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The Politics of Protection in the Gulf: The Arab Rulers and the British Resident in the
Nineteenth Century (2004)

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NAS 6 11/7/04 7:53 am Page 30

The Politics of Protection in the Gulf:

The Arab Rulers and the British Resident
in the Nineteenth Century*
James Onley

If Great Britain has become, in any sense, the arbiter and guardian of the Gulf,
it has not been through a restless ambition urging her on to the control of the
waste places of the earth, but in obedience to the calls that have been made upon
her in the past to enforce peace between warring tribes, to give a free course to
trade, to hold back the arm of the marauder and the oppressor, to stand between
the slave-dealer and his victim.
Confidential Foreign Office memorandum, 19081

Was Britain’s role as ‘arbiter and guardian of the Gulf’ one it assumed in
response to appeals from the Gulf Arabs, as the imperial memorandum claims?
Or was British protection imposed on the Gulf Arabs, as some historians are
now arguing? To address this highly contentious issue, this study considers
British involvement in the Gulf in relation to the political system of nineteenth-
century Eastern Arabia. What was the nature of Britain’s relationship with the
Gulf rulers from an Arab perspective? How did Britain’s Political Resident in
the Gulf fit into the regional political system? Through the process of answering

* This article is based on research conducted in Bahrain, funded by the Bahrain-British Foundation; in
London at the Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC) of the British Library, funded partly by
the Society for Arabian Studies; and in Oxford at the Middle East Centre of St. Antony’s College. For
reading drafts of this article and offering helpful comments, I am indebted to James Piscatori, Frauke
Heard-Bey, Ahmad Al-Shahi and Gloria Onley. For helpful discussions on the article’s subject, I would
also like to thank Paul Dresch, Jill Crystal, Ali Akbar Bushiri, Nelida Fuccaro, Yoav Alon and Samer
El-Karanshawy.

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

these questions, this study shows that Anglo–Arab relations cannot be explained
solely by reference to the Anglo–Arab treaties, but that a detailed examination
of the Gulf rulers’ involvement in the politics of protection is necessary to
provide a realistic evaluation of what Britain’s presence meant in the Gulf.

1. Historical Background
British India’s initial interest in Eastern Arabia grew out of its need to protect
its ships and subjects in Arabian waters. From 1797 onward, maritime toll-
levying and raiding by Arabs of the lower Gulf—similar to bedouin practices
along desert trade routes—increasingly threatened British Indian shipping.2 To
put an end to these practices, which they considered extortion and piracy, in
1806 the British blockaded a fleet of dhows belonging to the Qawasim (singular
Qasimi), who they believed to be responsible, and in 1809 and 1819 sent naval
expeditions against Qasimi ports on the southeast Persian coast and on the
‘Pirate Coast’, as they termed the Coast of Oman (the present-day U.A.E). After
the second expedition, the British were able to impose an anti-piracy treaty—
known as the General Treaty of 1820—on the rulers and governors of the Pirate
Coast. The Rulers of Bahrain, who wished to avoid maritime toll-paying, were
admitted to the Treaty at their request. To manage British India’s relations with
these rulers, supervise the enforcement of the General Treaty, and protect British
India’s ships and subjects in Arabian waters, the British created the post of
Political Agent for the Lower Gulf, headquartered on Qishm Island in the Strait
of Hormuz. Two years later, in 1822, the British transferred this post to Bushire
on the southwest Persian coast and amalgamated it with the much older post of
Bushire Resident. The new post of ‘Resident in the Persian Gulf’—‘Political
Resident in the Persian Gulf’ (PRPG) after the 1850s—was responsible for
Britain’s relations with the entire Gulf region.3 To support the Resident in
his role, the British assigned a naval squadron to the Gulf to patrol its waters—
a system known as ‘watch and cruise’. The Gulf Squadron was under the
command of the ‘Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf’ (SNOPG) and was
headquartered at the entrance to the Gulf, first on Qishm Island (1821–63,
1869–79) and then on neighbouring Henjam Island (1879–1935).4
After the imposition of the General Treaty, Gulf rulers consented to other
treaties over the course of the century. The most important of these were the
Maritime Truces, which established the Pax Britannica in the Gulf. The first
Maritime Truce, signed in 1835 by the rulers of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, ‘Ajman and
the Qasimi empire (Sharjah, Umm al-Qaiwain, Ras al-Khaimah, Rams, Dibba,
Khor Fakkan, Fujairah, Kalba, Mughu, Lingah and Qishm Island), was an ex-
perimental ban on maritime warfare during the pearling season. The Truce was
a great success and a second Truce was arranged the following year, which

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JAMES ONLEY

the newly-independent Ruler of Umm al-Qaiwain also signed. After a series of

annual twelve-month truces and a ten-year Truce in 1843, the rulers signed a
Perpetual Maritime Truce in 1853. In recognition of the shaikhdoms’ member-
ship in the Maritime Truce, the British referred to them as the ‘Trucial States’
and to the Coast of Oman as the ‘Trucial Coast’.5 The British eventually invited
the rulers of Bahrain and Qatar to join the Truce in 1861 and 1916 respectively.
Under the terms of the Truce, the Gulf rulers gave up their right to wage war
by sea in return for British protection against maritime aggression. This arrange-
ment, known as the ‘trucial system’, cast Britain in the role of ‘arbiter and
guardian of the Gulf’. Later on, the rulers also signed Exclusive Agreements
(Bahrain in 1880, the Trucial States in 1892, Kuwait in 1899, Najd and Hasa in
1915, Qatar in 1916) binding them into exclusive treaty relations with, and
ceding control of their external affairs to, the British Government.6 Although
these states were still foreign territory and their rulers remained as heads of state,
their status vis-à-vis the Government of India placed them within the sphere of
Britain’s Indian Empire.7

2. The State of the Debate

The Gulf’s best-known historians, J.G. Lorimer and J.B. Kelly, paint a positive
picture of Britain’s role as ‘arbiter and guardian of the Gulf’.8 Kelly concludes
his Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 by commenting that Britain’s
position in the Gulf rested, above all, ‘upon the exertions and sacrifices of the
men who brought peace, justice, and the rule of law to the Gulf in the nineteenth
century, and in so doing wrote one of the most honourable pages in the history
of the British Empire.’9
Since the 1980s, however, a different view of Britain’s role in the Gulf,
represented by the works of Khaldoun Al-Naqeeb, Jacqueline Ismael, Abdullah
Taryam and the Ruler of Sharjah, Shaikh Sultan bin Muhammad al-Qasimi, has
emerged in the historiography.10 Al-Qasimi, for example, argues in The Myth of
Arab Piracy in the Gulf that the works of Lorimer and Kelly

emphasize a complete misunderstanding of the history of the area and the factors
involved. The people of the Gulf were normal people with normal human
ambitions. … The only abnormal factor was the introduction of a foreign people
whose aim was to dominate and exploit. The intruders were the forces of British
imperialism, who knew very well and often testified that the indigenous
people of the Gulf were only interested in the peaceful pursuits of pearl diving
and trading.11

He contends that Kelly’s account agrees with Lorimer’s because ‘Kelly’s

purpose was to support rather than challenge Lorimer’s work. In a sense he was

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

more royalist than the king and his adoption of the imperialist point of view was
almost more unquestioning than that of the imperialistic functionaries them-
selves.’12 Sultan al-Qasimi believes that historians who present Britain’s role in
the Gulf as a positive one have a hidden, imperial agenda. They ‘want us
to believe’, says al-Qasimi, ‘that the Arabs of the Gulf were saved … by the
benevolent efforts of the British East India Company, whose intervention in the
Gulf was for the sole purpose of preserving law and order [and that the] resulting
British domination of the Gulf for almost two centuries was a responsibility
thrust upon the British almost against their will.’13
Did the Gulf Arabs truly benefit from British hegemony or were they merely
exploited by it? Was British protection imposed on the Gulf Arabs, or was the
role of protector imposed on the British? This study attempts to resolve the
argument between these opposing points of view by examining the politics of
protection in the Gulf.

3. The Study’s Approach

The history of Anglo–Arab relations in the Gulf has been overshadowed by
the general assumption that all the Anglo–Arab treaties were imposed by
Britain. Lorimer and Kelly have rationalized the imposition as necessary acts of
benevolence; Sultan al-Qasimi and others have described it as imperialistic
domination. This study challenges the assumption of imposition by considering
Britain’s presence in the Gulf from the perspective of the nineteenth-century
Gulf Arab rulers. It draws on a number of historical, political and anthropo-
logical studies of Eastern Arabia to define the political reality of these rulers and
their shaikhdoms. It examines the economic, military and social foundations of
Gulf rulership to show how Eastern Arabian politics were shaped by the ever-
present need for protection and the Arabian custom of protection-seeking. That
Gulf rulers sought out protector-protégé relationships as a survival strategy is
apparent from the well-documented history of Bahrain, in this respect a typical
Gulf shaikhdom. The history of Bahrain’s involvement with other regional
powers is the key to understanding Bahrain’s evolving relationship with Britain
and throws new light on the role of Britain in the Gulf in the nineteenth century.

