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Doreen Ingrams (24 January 1906 - 25 July 1997) was a British writer and colonial figure whose pioneering survey-work in South Arabia led to a memoir, A Time in Arabia (1970), and to "The Ingrams' Peace," a truce between warring tribes in the Hadhramaut in southern Arabia. [1]
The daughter of Edward Shortt MP, who was Home Secretary 1919-22, she became an actress, with friends including Michael MacLiammoir and Peggy Ashcroft. [2] in 1930, she married Harold Ingrams, a colonial administrator, and she gave up her stage career to accompany him to his posting in Mauritius.
In 1934 Harold and Doreen Ingrams were transferred to South Arabia, where Harold was charged with investigating conditions in the inland territory of the Aden Protectorate. They faced an unprecedented and challenging nine-week journey through an anarchic and feuding region, but travelling by donkey and camel, Mr and Mrs Ingrams succeeded in producing a detailed Report on the Social, Economic and Political Condition of Hadhramaut (1935), the earliest European account of the territory. In the course of this first trip, They were the first Europeans to travel through Sei’ar country and the Mahra hinterland - where on one occasion their lives were threatened by local tribesmen - and Doreen was the first European woman to enter Seiyun and Tarim. The report, which had the rare distinction of being the subject of a Times leading article, became the mainspring of closer British involvement in Hadhramaut and later in the Protectorate as a whole. [3]
In 1936 Harold, accompanied by Doreen, was sent back to the Hadhramaut to persuade local tribal leaders to accept a general truce. Doreen’s access to the women enabled her to enlist the support of an important constituency for peace. Negotiating the truce, known as "The Ingrams' Peace," which was to commence in early 1937 and initially to last for three years, is considered a remarkable achievement. The truce was extended for a further ten years, and Harold and Doreen became very popular figures among the Hadhrami. [3]
Harold and Doreen Ingrams became the first Europeans to live in the Hadhramaut, and they explored all its network of valleys. Peace led to a new treaty with the Quaiti Sultan, in which the latter agreed to accept British advice in all matters relating to the welfare of his state (with the exception of religion and custom), and in 1937 Harold was appointed first British resident Advisor in Mukalla, a post which, apart from two years as Chief Secretary in Aden, he held until 1944. This gave Doreen, now fluent in the local Arabic, the opportunity of further travel in largely unexplored areas of Hadhramaut - sometimes on her own, with just an escort of one or two Bedouin retainers. When she travelled without her husband, she was able to obtain unprecedented access to the homes of rich and poor where no European woman had ever been before. This led her to produce her own Survey of Social and Economic Conditions in the Aden Protectorate (1949). [2] This period of her life formed the material for her memoir, A Time in Arabia (1970, new edition by Eland in 2013). [4] Collectively, the output of Harold and Doreen Ingrams concerning South Arabia have made a unique contribution to the history and sociology of the region. [3]
During the Second World War, the area suffered from famine. Doreen was directly involved in organising relief centres and emergency medical care in Mukalla (where she later established the first bedouin girls’ school) for the victims of famine, especially women and children. [3]
In her third career Doreen Ingrams spent 12 years as a Senior Assistant in the Arabic Service of the BBC, where she was in charge of talks and magazine programmes, especially programmes for women. Gathering material for these, she travelled widely, and after her retirement in 1967 she kept closely in touch with developments in the Arab world.
In 1972 she made use of little-known archive material to produce a work of lasting historical significance in Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict (1972, new edition by Eland in 2009), pinpointing the responsibility of British ministers and officials for the subsequent tragedy in Palestine. She was a founder-member of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) and served for many years on its executive committee. With her daughter Leila, she edited and published in 16 volumes the Records of Yemen 1798-1960 (1993). [5]
At a reception in her honour in 1994 the members of the Arab Club in Britain presented her with a silver tray as a symbol of "her outstanding contribution to the promotion of Arab-British understanding". For their pioneer work in Southern Arabia Harold and Doreen Ingrams were awarded jointly the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1940) and the Lawrence of Arabia Medal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs (1939) - the only time either organisation offered a joint award. [3] In addition, Doreen received in 1993 the Sir Richard Burton Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society. [2]
Hadhramaut is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Saudi Arabia. The name is of ancient origin, and is retained in the name of the Yemeni Governorate of Hadhramaut. The people of Hadhramaut are called Hadarem. They formerly spoke Hadramautic, an old South Arabian language, but they now predominantly speak Hadhrami Arabic, which has much influence from Hadramautic.
The State flag of Yemen was adopted on May 22, 1990, the day that North Yemen and South Yemen were unified. The flag is basically the Arab Liberation Flag of 1952, introduced after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 in which Arab nationalism was a dominant theme. The Arab Liberation Flag of 1952 served as the inspiration for the flags of both North and South Yemen prior to unification, as well as for the current flags of Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Palestine and Syria.
Seiyun is a city in the region and Governorate of Hadhramaut in Yemen. It is located in the middle of the Hadhramaut Valley, about 360 km (220 mi) from Mukalla, the capital of Mukalla District and the largest city in the area, via western route. It is also 12 km (7.5 mi) away from Shibam and 35 km (22 mi) away from Tarim, other large cities in the valley.
