumstances, resort every now and then to cruelties and extortions from British officials instead of referring the cases to the appropriate authorities is not compatible, nor is it reconciled with international laws and treaties.

  Jassim had won his political point, though it had taken almost six years for the Ottoman administration to act.

  The Wali of Basra, Mehmed Hafiz Pasha, recommended the measures needed to protect Ottoman interest in the peninsula, and prepared to visit Jassim personally. Before leaving Iraq, however, he requested two things from his superiors. First, he urged the Porte to protest about British meddling in Qatar’s judicial affairs to their ambassador in Istanbul. Secondly, on 12 January 1888, he proposed to the Grand Vizier that Jassim should be awarded a new honour, which might give a lift to proceedings as he attempted to improve relations. Mehmed suggested the title of Kapucibasi (Head of the Palace Gatekeepers) for Jassim’s faithful services and loyalty to the Ottoman Empire. And so it was that on 29 February 1888, Sultan Abd ul-Hamid II issued a decree confirming the award that was so prestigious among the Ottoman aristocracy. Mehmed arrived in Bida at the beginning of March to confer the new honour.

  It is amazing the variety of titles that have been offered by kings, emperors and sultans over the centuries. Very often honours had started off life meaningfully, but that all began to change in the seventeenth century. Louis XIV of France, for example, loved turkeys and kept them in a special enclosure near the canal at Versailles, bestowing an important noble with the dubious title ‘Captain of the Royal Turkeys’. Kapucibasis had at least begun life with a serious job. They controlled access to the Ottoman Sultan and thus the one or two who existed in the fifteenth century actually had a position of authority. The Kapucibasi kept his power right up until the rule of Mehmed II (died 1481), who appointed only one. After him, however, title inflation began in earnest and the position came to mean very little. By Jassim’s time, there were literally hundreds of ceremonial palace gatekeepers. A pragmatic, self-confident tribal leader, Jassim was not impressed. He didn’t need titles. He needed the Ottomans to show some backbone in the face of British interference.

  Recovering from the obvious disappointment, the Wali was astounded at the scale of local Ottoman incompetence and sent many recommendations to the Grand Vizier on his return to Basra a week later. Mehmed proposed the permanent deployment of an Ottoman vessel off the coast of Qatar and upgrading the garrison at the old fortress of Bida to accommodate one infantry battalion of 250 men. The official added he was of the firm opinion that British confiscation of Jassim’s property was indeed part of a campaign of repeated attempts at breaking Jassim’s loyalty to the state. Finally, Mehmed touched on the status of Zubara, suggesting it be settled again and generate revenue for the Ottoman treasury. He was confident Jassim could induce the Naim, among others, to settle there.

  The Mutasarrif of Najd, Akif Pasha, made his own recommendations for change that might support Mehmed’s plans. To date, there were only two Ottoman institutions in Doha, the courthouse and a small garrison of gendarmes. Akif proposed a deputy Qayamaqam, a secretary and assistant secretary in addition to an administrative council. Since almost all residents of Qatar were poor, the members of the council from the local population were to be paid a monthly salary and so take the council’s duties seriously. A harbourmaster for Doha, who would collect fees from native boats and monitor foreign ships and passengers, was named (but never assumed his post). Akif furthermore wished the state to erect buildings in town and levy taxes on pearl dealers and other merchants. Finally, to complete Qatar’s defence against British intrigue, the Ottoman army would deploy at Zubara and Udaid.

  None of these proposals would be acceptable to Jassim, who only wanted the Turks to help him extend Qatar’s borders and turn up in Bida when it mattered: when the British attempted to force their will on him.