4. The Economic Foundations of Rulership

Fierce competition between and within ruling families for control of the limited
economic resources in the Gulf created an atmosphere of uncertainty and in-
security.14 The possession of scarce resources carried with it the endless prob-
lem of protection. It created what one Gulf Resident described as ‘a condition
wherein every man’s hand was ever prone to be raised against his neighbour.’15

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JAMES ONLEY

As a result, the need for protection dominated and shaped regional politics more
than any other factor.
Eastern Arabia’s harsh environment constrained lucrative economic activity
along the coast to the exportation of pearls and dates, the importation of goods
from abroad, shipping, and ship-building.16 Economic activities of any note
were limited to twenty-five coastal towns—Kuwait, Qatif, Dammam (then on
Dammam Island), ‘Uqayr, Manamah, Muharraq, Zubarah, Khor Hassan (now
Khuwayr), Huwaylah, Bid‘ (now a district of Doha17), Wakrah, Abu Dhabi,
Dubai, Sharjah, ‘Ajman, Umm al-Qaiwain, Ras al-Khaimah, Rams, Dibba, Khor
Fakkan, Fujairah, Sohar, Matrah, Muscat and Sur—each of which had its own
cycle of prosperity and decline within the nineteenth century.18 Throughout the
nineteenth century, the majority of these towns were controlled by just three
ruling families: the Al Khalifah of Bahrain, the Qawasim of the Coast of Oman,
and the Al Bu Sa‘id of Muscat. The locations of the towns can be seen on
Map 1, below.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Bahrain competed with Kuwait as
Eastern Arabia’s second busiest port after Muscat. In the 1870s, under the
stability of Shaikh ‘Isa bin ‘Ali Al Khalifah’s rule (1869–1923), Bahrain rivalled
and then replaced Muscat in this regard. Writing in 1874, Lieutenant-Colonel
Edward Ross (Resident 1872–91) noted: ‘The chief ports and centres of trade
in the Gulf are Bushire, Lingah, Bundar Abbas, and Bahrein. Bahrein is con-
veniently situated to be an entrepôt for the Arabia trade and is much used as
such. The commercial importance of these islands is not inconsiderable. With
the exception of the Islands of Bahrein, the trade of the Arab ports is com-
paratively petty.’19 To illustrate Ross’ observation, compare Bahrain’s imports/
exports of 1874 with those of Muscat and the Trucial States in Table 1, below.20

Table 1. Bahrain, Muscat and Trucial States Imports/Exports during 1874.

Imports in 1874 Exports in 1874

Shaikhdom Rupees Pounds Rupees Pounds

Bahrain 3,144,295 314,429 2,952,650 295,265

Muscat 3,167,67221 316,767 1,623,02422 162,302
Trucial States23 2,276,500 227,650 1,364,500 136,450

Bahrain’s imports were virtually identical to Muscat’s, while its exports

nearly equalled those of the other seven states combined: Rs 2,987,524
(£298,752).24 Clearly, Bahrain’s function as an entrepôt was of considerable
importance to its economy.

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BASRAH
VILAYET Muhammarah Kerman
Basrah
7:53 am

Shiraz

Kuwait
Bushire
THE POLITICS
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PERSIA (IRAN)
FARS
OF

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Bandar ‘Abbas

35
C
O
A
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ISH STR

S
THE GULF Lingah QU

T
AIT

AM
Mughu Basidu H E N J
PROTECTION

BAHRAIN QAYS ISLAND

OF H

Ras Musandam MAKRAN COAST

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Rams Jask
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Abu Dhabi O TR
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OMAN

Map 1. The locations of towns of economic note.

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JAMES ONLEY

A shaikhdom’s most vulnerable source of income was its pearling fleets.

Before oil, the pearling industry was the Gulf’s largest single income source and
its biggest employer.25 The richest pearl banks in the Gulf were in Bahraini
waters. These yielded an estimated profit for Bahrain of Rs 4,000,000 in 1873
and Rs 16,100,000 in 1905.26 In the latter year, Bahrain’s pearling industry
employed 17,500 men—approximately 70 per cent of Bahrain’s male population
over the age of fourteen.27
It follows that the prosperity of a Gulf shaikhdom, and that of Bahrain
in particular, was linked to a ruler’s ability to safeguard his commercial ports
and surrounding waters. A further problem was the security of ships and
caravans travelling between a shaikhdom and distant markets. Rulers and
tribes who controlled the maritime and overland trade routes connecting Eastern
Arabia’s towns with distant markets often levied tolls on those who used
them in the form of ˙uwah (a ‘brotherhood fee’ for protection) or buwayzah
(a fee for free passage). A merchant who travelled along controlled routes
had to call at the principal towns of the controllers and pay a fee to guarantee
his safe passage.28 If he did not, and was subsequently intercepted by one
of the controller’s patrols, his ship or caravan would be raided. Such raids
could be fatal. Before the anti-piracy treaty of 1820, ships sailing through the
Gulf had to pay ˙uwah or buwayzah to the imams of Muscat29 (who con-
trolled the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz), the rulers of the Qasimi
empire (who controlled the lower Gulf between Lingah and Sharjah) and
the rulers of the Ka‘b (who controlled the sea route between Bushire and
Basra). The mainland equivalents of the maritime toll-collectors were the amirs
of Najd and Hasa and the amirs of Ha’il who controlled most of the over-
land trade routes of Eastern and Central Arabia in the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries.30 The ruling families of Kuwait, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and
Dubai did not control these routes and therefore rarely, if ever, engaged in
toll-levying.
Two other forms of raiding also threatened caravans and ships. Before the
Maritime Truce of 1835, all rulers, including those who did not control a trade
route, used privateers as well as their own military forces to engage in the
wartime raiding (gazu) of their enemies.31 As the amirs of Najd and Hasa—
political leaders of the Wahhabis (the Unitarian or Muwahhidun sect of Islam
founded by Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahhab)—regarded all non-Wahhabis as their
enemies, they engaged in gazu to a far greater extent than other Arab rulers and
repeatedly raided the coastal shaikhdoms overland throughout the nineteenth
century. Pearling fleets were the most vulnerable to gazu, as raiders always knew
where to find them. A successful raid on a pearling fleet could plunge a
shaikhdom into deep recession. The other form of raiding was piracy, in the
usual meaning of the term. To the British, the different kinds of maritime raiding

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

were all piracy. And it is apparent that they all interfered with the economic
well-being of the Gulf shaikhdoms.
While Gulf rulers profited directly from shipping and pearling through their
own extensive involvement in them, they also obtained revenue by taxing
subjects who engaged in these trades. The collection of taxes carried with it a
responsibility to protect the taxpayers.32 For general merchants and their cargo
fleets, taxes took the form of customs duties. For pearl merchants and their
pearling fleets, they took the form of a pearl-boat tax. In return for these taxes,
before the Maritime Truce, the rulers stationed war dhows in their ports and at
the pearling banks to provide protection. If a ruler could not protect his
merchants and their fleets (especially their pearling fleets) from raiding and
extortion, or if he made excessive financial demands on them, the merchants
would often migrate to other shaikhdoms.33 The threat of migration gave the
merchants some political leverage to limit the power of the rulers and discourage
them from levying an arbitrary general tax (known as vufah) or confiscating
their property.34 As Lieutenant Arnold Kemball (Assistant Resident 1841–52)
observed in 1845, ‘the loss of authority and revenue consequent on their
secession … act … as a salutary check on the tyranny and oppression of the
respective chiefs.’35 The option of migration was also exercised by tribes under
the rulers’ protection and control.36
The provision of protection could also generate revenue in the form of tribute
from submissive tribes (tribute relations will be discussed in more detail in
Section 7). The Al Khalifah of Bahrain collected tribute from a large number of
tribes in Qatar between the 1760s and 1860s. The amount of tribute they
received before the mid-nineteenth century is unknown, but by the 1860s they
were collecting Ks 9,000 (Rs 3,600) annually.37 This was not high by Arabian
standards; the Amir of Ha’il, for example, collected £40,000 (Rs 400,000) from
his dependants in 1876.38 Therefore, although there was a decline in status and
prestige when the Al Khalifah lost most of their tributary network in Qatar in
1871, Bahrain’s economy was not affected.
What clearly emerges from this overview of the Gulf shaikhdoms’ economy
is the high vulnerability of the main sources of income to raiding, the extent to
which raiding could interfere with the economic well-being of a shaikhdom, and
the resulting importance of protection. The next section examines how the Gulf
rulers were able to provide the necessary protection.

