Saqr bin Khalid Al Qasimi

Saqr bin Khalid Al Qasimi (no birth date is given by any source read – died in 1914) was ruler of Sharjah of the Al Qasimi family from 1883 until his death, and ruler of Ras Al Khaimah from 1900. ^{1 2} He came to power in a coup during the absence of his uncle, the ruler Salim bin Sultan, then managed a decades-long contest with that uncle and with secessionist coastal towns, and was succeeded in Sharjah by Khalid bin Ahmad Al Qasimi; his sons Sultan II and Muhammad later ruled Sharjah in the twentieth century. ^{1 2}

Salim bin Sultan Al Qasimi was an unpopular ruler, and when he travelled to Ras Al Khaimah in 1883 leaving his nephew Saqr in charge of Sharjah, Saqr seized on his absence and took power in a coup, backed by the rulers of Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain, Ajman and Dubai. ¹ A year later Salim failed to regain power by force, but he retained his property in Sharjah and primacy over the island of Abu Musa, and Saqr paid him an annual pension; when Saqr later cut the pension the British Resident intervened at a meeting in Ajman in 1884, the pension was restored in full, and Salim was appointed wali of Dhaid. ¹ In 1884 the township of Hamriyah attempted secession: Saqr invited its headman Saif bin Abdulrahman to Sharjah to keep him away while sending his brother Mohammed to seize the town, but Saif slipped back the next day and threw Mohammed out; in December 1885 Saqr helped his cousin Humaid bin Abdullah Al Qasimi retake the secessionist coastal town of Sha'am and paid a fine of 1,600 Maria Theresa dollars for its losses. ¹ Salim kept plotting: he landed in Ajman in 1886 intending an attack but found no support, tried again in 1888 with Dubai's support and was thwarted by a ready Saqr, planned an 1889 attack he did not carry out, and was then reconciled with his nephew and made his wazir. ¹ On 2 August 1900 Humaid bin Abdullah suffered a stroke that paralysed him, and Saqr seized the chance to declare his rule over Ras Al Khaimah unopposed, removed the wali Humaid had appointed, installed first a cousin and then his son Khalid as wali there, saw Hamriyah's bid for recognition as a Trucial state in its own right fail at Lord Curzon's 1903 visit, and survived a final attempt by his uncle Salim in 1904. ¹ From 1910 Salim was wali of Ras Al Khaimah and its ruler in all but name, while Saqr remained its nominal ruler until his death, whereas the Arabic article's infobox ends Saqr's Ras Al Khaimah reign in 1910 and names Hamad bin Majid bin Sultan Al Qasimi as his successor there — a difference the museum states as it stands. ^{1 2}

Saqr died in 1914, the year given by the texts of the English and Arabic articles and by Wikidata, though one of the Arabic article's categories files him under deaths of 1913 — a stray category reading the museum notes and does not follow. ^{1 2 3} He was succeeded in Sharjah by Khalid bin Ahmad Al Qasimi, and among his sons were Sultan II bin Saqr, who ruled Sharjah from 1924 to 1951, and Muhammad bin Saqr, who ruled from 1951, as the Arabic article records. ² The English article's account of this career rests on Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf (1915) and Frauke Heard-Bey's "From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates" (2005). ¹

This section is read as a presentation of positions reported from the sources, not as a verdict of the museum.

The sources used here preserve no sayings or opinions of Saqr's to present; the one evaluative remark in the English article — that his uncle Salim was an unpopular ruler — is a judgement on Salim, not on Saqr, and the 1883 coup and the pension settlement that followed are recorded as facts, not verdicts. ¹ The documentary disagreements here are three, and the museum states them rather than merging them: his death year, 1914 in both articles and Wikidata against 1913 in one Arabic category; the end of his Ras Al Khaimah rule, 1910 in the Arabic infobox against his death in 1914 in the English text; and the Urdu translation's errors, which date Sha'am's recovery to December 1855 instead of 1885 and garble Saqr's name as Khalid. ^{2 4} His faith is recorded as unknown in his data record: none of the three articles states any religion or school for him at all, and Wikidata carries no religion value for him, so the value stays unknown under the two-source rule and the doubt rule. ^{1 4 3}

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.
• Later translations and edits of this article need periodic review with clear update dates.