Idrisi takes the Farasan Islands

On 31 January 1915, according to the British chronology of the war, the Arab forces of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Idrisi occupied the Farasan Islands in the Red Sea. This small archipelago lies about 40 kilometres off the coast of Asir, opposite the port of Jizan in the south-west of the Arabian Peninsula. The islands belonged to the Ottoman Empire, but according to British studies the Turks abandoned them soon after entering the war. The details of the occupation are little known, and there is nothing to suggest that any serious fighting took place.

The ruler of Asir

Muhammad ibn Ali al-Idrisi, born in 1876 in Sabya (PL), was a descendant of the Moroccan scholar and mystic Ahmad ibn Idris, founder of the Idrisiyya Sufi order. He studied in Cairo at al-Azhar University and also with the Senussi in the Libyan oasis of Kufra. On returning to his home region he gained great authority among the tribes of the lowland Tihamah, and in 1909 he led a rising against the Turks. His forces took a number of places on the coast and fought Turkish garrisons, and during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 he received money and arms from the Italians, whose warships bombarded Turkish ports on the Red Sea. This was how his state, the Idrisid Emirate of Asir, with its capital at Sabya, came into being. The Turks, however, held on to the mountain strongholds inland, above all Abha.

Idrisi also had a dangerous neighbour to the south. The Zaydi imam of Yemen, Yahya, had made peace with the Turks in 1911 and was thenceforth their ally, and at the same time Idrisi’s rival for influence among the tribes.

Islands of pearls

The Farasan Islands were famous for pearl fishing. At the turn of the century the Turks allowed the Germans to set up a coaling station for warships on one of them, which did not last long, and a few years before the war there was prospecting for oil there. For Idrisi the islands were a valuable acquisition: they gave him income from pearl fishing and a base for his vessels, and at the same time lay on the important shipping route from the Suez Canal to Aden and India.

An ally of the British

The occupation of Farasan coincided with the efforts of the British, who after the outbreak of war with Turkey were looking for allies among the Arab rulers. The British Resident in Aden made contact with Idrisi, who readily accepted the offer of co-operation. At the end of April 1915 the two sides concluded a treaty of friendship. Idrisi undertook to fight the Turks, and the British promised him arms, money and protection of his independence. Idrisi is regarded as the first Arab ruler who in this war openly sided with Britain against the Ottoman Empire.

In practice Idrisi proved a cautious ally, because he feared Imam Yahya more than the Turks. At the turn of 1916 and 1917 the British briefly hoisted their own flag on Farasan, mainly to forestall possible Italian claims, but in an agreement concluded in January 1917 they recognised the islands as part of Idrisi’s state. A dozen or so years later the archipelago, together with the whole of Asir, came under the rule of Saudi Arabia.