One of the main architects behind the current borders in Middle Eastern countries is a man called Sir Percy Zachariah Cox. He was a Major-General in the British Indian Army, he had a bunch of other titles, he was skinny and probably very bright, not big on rugby, more of a cricket and chess man and he died in 1937 a year before Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.
In 1899 Percy was appointed Political Agent and Consul at Muscat and Oman, he later he became Acting British Consul for this ancient part of the human world that had cleverly avoided being incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, but which had remained within the sphere of Ottoman influence for several hundreds of years. It was an area that included The Nedj which is now part of Saudi Arabia.
In 1899, when Percy Cox arrived in Muscat there was a major quarrel between the British, the French and the Arabs, a quarrel which amongst other things included the slave trade.
The French had leased coastal land from the Sultan of Oman so they could maintain a coaling station for French merchantmen and the French Navy. The British had traditional problems with French merchantmen and the French Navy, they wanted the French out of the Indian Ocean, as far away from the Indian Subcontinent as possible, but mostly the British wanted to stop the slave traders from ruining British chances of controlling all of Eastern Africa.
Unfortunately over the years Muscat and Oman had made good money trading slaves, ivory, rhino horns and so on. The French, in their territorial ambitions, had no real problems with a trade that had enabled the Sultans of Muscat to maintain a substantial empire that followed the Indian Ocean all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope, instead they had their eye on the Cradle of Civilization, up there were the Tigris and Euphrates made for rich and fertile lands. And what with their Strait of Hormuz, for the French friendly relations with Muscat and Oman was rather critical.
One of the problems north of Oman is and was called The Nedj. It was a loose leaf collection of warring clans and families who hadn't been able to get their minds around the idea that world was divided between The British, The French, the Portuguese, the Germans, the Russians, the Ottomans, apparently the Omanis and eventually the United States.
Sultans of Muscat had been obliged for centuries to keep an eye on the Nedj, do everything they could to make quite sure that The Nedj was in a constant state of turmoil, because when those people up there weren't in a constant state of turmoil, they had this aggravating habit of trying to take the Sultan's palace and his income, which included ship building and piracy, away from him.
A major player in the Nedj were the Banu Hanifa clans. Long before Islam they had founded the city Riyadh. In around 1720 they'd formed a mutually advantageous alliance with the followers of a man called Abd al-Wahhab, he was a leader, an Imam, an activist, a scholar and a very strict medieval type religious cult leader. At times Banu Hanifa and their Wahhabi sect dominated Riyadh, when they did they presented a threat to Muscat and Omen. At other times they were busy with other things. They'd been beaten up by the Ottoman to keep them in their place, nor were they the only fierce and ambitious clan in the mostly empty lands of Arabia who laid claim to the walled city of Riyadh.
Percy Cox with very little help from the French or the Sultan of Oman decided that it was time to make some sort of sense of The Nedj by give it what some might call a Land Law that was properly mapped out rather than constantly quarreled over depending on whim. It was a game the Ottoman's were good at playing.
Percy, had become Pro-Consul for the entire Middle East, a role he played from 1904 until 1919. He had much to learn about the area and its people. To help him, an archaeologist called Gertrude Bell who had traveled widely in Arabia had provided him with detailed lists of Arabian clans, territories and alliances she'd gathered though her own observations and from Colonel, then later Aircraftman, TE Laurence as well as a chap called Captain William H.I. Shakespear.
Amongst his cadre of Political Officers Percy had a man called Jack Philby, his full name was Harry St. John Philby and he was the father of Kim Philby, a Cambridge man who spied for the Russians and died in Moscow in 1988.
Four years prior to the First World War Captain William H.I. Shakespear was the first British Political Agent to make contact with a Son of Saud called Abdulaziz II, who was leader of the Al Saud people. They'd recently been knocked around a little by one or other of their many enemies and the clan was feeling vengeful. Shakespear became military advisor to the Al Saud from in the February of 1910. In 1915, in the first days of the Second of three Saud-Rashid wars, Shakespear was killed at the Battle of Jarrab. The British supported Al Saud and the Ottoman supported, traditional enemies of the House of Saud, the House of Rashid.
The Battle of Jarrab was fought in central Arabia, it was brutal and horrible, several Al Saud allies chose to run away, Al Rashid were the victors, the British lost an officer and went into a sulk with the Abdulaziz who compared to Al Rashid had far too many enemies in the Nedj.
The Ottomans were gone, Britain and France were carving up the Middle East, the USA was sniffing around, this presented a very new set of problems for Arabia. For Abdulaziz, who in the end had had a good First World War, it was a little difficult to know what to do in this new, yet very familiar, set of circumstances. He wanted security and peace, and didn't want to have to make war or be told what to do by Britain or France.
With Shakespear dead Abdulaziz adopted Jack Philby as an advisor to help with his European Problem. Philby pointed out the boundary lines Cox, in his attempts to make Land Law across the Arabian Peninsular, had carefully put in place and had partially negotiated. Philby advised Abdulaziz utilizing the political and religious alliance his Al Saud had had with followers of Wahhabi since the 1740's. Get them to do the dirty work, get them to carve out the traditional source of tribulation the Nedj all the way to the Red Sea, south to the border with Omen and Muscat, might as well take a rational control of Mecca and promise access to one of the five pillars of the Islamic Faith to all who were physically, emotionally and financially able to perform the Hajj.
After many battles, by the time oil was discovered in 1938, the Al Saud dominated the Nedj and Abdulaziz II became the first king, or paramount chief of Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi were like the Church of Rome to his Holy Roman Empire.
Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal Al Saud, often called Ibn Saud, died in 1953
