Good Friends and Dangerous Enemies - British Images of the Arab Elite in Colonial Singapore (1819-1942)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the British colonial perceptions of the Arab elite in Singapore who maintained a distinct Arab identity despite being of mixed descent (Arab and Malay). They continued to maintain strong kinship ties with Hadhramaut, their homeland in south Arabia.The British consistently maintained a cautious stance in their relationship with members of the Arab elite in Singapore, who were at times suspected of having anti-British, pro-Ottoman sympathies, or of being advocates of anti-colonial, pan-Islamism at various junctures during the colonial period. Nonetheless, a crisis between the Arabs and the British was averted since the wealthy Arab elite was keen not to offend the British, in order to protect their huge financial investments in the British settlement of Singapore. Eventually, in the cosmopolitan world of early twentieth-century Singapore, frequent Arab-British social interactions shaped British opinion of the Arab elite as useful political allies, assisting the British in their colonial rule not only over the native Muslim population but also in matters concerning Hadhramaut.