Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Thunayan

Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Thunayan (1889–1923) was a Turkish-born Saudi royal and government official who was one of the advisors to Abdulaziz, Emir of Nejd, who later founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.[1] He was the paternal uncle of Iffat Al Thunayan, spouse of King Faisal.

Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Thunayan
Born1889
Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Died1923 (aged 33–34)
Istanbul
Names
Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Abdullah bin Thunayan bin Ibrahim bin Thunayan Al Saud
HouseHouse of Saud
FatherAbdullah bin Abdullah bin Thunayan Al Saud
MotherTazeruh Hanım

Origins and early life

Prince Ahmed's family were the descendants of Thunayan, one of the brothers of Muhammad bin Saud, who is the patriarch of the House of Saud.[2] Ahmed's father was Abdullah bin Abdullah bin Thunayan Al Saud, who was captured by the Ottomans in Bombay and sent to Istanbul in August 1880.[3] He was appointed to the royal court there.[3] Ahmed's mother was a Cherkess-origin Turkish woman named Tazeruh.[1] His paternal grandfather, Abdullah bin Thunayan, ruled the Emirate of Nejd from 1841 to 1843.[1]

Prince Ahmed was born in 1889 in Istanbul and raised there.[4][5] Prince Ahmed had a twin-sister, Jawhara, and two brothers, Mohammed and Suleiman.[1] Mohammed was the father of Iffat, who married the future King Faisal in the 1930s.[1]

Career

Just before World War I Prince Ahmed went to Arabia and became a private secretary of Emir Abdulaziz.[2][3] In March 1913 he met with the Ottoman governor of Baghdad, Cemal Pasha, as an envoy of Abdulaziz to eliminate the tensions between Abdulaziz and Sharif Hussein.[6] Over time Prince Ahmed became Abdulaziz's chief foreign affairs advisor[7] and acted as Saudi foreign minister.[8] Prince Ahmed together with Abdullah Al Qusaibi, another advisor of Abdulaziz, accompanied Prince Faisal, later King Faisal, during his official visit to London and Paris in 1919.[2][9] Prince Ahmed's mission in this visit was to transmit the demands of Abdulaziz to British officials.[10] Through Prince Ahmed Abdulaziz asked the British to exert pressure on Sharif Hussain to allow Najdi people to go on pilgrimage.[11]

On 1 May 1922 Prince Ahmed represented Abdulaziz in the Conference of Al Muhammarah which was held to resolve the problematic Saudi-Iraqi border issues.[9][12] Despite the objections of Abdulaziz Prince Ahmed signed the treaty of al Muhammarah which led to his dismissal from the post.[9] Abdulaziz did not ratify the treaty and informed the British High Commissioner B. H. Bourdillon that Prince Ahmed had no authority to sign it.[12] Following this incident Prince Ahmed was replaced by Abdullah Al Damluji as chief foreign affairs advisor.[7]

Personal life and death

Prince Ahmed was fluent in Turkish, Arabic, English and German.[1] He died in Istanbul in 1923[9] shortly after his return from Saudi Arabia.[1] However, Joseph A. Kechichian argues that he died in 1921 which contradicts with the fact that he participated in the Conference of Al Muhammarah in May 1922.[9]

References
  1. Joseph A. Kechichian (20 January 2012). "Self-assurance in the face of military might". Gulf News. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  2. "Al Thunayyan Family". Encyclopedia.
  3. Joseph A. Kechichian (2014). 'Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. pp. 16–20. ISBN 9781845196851.
  4. Leslie McLoughlin (1993). Ibn Saud: Founder of A Kingdom. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-1-349-22578-1.
  5. G. Leachman (May 1914). "A Journey through Central Arabia". The Geographical Journal. 43 (5): 518. doi:10.2307/1778299. JSTOR 1778299.
  6. Lawrence Paul Goldrup (1971). Saudi Arabia 1902 - 1932: The Development of a Wahhabi Society (PhD thesis). University of California, Los Angeles. p. 139. ISBN 9798657910797. ProQuest 302463650.
  7. Joseph Kostiner (1993). The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916-1936: From Chieftaincy to Monarchical State. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-19-536070-7.
  8. F. E. Peters (1994). Mecca. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 388. doi:10.1515/9781400887361-014. ISBN 9781400887361.
  9. Mohammad Zaid Al Kahtani. The Foreign Policy of King Abdulaziz (1927–1953) (PhD thesis). University of Leeds. p. 36.
  10. Jerald L. Thompson (December 1981). H. St. John Philby, Ibn Saud and Palestine (MA thesis). DTIC.
  11. Joshua Teitelbaum (2020). "Hashemites, Egyptians and Saudis: the tripartite struggle for the pilgrimage in the shadow of Ottoman defeat". Middle Eastern Studies. 56 (1): 41s2cid=202264793. doi:10.1080/00263206.2019.1650349. S2CID 202264793.
  12. Gamal Hagar (1981). Britain, Her Middle East Mandates and the Emergence of Saudi Arabia, 1926-1932: A Study in the Process of British Policy-making and in the Conduct and Development of Britain's Relations with Ibn Saud (PhD thesis). University of Keele. pp. 70–72.
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