ABSTRACT
After the fall of Ha’il and the subjection of the Shammar tribe came the turn of the Ruwalla whose tribal area stretches far northward into the Syrian desert. After Husain’s successful revolt against the Turks in 1916 Ibn Sa‘ud had sent him prudent words of congratulation. Husain in his dealings with Ibn Sa‘ud had from the start treated him as one of the Arab chiefs who would become his subordinate when, after the victory of the Allies, their promises to him would be fulfilled and he be made ruler of a great independent Arabian kingdom. In the days of Turkish rule the pilgrims had been robbed by a corrupt administration and by the guild of pilgrim sheikhs, but their caravans were protected from beduin attacks by Turkish troops stationed in forts built on mountain tops near the pilgrim roads and by towers of defence along the roads.