5. The Military Foundations of Rulership

Without military power, a ruler could not protect and maintain the economic
well-being and political integrity of his shaikhdom. Henry Rosenfeld has ob-
served in Arabia ‘an interlocking hierarchical social structure status-scale …

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JAMES ONLEY

based on military power and the ability to control certain territory and groups
and maintain independence from other groups.’39 In other words, the greater a
ruler’s military strength, the more territory and economic resources he could
control, and the higher his status in regional politics. Borders naturally fluctu-
ated according to rulers’ military abilities. If a ruler was succeeded by one of
significantly greater or lesser ability, there were often territorial consequences.
There are countless examples of village shaikhs asserting their independence
and of town rulers taking villages under their control.40 The majority of Gulf
Arab rulers lacked the resources they needed to guarantee the constant security
of their shaikhdoms. Their personal military forces were small, leaving the rulers
vulnerable to antagonistic regional powers, or alliances formed against them.41
In 1905, for example, Lorimer estimated the Al Khalifah to have 540 armed
retainers or fidawiyah (singular fidawi) in full-time service in Bahrain, only 200
of whom had rifles.42 Most were recruited from the Na‘im tribe in Qatar and the
Dawawdah clan of the Bani Khalid tribe in Hasa.43 Numbers were higher in the
years before British protection. In the late 1820s, for example, the British esti-
mated the Al Khalifah to employ around 1,100 fidawiyah and, in an emergency,
to have the potential of mustering a further 18–20,000 tribesmen capable of
bearing arms.44 Military forces in the full-time employ of Gulf rulers in the nine-
teenth century ranged in size from 200 to 2,000 men.45 All rulers relied upon
tribal alliances either to redress the balance when faced by a stronger enemy, or
to gain an advantage over an enemy of equal strength.46 The rulers of Bahrain,
for example, maintained an alliance with the Na‘im from c.1766 to 1937—the
Na‘im providing the Ruler with warriors in times of need, the Ruler providing
the Na‘im with reciprocal military support and subsidies to secure their
loyalty.47 Lorimer estimated the Na‘im to have, at most, 400 fighting men in
1905, of whom less than half were generally present in Bahrain at any one
time.48 Alliances did not always work, of course, nor did they always last. In
the ever-changing political environment of the Gulf, rulers were quick to seize
advantages and abandon liabilities with the result that alliances themselves were
ever-shifting.49 One’s allies were often fair weather friends. The consistent
loyalty of the Na‘im to the Al Khalifah was quite exceptional, as was the
enduring friendship of the Al Sabah—the only branch of the ‘Utub tribal con-
federation, to which the Al Khalifah belonged, never to take up arms against
the rulers of Bahrain.

6. The Social Foundations of Rulership

Money and arms enabled a shaikh to rise above the position of tribal leader and
become a ruler, but he could not do this without first securing: (1) support from
family members; (2) approval from the affluent merchants and leaders of tribal

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

sections; and (3) legitimacy in the eyes of his people. The first two conditions
are self-explanatory, so attention here will be given mainly to legitimacy.50
A ruler normally gained legitimacy through his own personal attributes and
through observing the social obligations of rulership. Harold Dickson identifies
four social foundations of rulership in his celebrated Arab of the Desert
(1949).51
The first consisted of the ruler’s personal attributes. He is expected to be a
wise, eloquent, persuasive, able and courageous leader. As Paul Harrison puts
it: ‘The ablest ruler is the man wanted and the one who is eventually secured.’52
But these qualities alone are not enough. To be a successful ruler, a shaikh must
have hazz (luck). In the highly adversarial environment of the Gulf, a ruler’s
hazz was considered essential for a tribe’s prosperity. ‘The Badawin has no use
for a man having courage and leadership in plenty if hadh is lacking’, notes
Dickson. ‘A lucky general is what the tribesman wants in war, and, still more
important, he wants a lucky shaikh in peace, for to him the whole daily round
and welfare of the tribe is bound up in this word hadh.’53 If a ruler could
guarantee victory on the battlefield, his subjects would place great confidence
in him as a protector. Conversely, a ruler unlucky in war would soon find
himself without allies. Beyond this, a shaikh’s rulership also depended upon his
respect for the opinion of the important and influential men who commanded
large political followings within his shaikhdom. A ruler always had the option
of imposing his will, but this undermined his influence and legitimacy. He would
quickly lose the support and loyalty of his most important followers. A ruler
must consult with those who matter, therefore, before undertaking a new policy
or embarking on a course of action. Once a decision was reached, however,
leadership lay with the ruler. So long as the ruler adheres to the conditions of
the decision, his orders must be obeyed.54
The second requirement is that a ruler is expected to be a ‘father to his
people’, with all the responsibilities that entails.55 For the majority of his
subjects, these responsibilities originate from the payment and collection of tax
or tribute. When a person pays tax to his ruler, that ruler becomes responsible
for his protection (physically as well as diplomatically) from all quarters, as if
he were the payer’s father. Likewise, the ruler is expected to know his people
as if they were his own family.56 At least this is the ideal against which his
rulership is measured. The payer-payee relationship will be discussed in more
detail in Sections 7–9.
The third requirement, and related to the second, is that a ruler is expected to
keep an open house. As a ‘father’ of his people, he must be accessible to them.57
This is the purpose of the ruler’s majlis, a regular, often daily, council held at
his residence. The practice is comparable to the European custom of holding
court, except that majlis is informal and access is unrestricted. Literally anyone

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JAMES ONLEY

with an enquiry, a request, or a case may attend majlis to present it to the ruler.58
Once he has settled a case, the ruler is also responsible for its enforcement.59
The position of arbiter is a prestigious one in Arabian society. The settling of
cases reinforces a ruler’s legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects.60
The fourth requirement, and related to the third, is that a ruler is expected to
be generous.61 Tremendous importance is attached to a ruler’s reputation for
generosity. The greater his generosity, the greater his popularity, the greater his
legitimacy, and the greater his influence.62 The obligation to hold an open house
placed the ruler in the additional role of host (mudayyif ). Dickson notes that ‘a
guest (dayf ) is a very sacred person indeed, and the unwritten laws of hospit-
ality lay down that such a person … be entertained, fed and looked after in a
fitting manner, and to the best of the host’s power.’63 A mudayyif was also oblig-
ated to protect his dayf and treat him with honour and respect.64 Understandably,
it is important for the ruler of a shaikhdom to be known as its most generous
host. A ruler must hold feasts, distribute gifts, and grant favours to those who
visit him. This belief is reflected in a saying of the Shammar tribe of Najd:
al-amir sayf wa mansaf (the amir is someone who owns a sword and gives
food), meaning the true ruler is someone who commands coercive force and
is generous.65 ‘No name has a more unworthy meaning’, explains Dickson,
‘or leaves a nastier taste in the mouth of the Badawin, than the epithet bakhil,
or “stingy one”. Once this name bakhil sticks to a chief, his influence is at an
end.’66 As noted above, a ruler’s subjects expect assistance and protection in
return for their taxes. In return for assistance and protection, a ruler is entitled
to their loyalty.67 A ruler’s reputation for generosity counts most with those who
pay no tax: the shaikhs of his family and his tribal allies. In return for their
loyalty, he must spend lavishly on them, paying them salaries and subsidies.68
Madawi Al-Rasheed argues that rulers ‘maintained a tradition of subsidizing
these shaikhs through the continuous distribution of cash and gifts of rice,
coffee, sugar, camels, and weapons. These gifts acted as a bribe to maintain the
allegiance of the shaikhs, who remained to a great extent autonomous.’69 As
Lieutenant Arnold Kemball (Assistant Resident 1841–52) noted in 1845: ‘Of so
great importance is [the Bedouin tribes’] alliance or forbearance considered by
the maritime chieftains, that these … find it their best policy to conciliate them
by repeated and considerable presents.’70 Payments to secure loyalty accounted
for the majority of a ruler’s expenses, as is evident from the British estimate
from 1905 of the expenses of Shaikh ‘Isa bin ‘Ali of Bahrain (Ruler 1869–
1923) in Table 2, below.71 Most of the Rs 56,000 Shaikh ‘Isa spent on subsid-
ies and presents went to the Na‘im tribe. Colonel Edward Ross (Resident
1872–91) observed in 1877 that, ‘were he to offend the Naim by withholding
presents or preventing their visiting Bahrein, the result would probably be that
they would unite with the Beni Hajir in forming a hostile coalition against

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Table 2. British estimate from 1905 of the expenses of Shaikh ‘Isa bin ‘Ali of Bahrain
(Ruler 1869–1923)

Expenses Portion Rupees Pounds

personal expenses (including salaries of fidawiyah) 33.3% Rs 100,000 £ 6,666

family allowances to the Al Khalifah 33.3% Rs 100,000 £ 6,666
subsidies and presents to bedouin 18.7% Rs 56,000 £ 3,733
special expenses (marriages, journeys, etc.) 10.0% Rs 30,000 £ 2,000
administration expenses 4.7% Rs 14,000 £ 933

