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The Āl Rashīd

1252–1340/1836–1921

Northern Najd

The Rashīd family were chiefs of the ‘Abda clan of the Shammar tribal confederation in the Jabal Shammar region of northern Arabia, with their centre at Ḥā‘il. ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Alī achieved power in Ḥā‘il with the support of Fayṣal b. Turkī of the Su‘ūdi rulers of Riyāḍ (see above, no. 55), displacing his kinsmen of the Ā1 Ibn ‘Alī, and he was, like the Su‘ūdīs, an adherent of Wahhābism, but in its religious rather than political aspect. The Rashīdī shaykhdom reached a peak of prosperity in the mid-nineteenth century, with a prosperous caravan trade based on Ḥā‘il, and Muḥammad b. ‘Abdallāh extended his authority northwestwards through the Wādī Sirḥān and as far as Palmyra in Syria, and south-eastwards to Qaṣim in the heart of Najd. He temporarily captured Riyāḍ from the Su‘ūdīs and expelled them altogether from Najd to Kuwait in 1309/1891; the port of Kuwait was itself coveted by the Rashīdīs for the import of arms into their landlocked principality.

The whole history of the Ā1 Rashīd was marked by violence and fratricidal strife (the great majority of the amīrs died either by assassination or in battle), and after Muḥammad‘s death their power declined because of savage internal quarrels plus pressure from the renascent power of the Su‘ūdīs under ‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Su‘ūd. The general backing of the Ottomans, including the despatch of regular Turkish troops to support them in Najd, did not save them, and Ibn Su‘ūd was finally able to capture Ḥā‘il in 1340/1921. The Rashīdī territories were incorporated into what now became the united principality of Najd and, soon afterwards, the Su‘ūdī kingdom of Ḥijāz and Najd (see above, no. 55), and the members of the Ā1 Rashīd were exiled to Riyāḍ.

None of the amīrs of the Ā1 Rashīd issued coins.

Zambaur, 125–6.

EI² ‘Ḥāyū‘ (J. Mandaville); ‘Rashīd, ĀF (Elizabeth M. Sirriyyeh).

Naval Intelligence Division, Geographical Handbooks Series, Western Arabia and the Red Sea, 269ff., with a genealogical table at p. 286.

H. St J. Philby, Saudi Arabia, London 1955.

Madawi Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis: The Rashidi Tribal Dynasty, London 1991, with a genealogical table and list of the amīrs at pp. 55–6.