Battle of Sabilla and the Ikhwan Revolt
Ibn Saud destroyed his own shock troops at Sabilla in March 1929 in the last significant camel-mounted battle in history. The Ikhwan were Bedouin who had been settled in agricultural colonies from about 1912 and converted to a rigorous form of Wahhabi practice, and they were the instrument with which he had conquered the Nejd, the Hejaz and Mecca. They were also uncontrollable once the conquest stopped. Their doctrine required continuous war against unbelief, which included Shia villages, Sunni townsmen who smoked, and the tribes of Iraq, Transjordan and Kuwait — territories under British protection whose borders Ibn Saud had accepted by treaty. He forbade raiding across them and was told that a treaty with infidels did not bind believers. He also introduced telegraphs, motor cars and radio, which the Ikhwan denounced as works of the devil. The revolt began in 1927, and at Sabilla the king's forces — regular troops with machine guns, artillery and some vehicles — met the Ikhwan cavalry in the open and destroyed them in about half an hour. The leaders surrendered in 1930 to the British in Kuwait and were handed over and imprisoned. The settlement afterwards is the foundation of the Saudi state: a monarchy that would enforce religious orthodoxy internally, recognise international borders externally, and never again allow the clergy an independent armed force. The tension has been managed rather than resolved ever since. The kingdom was proclaimed as Saudi Arabia in 1932 and oil was found in commercial quantities in 1938. The National Guard, raised from the same tribal base as the Ikhwan, exists to this day as a counterweight to the regular army and reports separately to the throne.
- Year: 1929 CE
- Category: Political