100% Rs 300,000 £20,000

him.’72 Without payments, the Shaikh could not have obtained the one hundred
armed retainers ( fidawiyah) from the Na‘im he employed that year.73 Money
enabled a ruler to reward or bribe people for their loyalty, most importantly his
fidawiyah, who enforced his will, and his fellow shaikhs.
The principal difference between the leading shaikh of a tribe and the ruling
shaikh of a shaikhdom was the latter’s command of fidawiyah. While both
shaikhs had authority derived from their leadership qualities and social status,
only the latter had the coercive power to collect taxes and tribute, enforce
laws, and punish criminals.74 Both led, but only the latter ruled. Only the latter
had the ability to control enough people and territory to constitute a shaikhdom
or amirate. The key to rulership was the consistent loyalty of one’s people, but
even the ablest leader could not secure this without money. That no shaikh could
rule his people without a command of economic power explains why all ruler-
ships were town-based, at the heart of economic activity in the Gulf.75 A town
fort, therefore, symbolized both control of a town and the rulership of a shaikh.
It also symbolized the difference between a ruler of a shaikhdom and a leader
of a tribe, who lived in a tent. Peter Lienhardt explains that, ‘when rulers have
been overthrown, the seizing of the fort has often been the main stepping stone
to power.’76 The British, too, drew upon the symbolism of forts to great effect.
If a ruler seriously breached the terms of the General Treaty or Maritime Truce
and then ignored the Resident’s instructions for reparation, the Resident usually
threatened to bombard the ruler’s fort. In the rare instances when the Resident
was forced to follow through on his threat, the ruler suffered a powerful blow
to his rulership. In the case of Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah of Bahrain
(Ruler 1843–68), it symbolized the end of his rulership.
The rulers, Peter Lienhardt tells us, ‘held their power in order to do a job for
the people, keeping order and managing defence, and were not there either
by any absolute right or by brute force’.77 Nor were they ‘regarded as being

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indispensable for the conduct of the affairs of their people’.78 Therefore a ruler
who ignored his social obligations, or fulfilled them poorly, risked both the loss
of important and affluent members of his shaikhdom to migration and the loss
of his rulership to a rival member of his family.79

7. The Collection and Payment of Tribute

Sections 4–6 have explained the economic, military and social foundations of
rulership, the causes of regional instability, and a shaikhdom’s ever-present need
for protection. This, and the remaining sections, examine the implications these
factors had for the regional political system and for Britain’s involvement in
the Gulf.
If a ruler faced the impending attack of a much stronger enemy, he would
typically seek the protection of a regional power to ward off the threat. These
protectors gave guarantees of defence in return for subservience or the relin-
quishment of some degree of independence. The protégé’s payment of tribute
symbolized this and had a transforming effect.80 The protector regarded his
tributary as a part of his own tribe.81 Similarly, the protector regarded his tribu-
tary’s territory as his territory, but with one important distinction. The protector
considered such land, especially if it was at some distance from his shaikhdom,
to be a ‘dependency’ rather than a part of his shaikhdom. The protector usually
left the governing of his dependency to the local ruler or tribal leader who
had submitted to his authority.82 When he did, the only noticeable difference
between an independent shaikhdom and a dependency apart from the tribute
payments was that the dependants or protégés owed allegiance to their protector
as if they were his own subjects. Indeed, he considered them his subjects.
Custom dictated the amount of tribute an individual protégé should pay his
protector, if he were to pay any at all.83 Custom did not dictate what a protégé
ruler should pay, however, although he was usually able to negotiate the
payment. If the parties failed to agree on the amount, they would often enlist a
neutral ruler to arbitrate. Tribute was normally paid annually and could take
many forms: a fixed sum of money; a share of the annual customs revenue; a
share of the agricultural produce (mainly dates); a certain number of horses,
camels, etc.; provision of men for military service; and even zakat (enjoined
Islamic alms that, in the Sunni interpretation, Muslim officials normally collect
from Muslim subjects).84 Tribute was typically imposed as ˙uwah. In its original
form, ˙uwah was a ‘brotherhood fee’ paid voluntarily by the weak to the strong
in return for protection.85 The protector became, in effect, his protégé’s big
brother, with all the responsibilities that entailed.
A would-be attacker’s forceful imposition of ˙uwah as a ‘protection tax’
on an opponent, however, symbolized not brotherly relations but political

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

domination.86 Militarily-strong rulers would often threaten to attack weaker

rulers with the intention of tribute collection, not military conquest. The same
tactic was employed by those who controlled Arabia’s trade routes and imposed
tolls (often as ˙uwah) on those who used them. If the ruler of a shaikhdom,
captain of a ship, or leader of a caravan refused to pay tribute to a would-be
attacker, he risked military conquest or raiding. Payment in this context
depended largely upon the payer’s belief in the likelihood of attack. There
had to be a threat, or a perceived future threat; no threat, no tribute. From a
Western perspective this looked like extortion—an Arabian form of protection-
racketeering. But there was one important difference: the ‘extortionist’ assumed
responsibility for the complete protection of his ‘victim’. Where actual war was
involved, tribute could have the positive effect of transforming an adversarial
relationship into a protective one, and was the customary method of settling a
conflict. Paul Harrison observed in 1924 that ‘the amount of tribute extorted
is simply the measure of the balance reached between [the] two contending
forces.’87
Henry Rosenfeld tells us how a group’s increased power typically resulted in
‘increased tribute payments, tributary groups and honour’, while decreased
power meant ‘less ability to receive tribute, less recognition and, as the group
itself becomes tributary, [a] gradual reduction on the status scale of honour.’88
Madawi Al-Rasheed elaborates on this analysis:

The inter-connection between military power and economic power was a

cyclical process. The two factors, power and tribute, were interdependent; the
alteration of one factor automatically affected the other. The more power the
amirs had, the more they were able to collect tribute. Equally, more tribute
meant more power. The reverse of the cycle was also possible. Less military
power meant no effective control over trade, pilgrims, and subjects, conse-
quently, less tribute. Any decrease in tribute meant less subsidies, less loyalty,
and a diminished ability to invest in the means of coercion. As a result, the
amirs’ power would inevitably be affected and would tend to decrease.89

Tribute payment created what Rosenfeld calls the ‘web of overlordship and the
recognition of a hierarchy of dominance’ in Arabia.90 Personal honour and status
relations were at the centre of Arabian politics in the nineteenth century, as they
are today. Just as one speaks of ‘status relations’ and not ‘class relations’ at the
personal level in Arabia,91 so are regional relations a reflection of status rela-
tions between rulers vis-à-vis their military power. Iraq’s financial demands on
Kuwait in the months preceding the August 1990 invasion, for example,
resemble the familiar pattern of tribute-collection followed by Gulf Arab rulers
in the nineteenth century.

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JAMES ONLEY

8. The Al Khalifah’s Tribute Relations

The long history of the Al Khalifah’s tribute relations with the imams of Muscat
and the amirs of Najd, and with their own dependent tribes in Qatar, illustrates
the centrality of the tribute system in Arabian power politics. It also provides
the best context for understanding how their political relations with the British
Government evolved into a protégé-protector relationship.92
The Al Khalifah had an extensive tributary network in Qatar (see Table 3,
below). The Al Khalifah collected tribute from these tribes, but often had to pay
tribute themselves to the imams of Muscat or the amirs of Najd.

Table 3. The Al Khalifah’s dependants and dependencies in Qatar,

c.1766–187193

Tribes Locations

Al Bu ‘Aynayn Bid‘, Huwaylah, Ruways, Fuwayrit

and Wakrah?94
‘Abman Bid‘ and Wakrah
Al Bin ‘Ali Fuwayrit, Huwaylah and Bid‘
‘Amamarah Bid‘? and Wakrah?
Kalb Huwaylah
Kibisah Khor Hassan
Al Bu Kuwarah Sumaysimah, Fuwayrit, Huwaylah,
Ruways, Abu Zuluf and Da‘a’in?
Ma‘adid (Al Thani) Fuwayrit, Bid‘, Wakrah? and Lusayl?
Mahandah Khor Vaqiq? and Îa˙irah?
Manana‘ah Abu Zuluf
Al Musallam Huwaylah, Bid‘, Fuwayrit? and Wakrah?
Na‘im 1 interior of eastern and northern Qatar
Na‘im 2 interior of western Qatar and Zubarah
Sadah Ruways
Sudan Bid‘ and Fuwayrit

In 1799, the Imam of Muscat, Sayyid Sultan (1792–1804), attacked Bahrain

on the pretext that Bahraini ships were failing to pay him ˙uwah or buwayzah
for their passage through the Strait of Hormuz. The Al Khalifah managed to
repel his attack.95 In 1800, he threatened another attack, this time demanding
that the Al Khalifah pay him tribute. The Rulers of Bahrain, Shaikhs Salman
bin Ahmad (1796–1825) and ‘Abd Allah bin Ahmad Al Khalifah (1796–1843),
initially sought the protection of the Persian Governor of Bushire, but this came
to nothing. Eventually the Rulers yielded to Sayyid Sultan and agreed to pay
him tribute. Within the year, however, they repudiated the agreement. Soon

