'Asir Province - History

History

At the rise of the First Saudi State in the 18th century, the towns of 'Asir were governed by local clans in a fashion similar to that of Nejd, while the large tribal confederations maintained a high degree of autonomy. 'Asir gave allegiance to First Saudi State in 1801 under the leadership of the 'Asiri chief Muhammad Abu Nogta of the Mughayd clan.

When the First Saudi State was destroyed by the Egyptians in 1818, the 'Asiris continued to fight the Egyptian forces in their region tenaciously. With the withdrawal of the Egyptians in 1840, the dynasty of Al Ayedh, also of Mughayd, took control of the 'Asir highlands. The Al Ayedh generally allied themselves to the Saudis, who had re-established their dynasty in 1824, but did not formally enter under their command. As the Al Ayedh attempted to expand into the Tihama lowlands (present-day Jizan Province), the Ottoman Turks felt provoked to invade and occupy the highlands. They defeated and executed the leader of Al Ayedh in 1872 and established a mutasarrifiyya (a sub-governorate) in Abha attached to the Vilayet of Yemen. Their rule, however, seldom extended far from the isolated forts where their troops were garrisoned.

In about 1906, Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali al-Idrisi, a descendant of Ahmad Ibn Idris, began to establish political control of Asir. After negotiations with Italy, which had interests nearby in Somalia, the Idrisi forces of Sayyid Muhammad came into conflict with Ottoman forces in Abha. The Idrisis were defeated in 1911 by Hashemite forces under Hussein ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca, then still loyal to the Ottomans, but the tide turned when Sayyid Muhammad concluded a secret military alliance with Great Britain (by then at war with the Ottomans) in 1915, and Sharif Hussein later switched sides and joined the British against the Ottomans.

After the end of the First World War, Sayyid Muhammad became ruler of an internationally recognized sovereign state, the Idrisi Emirate of Asir, until his death in 1920. The territories of the emirate reached from Abha in the north to Hudaydah in the south. Sayyid Muhammad's successors were however unable to resist the growing power of Abd Al-Aziz Ibn Saud, who began annexing 'Asir and its neighboring regions after Sayyid Muhammad's death, initially intervening under the pretext of mediating between the Al Ayedh of 'Asir and the Idrisis. The Saudis took control of the regional capital Abha in 1920, and incorporated the rest of 'Asir by 1923. Ibn Saud later successfully fought off a rival claim for the region by the Zaydi Imam of neighboring Yemen in 1934.