  Personal loss and revenge

  Inside Qatar, Jassim’s situation had improved dramatically; his tribal authority was restored and the Ottomans seemed at last prepared to deal with the British. But during the last few years of the 1880s, he had been engaged in a low-intensity conflict in the south-east. The point at issue was the allegiance of a colony of Banu Yas tribesmen who had left Abu Dhabi and settled in Khor al-Udaid. This was their third term of exile – they had come to Udaid for brief periods in 1835 and 1849 – and on each occasion it had caused friction between the rulers of their original and adopted homes. Sheikh Zayid complained that their presence in Udaid threatened the prosperity of his people, while Sheikh Jassim welcomed it as a convenient means of extending his authority over the area. The poor old Banu Yas claimed to be independent of everyone, but kept a Trucial and Ottoman flag ready at all times, just to be safe. They further complicated the situation by partaking in occasional acts of piracy on both their neighbours. The long and the short of it was that every other year had seen Qatari or Abu Dhabi tribesmen raid each other. In many ways the conflict endured because Zayid was a true Bedouin who had fought some fairly fierce opposition in his youth, even killing Sheikh Khalid bin Sultan of Sharjah in single combat. He owned his own pearling fleet and was protective of his lands. In any other context, they might well have been friends, but as neighbours there could only be trouble.

  A raid by Abu Dhabi confederates in 1888 had particularly grievous consequences. Some two hundred and fifty tribesmen had attacked Bida and killed the few dozen men they had found there, including Jassim’s most beloved son, Ali. Jassim came to describe the incident in a letter a few weeks later.

  We never thought that they would dare to this extent, nay even a great power would not have dared to act thus against a town under the protection of the High Government. We were all away from town, and my son Ali and some other inhabitants only were in the town. They attacked them about the time of Fajr prayer [just before dawn] on the eighteenth day of Ramadan and all were taken unawares. They set up an uproar, and whoever came out of his house in response to the call was slain in front of the door of his house, and God so decreed that Ali my son was among those who were slain, and an equal number or perhaps more, wounded … by the time I had arrived, the whole thing was over.

  Sheikh Zayid attempted to negotiate a settlement, but was told only the deliverance of his dearest son for immediate death would suffice. In May 1888, Sheikh Jassim applied for Ottoman support to inflict a grievous retribution, but he clearly didn’t expect to receive it, writing: ‘the Government is neglectful … I do not know whether this neglect emanates from herself or that the high officials do not report these matters to the Government in the correct manner’. But their support hardly mattered any more. Jassim, and his three sons Khalifa, Abdullah and Abd ul-Rahman, were determined to fight and called on the many friendships and alliances Jassim had built up over 40 years in power. Many powerful leaders responded to the call, including Abd ul-Rahman bin Faisal and Ibn Sabhan of the Rashid, the two most powerful tribes of the Najd. Their combined forces reached as far as Liwa in Dhafra in Abu Dhabi by January 1889, brandishing their Martini-Henri rifles.

  I would like to write, as some historians have done, that Jassim merely destroyed date plantations. The truth is, however, that, blinded by grief, Jassim inflicted a vicious revenge. The British Resident in Bahrain described an account tha
t had reached him a few weeks later of the attack on the nearby fort of Dhafra.

  The fort is only an enclosure, made of bricks, and about six to seven feet high, and it contained two citadels without parapets and loop-holes; they were all crying out loudly, and begging Jassim to grant them safety of their lives, but they heard them not. They then told them to evacuate the fort under Jassim’s protection. Some of them came out of the fort and they fired a volley on them and charged them. About twelve men of Jassim’s party were slain, and some men were wounded. They then carried away slaves and other booty.

  Other villages suffered a similar fate. Jassim himself put the number killed at al-Jowa at 520. The desert may have soaked up more blood than we can possibly imagine over the millennia, but this was a bad day by any standards.

  Jassim now returned to Bida, expecting a counter-attack within weeks. He prepared the town’s defences and pressed men into a force of about eight hundred, expecting Zayid capable of raising between four and five thousand. Though outnumbered, Jassim hoped the disciplined Turkish troops might make up for lack of numbers. Typically, the Ottoman officers were determined to play as small a role as possible and refused to operate under any circumstances more than four hours’ march from town. But the attack never really came, just a series of skirmishes and counter-raids by forces of both sides. This continued until the Al Thani penetrated into Sila, east of Khor al-Udaid, by boat in August 1889. His men had to be recalled; however, when the Resident, Ross, warned Jassim that Sila belonged to Abu Dhabi and was under British protection, Jassim consented to withdrawal, but maintained that Sila was within Qatar and ‘therefore within my territory’.