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

after, Sayyid Sultan made good his threat and attacked Bahrain with the assist-
ance of the Governor of Bushire, forcing the Al Khalifah to escape to Zubarah
and Kuwait. Before Sayyid Sultan returned to Muscat, he installed his twelve-
year-old son, Salim, as Governor of Bahrain and placed a garrison at ‘Arad Fort
on Muharraq Island. The Rulers turned to the Wahhabi Amir of Najd, ‘Abd
al-‘Aziz bin Muhammad Al Su‘ud (1765–1803), for assistance to regain Bahrain.
The Amir agreed, but only if they paid him tribute and recognized his authority.
They accepted the Amir’s terms and the next year they successfully retook
Bahrain with Wahhabi assistance. One of the conditions of the arrangement,
however, was that Zubarah would be given over to the Wahhabis and that the
Rulers of Bahrain would send members of their families to reside in the town
as a guarantee for their loyalty.
The Al Khalifah continued with this arrangement and paid tribute to the
Wahhabis until 1805, when they sought the protection of the new Imam of
Muscat, Sayyid Badr bin Saif Al-Bu-Sa‘id (r. 1804–7), to throw off the Wahhabi
yoke. Sayyid Badr arrived at Zubarah with a war fleet to protect the Rulers while
they evacuated their families to Bahrain. The Rulers then proposed to Captain
David Seton (British Resident in Muscat, 1800–09) that they and Sayyid Badr
would be able to keep the Wahhabis at bay in the Gulf if the British Government
of Bombay would promise the occasional assistance of one or two British
gunboats. This was the first recorded instance of the Al Khalifah requesting
British protection. Seton forwarded their proposal with his favourable recom-
mendation in the light of the Government’s anti-Wahhabi stance. The Governor
of Bombay rejected the request, however, not wanting to become involved in
the political affairs of Bahrain. It would be another thirty-four years before the
British began to respond favourably to the Al Khalifah’s requests for protection.
Their request refused, the Al Khalifah continued to pay Sayyid Badr tribute until
the following year, when they were able to repudiate their agreement with him
and reassert their independence.
In 1809, a powerful enemy and former ally of the Al Khalifah, Shaikh
Rahmah bin Babir, Ruler of the Al Balahimah, allied himself with the Amir of
Najd, Su‘ud bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al Su‘ud (1803–14), so as better to pursue his
vendetta against the Al Khalifah. Later that year, the Wahhabis occupied
Zubarah. The next year, Amir Su‘ud and Shaikh Rahmah sent a fleet of forty
dhows to Bahrain and captured the island. Amir Su‘ud installed a garrison at
‘Arad Fort on Muharraq Island and summoned the Rulers of Bahrain to either
Dar‘iyyah or Riyadh (accounts differ), where they were detained as hostages.96
Amir Su‘ud then appointed a wakil (agent), ‘Abd Allah bin ‘Ufaysan, to super-
vise the government of Bahrain, Zubarah and Qatif. Members of the Al Khalifah
were appointed governors of Bahrain and Zubarah and made to pay tribute to
the wakil. Shaikh ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Ravid Al Khalifah, a cousin of the two

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exiled Rulers, escaped to Muscat and asked Sayyid Sa‘id bin Ahmed Al-Bu-
Sa‘id (r. 1807–56) for assistance. The following year, in 1811, Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Rahman returned to Bahrain with a military force led by the Imam. The force
inflicted a serious naval defeat on the Al Balahimah, captured the wakil and
expelled the Wahhabi garrison from Bahrain.97 Amir Su‘ud later permitted the
two Rulers to return to Bahrain after they had sworn allegiance to him.98
Upon their return to Bahrain, the Rulers resumed their tribute payments to the
Imam of Muscat for five years, until 1816, when they again sought Wahhabi
protection and a military alliance with the Qawasim to throw off the hold of
Muscat for a fifth time. Shaikh Rahmah Al Balahimah then sought the pro-
tection of Sayyid Sa‘id so as to be able to resume his vendetta against the
Al Khalifah. Later that year, Sayyid Sa‘id and Shaikh Rahmah attacked Bahrain,
but the Al Khalifah succeeded in repelling them with the support of the Wah-
habis and the Qawasim. The Qawasim were Wahhabi dependants at the time
and therefore an ally of the Al Khalifah. The following years did not fare well
for the Al Khalifah’s protector and ally, however. In 1817, Wahhabi forces
withdrew from the Gulf to battle an invading Egyptian army in Najd. They did
not return to the Gulf in force until the late 1820s. In December 1819, the British
launched their anti-piracy expedition against the Qawasim, destroying much of
the Qasimi fleet by early January 1820.
Sayyid Sa‘id took advantage of this turn of events and threatened to attack
Bahrain in January 1820. The Al Khalifah, without protectors or allies, had no
choice but to offer full submission. They agreed to pay MTD (Maria Theresa
Dollars) 30,000 in tribute annually to the Imam, on condition that he release the
prisoners and property he had captured from the Al Khalifah. The parties asked
the Bushire Resident, Captain William Bruce (1804–22), to guarantee the agree-
ment, but he refused. It would be many years before the Resident would finally
agree to play the role of guarantor in the Gulf. The parties went ahead with the
agreement, but the Al Khalifah paid only MTD 12,000 of the tribute before
they, once again, repudiated the agreement the following year. In 1822, Sayyid
Sa‘id again prepared to attack Bahrain, but the Governor of Bombay sent letters
to both parties urging them to settle the matter peacefully. He suggested that
the Al Khalifah should pay the tribute only if it had been a regular and long-
established custom, otherwise Sayyid Sa‘id should withdraw his demands.
Sayyid Sa‘id called off his attack. In 1823, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah (Ruler 1796–
1843) asked Captain John MacLeod (Resident 1822–23), during his visit to
Bahrain, if the General Treaty of 1820, which the Shaikh had signed three
years before, entitled him to British protection. MacLeod informed him that it
did not.
In 1828, a rumour spread that Sayyid Sa‘id was once again preparing to attack
Bahrain. When Captain David Wilson (Resident 1827–31) questioned Sayyid

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Sa‘id about this, he denied it and even sent presents to the Rulers of Bahrain.
Shaikh ‘Abd Allah was suspicious and asked Wilson to intervene, but he
declined, not wanting to become unnecessarily involved in Bahraini affairs. In
October, Sayyid Sa‘id launched his attack on Bahrain, joined by a force led by
Shaikh Tahnun bin Va˙but Al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi (Ruler 1818–33). The
Al Khalifah managed to rout the combined force, however, and Sayyid Sa‘id
narrowly escaped with his life. Shaikh ‘Abd Allah again addressed Captain
Wilson, complaining that Shaikh Tahnun had broken the terms of the General
Treaty of 1820 and requesting his intervention. Wilson again declined the
Shaikh’s request, pointing out that the treaty banned only piracy, not open and
declared warfare. It would be another seven years before the trucial system
(1835–1971) banned maritime warfare between its members, and another thirty-
three before Bahrain joined it.
The following year, in 1829, Sayyid Sa‘id sent out hints that he intended to
launch yet another attack on Bahrain (the seventh Muscati attack since 1799).
At this point, Captain Wilson offered to mediate between the two parties. This
is the first recorded instance of the Gulf Resident offering to play such a role in
regional politics, a role he would come to play more frequently as the century
progressed. Both sides readily accepted Wilson’s offer, but the negotiations
came to a standstill when Wilson rejected Shaikh ‘Abd Allah and Sayyid Sa‘id’s
condition that he guarantee any settlement they agreed upon. Eventually, the
Ruler of Bushire, Shaikh Muhammad bin Nasir al-Ma∂kur, mediated a peace
settlement among Sayyid Sa‘id, Shaikh Tahnun of Abu Dhabi and Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah, guaranteeing the peace between them. Sayyid Sa‘id dropped his demands
for tribute, in return for which all three parties agreed not to interfere in the
affairs of the others and to come to each other’s aid if attacked by a fourth party.
Sayyid Sa‘id and his successors never reasserted their tributary claims over
Bahrain again.
In 1830, the Amir of Najd and Hasa, Turki bin ‘Abd Allah Al Su‘ud
(1823–34), demanded that Shaikh ‘Abd Allah pay him zakat plus an additional
MTD 40,000 as compensation for horses supposedly left behind in Bahrain
when the Wahhabis had withdrawn from the Gulf thirteen years before. Amir
Turki also demanded that the Shaikh surrender the fort on Dammam Island,
which the Al Khalifah had captured from the Al Balahimah in 1826. Shaikh
‘Abd Allah immediately sent word to Captain Wilson in Bushire, requesting his
mediation and protection, but Wilson refused the Shaikh’s request. Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah then sent a wakil to Amir Turki in Riyadh to negotiate a settlement. Shaikh
‘Abd Allah agreed to pay zakat and acknowledge his overlordship in return for
the Amir’s promise to protect Bahrain. He refused to surrender the fort,
however, because of the Amir’s intention to hand it over to Shaikh Rahmah
Al Balahimah’s son, Bavir, who was then a Wahhabi protégé. The Amir dropped

