Asir

Asir had come under an Ottoman governor, displacing its local ruler, Aidh ibn Mar’i. After clashes between the Al Aidh family and the Ottomans, the family, led by Hasan ibn Aidh, reached an agreement with them: a member of the family would advise the governor and keep local authority, under Ottoman rule. The arrangement lasted until 1337 AH, when the Ottoman garrison left Asir.

Hasan ibn Aidh then took charge. He was loyal to Sharif Hussein, though never in direct conflict with Abdulaziz. Many of Asir’s tribes, however, had been loyal to Al Saud since the First Saudi State, and had heard of Abdulaziz’s victories.

In 1338 AH, when fighting broke out between Hasan and the tribes, Abdulaziz offered to mediate. Hasan, siding with the Sharif, refused, and relations turned hostile. That same year Abdulaziz sent a force that drove Hasan out of Abha at the Battle of Hajla. Whenever Al Aidh were cornered, they would retreat to their palace at Harmala and wait.

After negotiations Hasan agreed to visit Abdulaziz in Riyadh. He was received with gifts and returned to Asir. Abdulaziz appointed an emir there, but complaints against his deputies led him to replace them often.

The Sharif stirred up the tribes of Asir but sent forces too weak to decide matters. Abdulaziz sent serious campaigns, and was more generous to his adversaries than to his own followers. Encouraged by the unrest, Hasan’s side drove Abdulaziz’s emir out of Abha. Prince Faisal ibn Abdulaziz then came with a campaign and besieged Hasan in Harmala until he surrendered and went to Riyadh. By 1341 AH Asir was settled.

Asir had been a hard place for any power: its people were fierce and its mountains difficult. Its people had resisted the Ottomans until the Ottomans made a truce with them, and it had been loyal to the Saudi state since the days of Abdul-Wahhab Abu Nuqta in the First State. In one historian’s view, it accepted Abdulaziz because people longed for a watan, a homeland, at a time when no one could travel even a kilometre without protection, and a man could die without knowing why.

Relations between the people of the Hijaz and the Ottomans had been tense too. A joking tale has Hijazis greeting Ottoman soldiers with “Khan the Sultan”: the Turkish title Khan, which in Arabic means “betrayed”.