  Returning to Bida, he learnt that the Turks, far from looking to back him up over Sila, were intent only on implementing their proposed administrative reforms. In June 1889, a memorandum was sent to the newly appointed Wali of Basra, Hedayet Pasha, who was asked for permission to appoint ‘to Zubara, west of Qatar, an able administrator conversant with the region … under whose command there shall be some forty or fifty cavalrymen and infantry gendarmes’. Hedayet perceived only the economic benefits of the project and happily agreed, but failed to appreciate that garrisoning Zubara would bring him into direct conflict with Bahrain and Britain. Hedayet wrote back:

  By our Sultan’s grace again, two villages will be formed in no time in Zubara and Udaid thanks to which commercial affairs and the pearl trade will thrive both at the said places and in Qatar. Thus, it will be possible in the future to realise an annual revenue of two thousand and five hundred liras derived from the ihtisap tax [market tax] like that which exists in Qatar and Ujair.

  The Wali of Basra believed the changes were intended to bolster the Ottoman treasury, reviving the pearl trade from Zubara to Khor al-Udaid. He seemed only vaguely aware that this reform might appear to others as an attempt to strengthen Ottoman positions along the Gulf coast and prevent encroachment by foreign powers such as Britain. Jassim was pleased to discover that the Ottoman Council of Ministers approved the expansion plans in December 1889, authorising the immediate settlement of the two towns at the extreme ends of Qatar. But Jassim was never going to permit the rest of the proposed reforms. Any attempt to impose them would be prevented, even by force if necessary.

  9

  THE OTTOMAN DEMISE

  THERE ARE TWO TYPES of pirate in this world. First, you have the beard-lighting vandal whose idea of living is to hit people with anything handy, grab all valuables in sight and bury them for some unfathomable reason. He is the Hollywood pirate who enjoys bellowing the hearty songs which start ‘Yo, ho, ho’ and reading – probably with a torch under his bedsheets – as many John Masefield poems as he can stomach. But back in the real world, piracy had never been a genuine lifestyle choice. It is little wonder over the centuries that a few buccaneers were rescued from execution by supportive crowds. Working all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, only to remain in continual debt, was enough incentive to make any seaman think twice. The words of one young British sailor, William Scott, echo into this new age of Somali piracy. Just before William was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he shouted: ‘What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live.’ The thousands accused of the crime in the Arabian Gulf of the nineteenth century were very much of the second category.

  Jassim never frowned on the smuggling that was rife around Qatar’s shores for a very good reason – he knew the desperate poverty that drove it. Occasionally he benefited from such ‘pirates’, particularly when arms were involved. One American historian suggests Jassim even organised the running of guns himself. Whatever the truth, the Ottomans certainly gave him a lot of freedom to control his own affairs. On the few occasions they successfully managed to intercept a shipment, Jassim warned the Mutasarrif based in Hasa that his people would inevitably turn to foreign smugglers if the weapons were not returned for their own defence. As it happens, the weapons weren’t returned, but the Ottomans understood the limits of Turkish power. They were restricted to Doha and as much sea as their one patrol boat could cover. No Qatari felt the Turks’ supreme authority in their day-to-day lives and nothing could be accomplished by a few officials and their modest garrison without the agreement of Jassim. And this was the way Jassim wanted things to stay.

  The Sublime Porte had a very different point of view. It was keen to promote the administrative reforms that would necessarily enhance Ottoman power, and planned to garrison more troops outside of Bida. Everyone from the Wali of Baghdad, down through the Mutasarrif of Najd to the mudir at Bida was all too aware they had never extracted significant tax revenue. To change this meant challenging Jassim’s authority. He had let them into Qatar, but he hadn’t given them power. Jassim wanted Ottoman muscle in the face of British meddling and help in defending the state’s borders from Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, but not a genuine occupation with all its colonial baggage. He conceived of the Ottomans as he had the Second Saudi State, whereby he would pay zakah and call on Faisal bin Turki’s support when threatened, but not let Faisal’s men settle for good. Jassim liked the freedom he had come to enjoy over the last twenty years and would have rejoiced on hearing that the British did not want more Ottoman troops in Qatar either.