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JAMES ONLEY

the issue of Dammam in consideration of the Shaikh’s submission and settled

Shaikh Bavir on neighbouring Tarut Island opposite Qatif instead. This naturally
aroused Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s suspicions.
In 1833, Shaikh Bavir threw off his allegiance to the Wahhabi Amir and
sought the protection and assistance of Sayyid Sa‘id in Muscat to further his
vendetta against the Al Khalifah. In 1834, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah renounced his
allegiance to the Amir and blockaded the Wahhabi ports of Qatif and ‘Uqayr,
on the shore opposite Bahrain, and occupied Tarut Island. In May, the Shaikh’s
nephew and co-Ruler, Shaikh Khalifah bin Salman (1825–34), died. Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah prevented Shaikh Khalifah’s son, Muhammad, from taking his father’s
place and assumed the sole rulership of Bahrain. But Shaikh ‘Abd Allah was a
weak Ruler. His governors, all sons and near relations, flouted his authority.
Soon their misgovernment and abuses began to unsettle the shaikhdom and its
dependencies. Things had deteriorated so much by 1836 that Shaikh ‘Abd Allah
took the unusual step of informing the head of the merchant community of
Manamah, in the presence of the Resident’s Native Agent in Bahrain, Hajji
Muhammad ‘Ali Safar (1833–42), that he could no longer protect the merchants
or provide them with redress. A rapid depopulation of merchants followed and
the shaikhdom’s economy declined. These factors seriously undermined the
economic and social foundations of the Al Khalifah’s power and influence. That
year, the Persian Prince-Governor of Fars, in Shiraz, took advantage of the
deteriorating situation and threatened to attack Bahrain unless Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah acknowledged Persian authority and paid him tribute. Unable to organize
a united front to this new threat, the Shaikh had no option but to return, for a
fifth time, to the Wahhabi fold for protection. Amir Faysal bin Turki Al Su‘ud
(1834–37, 1843–65) promised to supply troops for the protection of Bahrain in
return for Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s submission, payment of a nominal tribute of
MTD 2,000, and termination of his blockade of Qatif and ‘Uqayr.
In 1837, Wahhabi influence again receded from the Gulf in the face of yet
another Egyptian army and Shaikh ‘Abd Allah ceased to pay tribute. By January
1839, the Egyptian army had occupied the principal ports and towns of Hasa.
The Commander of the army, Khurshid Pasha, immediately despatched a wakil
to Bahrain to tell Shaikh ‘Abd Allah that he was expected to pay Khurshid the
tribute he had previously paid the Wahhabi Amir of Najd and Hasa. The Shaikh
declared he could not do this because he was under Persian protection. He then
sent a letter to the Prince-Governor of Fars in Shiraz asking for his protection
and stating that he was willing to pay tribute. The Prince-Governor soon sent a
wakil to Bahrain to present the Shaikh with a ˙il‘ah (robe of honour) and to
collect the tribute he had been promised. By this time, however, it had become
clear to Shaikh ‘Abd Allah that the Persians did not have the naval force
necessary to protect Bahrain. The Shaikh changed his mind and paid Khurshid

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the MTD 2,000 in tribute he had demanded. The tribute payments lasted only
two years, however, for the Egyptian army withdrew from Hasa the following
summer.
In 1842, civil war broke out between two factions of the Al Khalifah in
Bahrain. The following year, in 1843, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah was ousted from his
rulership by his great-nephew, Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah (Ruler
1843–68), whom he had prevented from assuming the joint rulership of Bahrain
seven years before. The same year, Amir Faysal returned to power after the
Egyptian withdrawal from Arabia. He called upon the new Ruler of Bahrain to
acknowledge Wahhabi authority for a sixth time and to resume tribute payments,
with arrears. Shaikh Muhammad agreed to the Amir’s demand, but subsequently
failed to deliver up the tribute. After two years of non-payment, the Wahhabis
had had enough. When Shaikh ‘Abd Allah turned to the Wahhabis in 1845 to
help him regain his rulership of Bahrain, they supported his cause. In October,
the Wahhabi Governor of Qatif began preparing for an attack on Bahrain in
conjunction with Shaikh ‘Abd Allah. However, Shaikh Muhammad discovered
the plan and placed Qatif and ‘Uqayr under blockade. The Governor of Qatif
asked the Resident, Major Samuel Hennell (1838–41, 1843–52), for assistance,
threatening to resort to piracy if he did not. Hennell responded by despatching
two gunboats to Qatif as a warning to the Governor.99
In October 1846, the Governor of Qatif asked Hennell for permission to call
upon the rulers of the Coast of Oman to assist him against Shaikh Muhammad,
but Hennell refused his request, explaining that the rulers were prevented by
the Maritime Truce from waging war by sea. The following month, Shaikh
Muhammad made a similar request to Hennell, which was likewise refused.100
The blockade continued, therefore, until early 1847, when one of Shaikh
Muhammad’s allies, the ‘Amayr tribe, left him and went over to the Wahhabis.
This tipped the balance in favour of the Wahhabis and Shaikh Muhammad
decided to enter into negotiations. In August he agreed to acknowledge Amir
Faysal’s authority for a seventh time and pay MTD 4,000 (approximately
Rs 8,000)101 annually as zakat, in return for which Amir Faysal promised not to
aid and abet Shaikh ‘Abd Allah and his sons (then residing on Wahhabi-
controlled Dammam Island) in their bid to retake Bahrain. He also promised to
refrain from attacking Shaikh Muhammad’s tribal dependants in Qatar. The
tribute Shaikh Muhammad collected from these tribes defrayed the cost of his
tribute to the Wahhabi Amir.
Angered by this arrangement, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah left Dammam, seeking
alliances elsewhere. He first sought the help of the Al Bin ‘Ali tribe and, later,
the Imam of Muscat. Twice, in May 1847 and again in February 1849, Shaikh
Muhammad asked Hennell for protection against attacks by Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah’s allies. The British Government refused both requests as it did not want

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to become unnecessarily entangled in Bahraini affairs. Shortly after Shaikh

Muhammad’s second request, however, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah died and with him
the principal threat to Shaikh Muhammad’s rulership.102
In 1850, Shaikh Muhammad stopped his tribute payments to Amir Faysal and
the Amir began to threaten Bahrain once more. This time, Shaikh Muhammad
opened correspondence with the Ottoman Sharif of Mecca, asking to be placed
under Ottoman protection and offering to pay tribute. In April 1851, Amir
Faysal occupied the Al Khalifah’s dependencies in eastern Qatar and sent
Shaikh Muhammad excessive demands for tribute. A few months later, the
dependent tribes renounced their allegiance to Shaikh Muhammad and joined
the Wahhabi fold. At this point, Shaikh Muhammad asked for Hennell’s
intervention, but Hennell replied that he could do nothing until he received
instructions from India. When Hennell learned of Shaikh Muhammad’s offer of
tribute to the Ottoman Porte the following month, however, he decided not to
wait. The British Government, he knew, would not welcome the establishment
of Ottoman authority over Bahrain, as this would inhibit the General Treaty’s
enforcement in Bahraini waters. In early July he sent the Gulf Squadron to
Bahrain with orders to defend the island from the Wahhabis, thus neutralizing
the Shaikh’s need for Ottoman protection. When the Squadron arrived at
Bahrain, Shaikh Muhammad came on board the Commander’s boat and ex-
pressed great satisfaction at the Squadron’s arrival to protect Bahrain.103 In
August, Hennell sent a letter to Amir Faysal warning him that the Gulf Squadron
would not permit him to invade Bahrain.104 A few weeks later, at Hennell’s en-
couragement, Shaikh Muhammad finally agreed to resume his tribute payments
of MTD 4,000 to the Amir. The Shaikh lifted his blockade of Qatif, Wahhabi
forces withdrew from Qatar and the Gulf Squadron departed Bahraini waters.105
Not long after Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s death in 1849, Shaikh Muhammad bin
Khalifah learned that the former Ruler’s eldest son, Muhammad bin ‘Abd Allah,
desired the rulership of Bahrain and was actively seeking support from Gulf
rulers towards this end. Thus, when Amir Faysal permitted Shaikh Muhammad
bin ‘Abd Allah and his brothers to settle within his domain on Dammam Island
in 1852, Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah was naturally alarmed. He complained
bitterly to the Amir and ceased his tribute payments in protest. The new Resid-
ent, Captain Arnold Kemball (1852–55), managed to persuade the Shaikh to
resume the payments, however, and the impending conflict was avoided.106 The
following year, the Shaikh appealed to the Imam of Muscat for support, but he
was not interested. The Shaikh then turned to the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt for
support. The Viceroy sent a wakil to Bahrain to discuss the situation, but nothing
came of it as the Viceroy was in no position to offer the Shaikh any material
assistance. The next year, in 1854, the Ottoman Mutasarrif (Governor) of Basra
informed the Shaikh that if he wished to place himself under Ottoman pro-

