Emirate of Jabal Shammar

The Emirate of Jabal Shammar (Arabic: إِمَارَة جَبَل شَمَّر, romanized: Imārah Jabal Shamaar), also known as the Emirate of Haʾil (إِمَارَة حَائِل) or the Rashidi Emirate (إِمَارَة آل رَشِيْد), was a state in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula, including Najd, existing from the mid-nineteenth century to 1921. Shammar had been a confederation in the Arabian Peninsula. Jabal Shammar in English is translated as the "Mountain of Shammar". Jabal Shammar's capital was Ha'il. It was led by the monarchy of the Rashidi dynasty. It included parts of modern-day Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan.

The Emirate of Jabal Shammar was established in 1836 as a vassal of the second Saudi state when the first ruler of the emirate Abdullah bin Rashid was appointed as governor of Ha’il by the Saudi Imam Faisal bin Turki. However after the weakening of the second Saudi state, the Rashīdis, rulers of Jabal Shammar, had succeeded in ousting their Saudi overlords from Riyadh in 1891 following the Battle of Mulayda. This resulted in the abolition of the Second Saudi State, the Emirate of Nejd, and incorporation of its territory into Jabal Shammar. As the Saudis were out of the picture, exiled in Kuwait, the House of Rashīd sought friendly ties with the Ottoman Empire to its north. This alliance became less and less profitable during the course of the 19th century as the Ottomans lost influence and legitimacy. The Emirate’s capital, Ha’il, served as an important stopping point for persons traveling between the cities of Mecca and Medina and the towns and cities of Iraq and Iran.

In 1902, Abdulaziz ibn Saud succeeded in recapturing Riyadh for the House of Saud, and began a campaign to reconquer the region – a campaign which turned out to be highly successful for the Saudis. After several clashes, the Rashīdis and Saudis engaged into a full scale war over the region of Qassim, which resulted in a painful defeat for the Rashīdis and the death of the Rashīdi emir Abdul Aziz ibn Mitaab Al Rashīd.

Following the death of the Emir, Jabal Shammar gradually went into decline, being further pressed with the demise of its Ottoman ally in World War I. Ibn Saud, allied with the British Empire as a counterweight to the Ottomans' support for Jabal Shammar, emerged far stronger from the First World War. The Emirate of Jabal Shammar was finally terminated with the Saudi campaign of late 1921. The Emirate surrendered to the Saudis on November 2, 1921, and was subsequently incorporated into the Sultanate of Nejd.

"The inhabitants of Kaseem, weary of Wahhabee tyranny, turned their eyes towards Telal, who had already given a generous and inviolable asylum to the numerous political exiles of that district. Secret negotiations took place, and at a favourable moment the entire uplands of that province—after a fashion not indeed peculiar to Arabia—annexed themselves to the kingdom of Shammar by universal and unanimous suffrage." (William Gifford Palgrave, 1865: 129.)

"Many of these traders belonged to the Shia sect, hated by some Sunni, doubly hated by the Wahabees. But Telal [sic] affected not to perceive their religious discrepansies, and silenced all murmurs by marks of special favour towards these very dissenters, and also by the advantages which their presence was not long in procuring for the town". (William Gifford Palgrave 1865: 130.)

The Emirate had a mixed economy of pastoral nomadism, oasis agriculture, urban crafts, and trade. Historically, the Emirate produced alfalfa.