  On 9 December 1890, the British ambassador in Istanbul had made the following query to the Ottoman government: ‘Her Majesty’s Embassy has the honour to request the Sublime Porte be good enough to inform it as to the truth of a report which has reached Her Majesty’s Government to the effect that the Imperial Ottoman Government intend to establish posts at Zubara and [Khor al-] Udaid on the Qatar Coast.’ The Porte ignored the request for information, but the Foreign Office was not about to drop the issue. Three months later, London wrote again, insisting it could not acquiesce in the occupation of either Zubara or Khor al-Udaid. Ambassador White in Istanbul laid out his government’s position to Said Pasha, the Ottoman foreign minister, a few weeks later. His weak argument ran that since Abu Dhabi claimed Khor al-Udaid and had signed a maritime peace treaty almost forty years earlier, the town also enjoyed British protection. (White failed to mention, however, that Qatar had not been a signatory to this treaty.) On 4 July, Istanbul responded, stating both towns were part of the Wilayet of Basra and had long been administered by the Qayamaqam of Qatar. They also, correctly, pointed out that the Anglo-Abu Dhabi Maritime Agreement of 1853 had no bearing on the situation whatsoever. The argument went back and forth for months, but the Ottoman response was always the same: the Porte had a legal right to establish administrative posts in both towns, and that the Wali of Baghdad would thank the political agent in the Gulf not to contact Arabian chiefs on any matter without prior permission.

  While the two empires squabbled, Bahrain accused Jassim of encouraging his son-in-law, Nasir bin Mubarak, to prepare a force at Zubara for dethroning Sheikh Isa. This was highly implausible, but whether true or not, the Ottomans had an additional reason to garrison Zubara. The Porte argued it was as keen as London that the mariti
me peace not be disturbed. By mid-August, the Ottoman Council of Ministers decided to implement the reform programme drawn up three years earlier and sent a battalion of soldiers to the region under the command of the Wali of Basra, Mehmed Hafiz Pasha. Imposing an Ottoman administration that could collect tax and control Qatari villages, however, was not something Jassim was ever going to accept. He once again tendered his resignation as Qayamaqam, stopped paying tax to the Porte and waited for events to unfold.

  The Battle of Wajba

  Mehmed had arrived in Najd by October at the head of the 11th Marksmen Battalion, comprised of around two hundred soldiers. He mustered a further 100 mounted gendarmes and 40 Ukail cavalrymen before the battalion set out for Bida in February the following year. He had even brought a small cannon to complete the image of military strength with which he hoped to intimidate Jassim. Mehmed was going to demand payment of taxes owed and force Jassim to accept the proposed Ottoman reforms that would weaken his grip over Qatar. But Jassim had no intention of negotiating on Ottoman terms, and camped at Wajba, about twelve miles west of Bida, ignoring repeated demands to present himself. The ex-Qayamaqam had determined Mehmed would have to come to him if he wished to talk. Jassim’s repeated refusals to show up at Bida also gave him time to assemble thousands of men from the Al Thani, the Manasir and the Banu Hajir. Some four hundred men from other Qatari tribes also joined the sheikh. Armed with their Martini-Henrys, these men posed a well-armed, highly mobile force well acquainted with the terrain and perfectly adapted to their environment.

  The sandy depression that is Wajba was a rare oasis in the Qatari interior. In Jassim’s time, there were three masonry wells providing good water, and a walled garden. Until quite recently, the place had changed very little – it was just a large fort and a ruined summer house full of raised tiled baths surrounded by mosaics. The brick wells have survived the ravages of time, though they are now disused. On the whole, it seems a thoroughly unremarkable place, yet it was from here, on 26 March 1893, that Jassim’s men would set out to fight the Turks.