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tection, he should apply to him. Amir Faysal learned of the Shaikh’s activities
and punished him by launching an attack upon Bahrain in July, but the Shaikh’s
forces managed to repel the attack. In retaliation, Shaikh Muhammad sent his
fleet to blockade Dammam and Qatif. When Kemball learned of the attack, he
immediately set sail for Bahrain with the Gulf Squadron to prevent a second
assault. Over the following ten months, Kemball managed to mediate a settle-
ment between Shaikh Muhammad and Amir Faysal, whereby the Shaikh would
continue to pay the tribute, but Kemball refused to guarantee the settlement’s
enforcement personally. Despite this, the settlement lasted for four years.107
In 1859, Shaikh Muhammad again ceased his payments to Amir Faysal. That
summer the Amir gave instructions to Shaikh Muhammad bin ‘Abd Allah (still
residing on Dammam Island) and the Governor of Qatif to begin preparations
to invade Bahrain. In September, the Resident, Captain Felix Jones (1855–62),
heard of the impending invasion, wrote to the Amir to call off the attack and
sent some gunboats across to Bahrain. One of the gunboat commanders met
Shaikh Muhammad and warned him not to attack. The Shaikh replied that, since
Britain intended to defend Bahrain, he would call off the invasion. Despite the
Shaikh’s assurances, Jones recognized that the threat posed by the exiled Al
‘Abd Allah branch of the Al Khalifah to the Al Salman branch was undermining
regional stability. He accordingly recommended to his superiors in India that
Shaikh Muhammad bin ‘Abd Allah be declared an enemy of the peace and be
forbidden to reside any closer to Bahrain than Kuwait or the Persian coast. The
Government agreed with Jones’ recommendation and, in February 1860, author-
ized him to eject Shaikh Muhammad from Dammam, which he finally did in
November 1861.108
Despite Britain’s de facto assumption of responsibility for the defence of
Bahrain, Shaikh Muhammad remained unsatisfied. J.B. Kelly offers the most
plausible explanation for the Shaikh’s unhappiness:

Implicit in the protection afforded Muhammad ibn Khalifah by the British

Government against the Wahhabis was an understanding that he himself should
not disturb the peace of the Gulf, and, in particular, that he should do nothing
to provoke the Amir Faisal. This restraint on his conduct was not to Muhammad
ibn Khalifah’s taste: now that Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah and his followers at
Dammam had been rendered harmless by the British intervention of September
1859, Muhammad ibn Khalifah wanted to push his advantage to the limit and
crush the fugitives completely.109

This explains why Shaikh Muhammad subsequently tried to break free of his
commitments to his new-found protector by simultaneously seeking Persian and
Ottoman protection. In 1859, the Shaikh sent formal requests to the Prince-
Governor of Fars and the Ottoman Vali (Governor-General) of Baghdad to place

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Bahrain under the protection of their respective governments. The Persians

responded by sending a wakil to Bahrain in March 1860 to present the Shaikh
with a royal proclamation ( firman) and jewelled sword from the Shah, and a
robe of honour (˙il‘ah) from the Prince-Governor of Fars. Shaikh Muhammad
responded by publicly announcing Bahrain to be a dependency of Persia, raising
the Persian flag on his fort, and writing to the Shah and Prince-Governor
declaring his allegiance and promising to pay tribute. The following month,
however, an Ottoman wakil arrived from Baghdad. The Shaikh told him he had
already declared his allegiance to the Shah, but would renounce it if the Ottoman
Porte could offer him better terms and greater protection than Persia. After two
days of negotiations, the Ottoman wakil convinced the Shaikh that he had more
to gain by being an Ottoman subject. The Shaikh accordingly renounced his
allegiance to the Shah, hauled down the Persian flag on his fort, raised the
Ottoman flag, and presented the wakil with a letter for the Vali of Baghdad
promising to pay MTD 7,000 in tribute annually. The Ottoman wakil then
returned to Baghdad. The Persian wakil refused to acknowledge the Shaikh’s
change of allegiance, however, and remained in Bahrain. As both wakils had
been unaccompanied by military force, Jones ignored Shaikh Muhammad’s
double dealings, regarded Bahrain as still independent and continued to hold the
Shaikh to his treaty commitments to the British Government.110
During this time, Shaikh Muhammad also tried to release himself from the
restrictions of British protection by violating the norms of behaviour expected
of a protégé: he began insulting Jones; insulting and threatening Jones’ Native
Agent in Bahrain, Hajji Jasim (1842–62); bullying and extorting money from
the British-Indian merchant community in Manamah; and raiding ships at Qatif
and Dammam in open defiance of the General Treaty. In response, Jones
despatched a gunboat to lie at anchor off the coast of Bahrain throughout the
summer and autumn as a check on the Shaikh’s activities.111 In early May 1861,
Shaikh Muhammad intensified his efforts. He blockaded Qatif and Dammam
and increased his raiding of local shipping. He also increased his oppression of
the British Indian merchant community, forcing many to flee. His fidawiyah
harassed, insulted and threatened Hajji Jasim.112
When Jones heard of these recent developments, he sailed to Bahrain with the
full Gulf Squadron. He arrived on 18 May and immediately sent a letter to the
Shaikh reminding him of his commitments under the General Treaty of 1820,
demanding that he call off the blockade, and assuring him that the Gulf
Squadron would protect Bahrain against a Wahhabi invasion.113 The Shaikh
consulted the Persian wakil, asking if the Persian Government was willing to
help him resist the British. The wakil lied, telling him that a French warship
was on its way to support him. Encouraged, the Shaikh chose to wait for the
arrival of the ship, to continue his blockade and raiding, and to ignore Jones.

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Jones waited patiently for a week, during which time he had two meetings
with the Ruler’s brother and Governor of Manamah, Shaikh ‘Ali bin Khalifah
(c.1843–68). During these meetings, the Shaikh explained to Jones that ‘Pro-
tection is imperative.’ It was the Al Khalifah’s paramount concern. That said,
he disliked his brother’s association with the Persians, believing it to be counter-
productive.114 After eight days of waiting, Jones instructed the Squadron
Commander to take action.115 On 28 May, Jones directed his Native Agent and
all British-Indian subjects, whose protection he was responsible for, to evacuate
Bahrain and warned Shaikh Muhammad against pillaging the possessions
they left behind.116 During the evacuation, however, the Shaikh’s men seized
and threatened the nakhodahs (skippers) of the dhows taking the Indians to
safety.117 The Squadron Commander responded quickly by seizing two of
Shaikh Muhammad’s war dhows blockading Qatif. This had the desired effect:
the Shaikh capitulated and later withdrew his blockade.
Jones realized that the only way to hold the Shaikh to his treaty commitments
to the British Government in future would be to allow Bahrain to become a
member of the Perpetual Maritime Truce. He believed the reasons for previously
excluding Bahrain to be ‘scarcely valid’. The exclusion of Bahrain from the
Truce, ‘has been highly detrimental to our policy for some time past. Treaties
though not infallible with Arab tribes, no more than with other nations, have
with them an importance which it is unwise to neglect.’118 He accordingly drew
up a Friendly Convention binding the Shaikh to abstain from all maritime
warfare on condition of protection from similar aggressions. The Convention
further provided for the protection of British subjects in Bahrain from attack and
extortion.119 He summoned Shaikh ‘Ali aboard his ship and presented him with
the Convention, which the Shaikh delivered to Shaikh Muhammad and the
elder shaikhs of the Al Khalifah for their consideration. The elders and Shaikh
‘Ali expressed ‘great satisfaction’ with the Convention and Shaikh Muhammad
‘observe[d] nothing but what is right and just for the interests of all parties’.120
They signed the Convention on 31 May 1861, making Bahrain a British-
protected state. After the signing, Jones returned one of Shaikh Muhammad’s
dhows, but retained the other as a guarantee for future behaviour.121
As Bahrain could be defended by naval means alone, its incorporation into
the trucial system was to have two serious consequences. The first was for the
Al Khalifah’s tributary relations with the tribes of Qatar. Although their depend-
ants were also now subject to the trucial system, Qatar could not be defended
solely by sea. Jones therefore encouraged Shaikh Muhammad to keep paying
tribute to Amir Faysal to secure Qatar from mainland attack, which he did. What
Shaikh Muhammad does not seem to have realised, however, is that British
maritime protection of his dependants included protection from maritime
aggressions by him.