Dame Freya Madeline Stark, was a British-Italian explorer and travel writer. She wrote more than two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as several autobiographical works and essays. She was one of the first non-Arabs known to travel through the southern Arabian Desert in modern times.
South Yemen (Arabic: اليمن الجنوبي, romanized: al-Yaman al-Janubiyy), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (جمهورية اليمن الديمقراطية الشعبية, Jumhūriyat al-Yaman al-Dīmuqrāṭīyah al-Sha'bīyah), also referred to as Democratic Yemen (اليمن الديمقراطي, al-Yaman al-Dīmuqrāṭīyy) or Yemen (Aden) (اليمن (عدن), al-Yaman ('Adin)), was a communist state that existed from 1967 to 1990 as a state in the Middle East in the southern and eastern provinces of the present-day Republic of Yemen, including the island of Socotra.
Mukalla is a seaport and the capital city of Yemen's largest governorate, Hadhramaut. The city is in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula on the Gulf of Aden, on the shores of the Arabian Sea, about 480 kilometres east of Aden. It is the most important port in the Hadhramaut and the fifth-largest city in Yemen, with a population of approximately 500,000. The city is served by the nearby Riyan International Airport.
Qu'aiti, or the Qu'aiti Sultanate of Shihr and Mukalla, was a sultanate in the Hadhramaut region of the southern Arabian Peninsula, in what is now Yemen. Its capital was Mukalla, and it was divided into six provinces including Al-Mukalla, Ash-Shihr, Shibam, Du'an, the Western Province and Hajr. Apart from Al-Mukalla, Ash-Shihr and Shibam were the Sultanate's major cities.
Kathiri, officially the Kathiri State of Seiyun, was a sultanate in the Hadhramaut region of the southern Arabian Peninsula, in what is now part of Yemen and the Dhofari region of Oman.
The Aden Protectorate was a British protectorate in South Arabia which evolved in the hinterland of the port of Aden and in the Hadhramaut following the conquest of Aden by the Bombay Presidency of British India in 1839, and it continued until the 1960s. In 1940 it was divided for administrative purposes into the Western Protectorate and the Eastern Protectorate. Today the territory forms part of the Republic of Yemen.
Aden Colony, also the Colony of Aden, was a British Crown colony from 1937 to 1963 located in the south of contemporary Yemen. It consisted of the port of Aden and its immediate surroundings.
The Protectorate of South Arabia consisted of various states located at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula under treaties of protection with Britain. The area of the former protectorate became part of South Yemen after the Radfan uprising and is now part of the Republic of Yemen.
Aden is a city in southern Yemen. Aden's location made it a popular exchange port for mail passing between places around the Indian Ocean and Europe. When Captain S. B. Haines of the Indian Marine, the East India Company's navy, occupied Aden on 19 January 1839, mail services were immediately established in the settlement with a complement of two postal clerks and four letter carriers. An interim postmaster was appointed as early as June 1839. Mail is known to exist from 15 June 1839 although a regular postmaster was not appointed until 1857; one of the officials of the Political Agent or the civil surgeon performed the duties of postmaster for a small salary.
The Saudi–Yemeni War was a war between Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom of Yemen in 1934.
The modern history of Yemen began with the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire. In 1839 the British set up a protective area around the southern port of Aden and in 1918 the northern Kingdom of Yemen gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. North Yemen became a republic in 1962, but it was not until 1967 that the British Empire withdrew from what became South Yemen. In 1970, the southern government adopted a communist governmental system. The two countries were formally united as the Republic of Yemen on May 22, 1990.
The Aden Protectorate Levies (APL) were an Arab military force raised for the local defence of the Aden Protectorate under British rule. The Levies were drawn from all parts of the Protectorate and were armed and officered by the British military. They used the Lahej emblem of crossed jambiyah as their badge.
Topics related to Yemen include:
Ziad Rafiq Beydoun (1924–1998) was a Lebanese petroleum geologist, leading authority on the geology of the Middle East and Emeritus Professor at the American University of Beirut (AUB).
Al Abr or Al ‘Abr is a small town in central-eastern Yemen. It is the seat of Al Abr District of the Hadhramaut Governorate. It is served by a small airport.
William Harold Ingrams, was a British colonial administrator who served in Zanzibar, Mauritius, the Aden Protectorate, the British Zone in post-WW2 Germany, and the Gold Coast. He is best known for his posting in Mukalla, together with his wife Doreen, where he oversaw the Hadhramaut region and brokered a truce between feuding tribes known as "Ingrams' Peace".
Tarim is a historic town situated in Wadi Hadhramaut in Yemen, in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. It is widely acknowledged as the theological, juridical, and academic center of the Hadhramaut Valley. An important focus of Islamic learning, it is estimated to contain the highest concentration of descendants of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (sayyids) anywhere in the world. The city is distinguished for producing numerous Islamic scholars, including Imam al-Haddad. Additionally, Tarim is also home to Dar al-Mustafa, a well-known educational institute for the study of traditional Islamic Sciences.
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