Recent historiographical treatment of European colonial regimes in the Middle East has emphasized the role of security and intelligence services in not only bolstering colonial rule but in defining the nature of the colonial state. This paper shifts focus into two related but understudied aspects of colonial regimes 1) the transnational and transregional scope of colonial surveillance operations and 2) the ways in which surveillance of local institutions like waqf informed broader surveillance work. The case of surveillance related to the official delegation from the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon to the 1926 inauguration of the Grand Mosque in Paris is instructive regarding the transnational/transregional scope of surveillance under French rule. Analysis of internal records of the French Mandate civil administration read against French and Syrian/Lebanese public press accounts bears out contrasting perspectives regarding the 1926 delegation to Paris. Specifically, the personal surveillance of local members of the waqf administration who comprised the official delegation by French and Syrian employees of the Mandate civil administration was representative of surveillance operations that had participation beyond the formal security services. These efforts have received less attention in the scholarship that is concerned with the form and function of formal colonial intelligence and security services, yet critical surveillance work appears to have been the work of French and Syrian civil administration employees. Moreover, drawing on internal and public sources facilitates a broader definition of colonial surveillance - including the colonial intelligence and security apparatus but without imposing arbitrarily limits on what it can be. This approach recognizes that the violence and poor delivery of services that defined colonial rule was also accompanied by the development of more sophisticated state capacities related to surveillance.