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The second consequence was for Shaikh Muhammad’s rulership. So long as

the British Government chose to extend its maritime protection to the Ruler’s
territorial possessions, the Ruler was obligated to abstain from maritime aggres-
sion. However, it was not a case of British protection lasting only so long as the
Ruler chose to observe the Truce. A treaty violation would not result in Britain
withdrawing its protection from the Ruler’s territory, although it might result in
Britain withdrawing its protection from the Ruler. The British Government made
its conditional protection of the Ruler’s position quite clear to Shaikh Muham-
mad’s successors, as typified by this policy statement from 1874: ‘so long as
[the Chief of Bahrein] adheres to his Treaty obligations the British Government
will protect him: but if such protection is to be accorded him, he must not be
the aggressor, or undertake measures which will involve him in complications.’122
These consequences of the trucial system did not became apparent until 1867,
when a dispute erupted between the Al Khalifah and their dependants over the
amount of tribute they were asked to pay. The Governor in Wakrah, Shaikh
Ahmad Al Khalifah, handled the situation badly and the tribes rebelled, forcing
him to flee with his family and belongings to Khor Hassan. The Governor
returned in October 1867 with the Ruler of Bahrain, the Ruler’s brother, Shaikh
‘Ali, and the Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Shaikh Zayid bin Khalifah Al-Nahyan (1855–
1909), at the head of a combined force of 3,700 armed men and 94 dhows.
They raided Wakrah, Bid‘, Doha and other ports, taking away an estimated
MTD 200,000 (Rs 400,000) in booty. The following June, the Qatari tribes
sailed to Bahrain to avenge the raid, but were intercepted off the northern Qatari
coast by a Bahraini war fleet. A bloody battle ensued in which around sixty
dhows were sunk and 1,000 men killed.
The Resident, Colonel Lewis Pelly (1862–72), naturally regarded these
conflicts as a gross violation of the Perpetual Maritime Truce. As the Govern-
ment of India had disbanded the Gulf Squadron (along with the Indian Navy)
four years previously, Pelly’s ability to enforce reparation was severely limited.
He attempted to do it through correspondence alone, but Shaikh Muhammad and
Shaikh Zayid evaded the issue, confident that Pelly could do nothing. In early
June 1868, nearly a year after the raid on Qatar, the Government of Bombay
finally promised to send three gunboats to the Gulf so Pelly could settle this
outstanding issue. In mid-August, shortly before the arrival of the gunboats,
Pelly sent the Rulers a verbal warning through their wakils at Bushire, which he
later repeated in a letter to Shaikh Muhammad:
you have mistaken the moderation and forbearance of the British Government
for an absence of force, and an inability to fulfil its functions as arbitrator of the
maritime truce. The British Indian Government have at length most reluctantly
found themselves compelled to resolve that your conduct calls for exemplary
punishment …123

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When Shaikh Muhammad received this warning, he fled to Khor Hassan to

escape punishment.
A few days later, when the gunboats arrived at Bushire, Pelly set sail for the
Arab coast, calling first at Wakrah and then at Bahrain. When Pelly arrived off
the coast of Muharraq on 6 September, he found Shaikh ‘Ali in temporary
charge of the shaikhdom. Shaikh ‘Ali sent a wakil to Pelly, informing him that
the treaty violations were entirely the fault of Shaikh Muhammad and that ‘there
was no alternative other than the ruin of [Bahrain], or the removal of Shaikh
Mahomed from power’.124 Later that day, Shaikh ‘Ali joined Pelly onboard ship
with an assembly of Bahrain’s senior shaikhs. They told Pelly that they con-
sidered Shaikh Muhammad to have forfeited his rulership and asked for time to
propose ‘an arrangement under which all the demands and interests could be
satisfied.’125 Pelly agreed and the shaikhs departed. After two days of consulta-
tions, they returned and handed Pelly the text of a declaration terminating
Shaikh Muhammad’s rulership and entrusting Shaikh ‘Ali to act in his place.126
It further stated that Shaikh ‘Ali would pay an initial fine of MTD 25,000
(Rs 50,000) and return all booty to Qatar. This would be followed by three
further annual payments of the same amount. All payments were to be given to
the victims of the raid. Pelly accepted the declaration, but insisted on the
destruction of Shaikh Muhammad’s fort (on a small island off the coast of
Muharraq) and his war dhows as a symbolic destruction of his rulership. Pelly
explains how he ‘took the Gunboats Clyde and Hugh Rose up the creek which
leads to Moharraq Fort, and, anchoring those vessels within 300 yards of the
walls, destroyed both fort and cannon, and burnt Mahomed’s three war craft
lying immediately under the walls of the fort.’ The fort, he discovered, ‘was of
solid stone and required considerable pounding from the 10-inch guns of
the Clyde and Hugh Rose’.127 In a further symbolic act, Pelly sent the Clyde
‘to lie at anchor under Shaikh Ali’s fort [in Manamah], thus affording him the
benefit of our moral support and recognition.’128
Pelly then departed with the two remaining gunboats, the Hugh Rose and
Vigilant, to meet with the Al Khalifah’s dependants at Qatar. He obtained from
them a promise to return to their former relations with the Al Khalifah. In an
effort to prevent future disputes, he then imposed a new tribute arrangement on
the Al Khalifah and their dependants—an arrangement which provides an inter-
esting example of how complex the tribute system could become. The shaikhs
of the Al Bu ‘Aynayn, Kalb, Al Bu Kuwarah, Ma‘adid (Al Thani), Mahandah,
Al Musallam, Na‘im and Sudan of eastern and northern Qatar were to pay
Ks 4,000 (Rs 1,600) to the Na‘im of western Qatar on behalf of Shaikh ‘Ali and
a further Ks 5,000 (Rs 2,000) to the Resident, who was to transmit it to Shaikh
‘Ali. The Ks 4,000 would keep the Na‘im loyal to Shaikh ‘Ali who, in turn,
would ensure that the Na‘im did not attack the tribes of eastern and northern

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Qatar. Shaikh ‘Ali was to hand over the Ks 5,000 he received to the Amir of
Najd and Hasa who, in turn, would promise not to attack the Al Khalifah’s
dependants in Qatar.129 Pelly’s imposed arrangement was fundamentally flawed,
however. The basis of tribute relations was a protector’s ability to both protect
and punish his protégés—an ability the Ruler of Bahrain now lacked because of
the Maritime Truce. The new arrangement would not last for long.
In December 1870, civil war broke out in the Amirate of Najd and Hasa.
The Amir, ‘Abd Allah bin Faysal Al Su‘ud, appealed to the Ottoman Vali of
Baghdad, Midhat Pasha, for help. In April 1871, Midhat Pasha sent a military
expedition to Hasa to restore order, declaring Hasa and Najd to be part of
the Ottoman Empire. By June, Ottoman forces were in control of Qatif and
Dammam. In early July, the Commander of the Ottoman expedition, Nafiz
Pasha, despatched a steamer to accompany the Ruler of Kuwait, ‘Abd Allah bin
Sabah Al Sabah (1866–92), to Bid‘ in order to persuade the Governor of Bid‘
to acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty. Shaikh ‘Abd Allah failed to persuade the
Governor, but he won over the Governor’s son, Shaikh Qasim bin Muhammad
Al Thani. Qasim was given four Ottoman flags. He raised one over his own fort
in Bid‘, sent a second to his father, a third to the Governor of Khor Vaqiq and
a fourth to the Governor of ‘Udayd. When their annual tribute to the Ruler of
Bahrain became due later that year, the tribal leaders withheld their payment.
The Al Khalifah were prevented from launching a punitive expedition against
their Qatari dependants by the Maritime Truce, but the Wahhabis were now free
to raid Qatar, which they soon did. In January 1872, Midhat Pasha despatched
an infantry battalion to Bid‘ to defend eastern Qatar and to establish a garrison.
After repulsing the Wahhabi raiders, the battalion re-embarked a few weeks
later, leaving behind a garrison of 100 troops with field guns.130 This marked
the end of the Al Khalifah’s tributary relations with eastern and northern Qatar
and soon threatened their tributary relations with western Qatar.
In July 1873, a rumour reached the Ruler of Bahrain, Shaikh ‘Isa bin ‘Ali
(1869–1923), that an Ottoman official had arrived in Zubarah with an escort of
100 soldiers and had asked the Shaikh of the branch of the Na‘im tribe living
there to become an Ottoman subject. The Resident, Colonel Edward Ross
(1872–91), sent his Assistant, Major Charles Grant, to investigate. Shaikh ‘Isa
told Grant that the Na‘im, as his subjects, were entitled to British protection
from the Ottomans. Grant discovered that the Ottoman visit had indeed taken
place, although he dismissed the alleged purpose of the visit as ‘mere coffee-
room gossip’.131 Nevertheless, the implications were clear. While Britain was
not obligated to protect the Ruler’s mainland dependencies from attack by land,
there would still be a serious risk of confrontation with the Ottoman authorities
if Britain acknowledged the Ruler’s right to protect the Na‘im. Deliberations
passed between India and Bushire on the issue. By the end of the year, the

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Indian Foreign Department, anxious to avoid such a confrontation, settled upon

a policy of denying recognition of these dependencies and of forbidding the
Ruler to defend them either militarily or politically.132
While the British Government would continue to defend Bahrain, it would
only support the Ruler’s position in Bahrain so long as he continued to observe
the treaties and uphold the Pax Britannica.133 Thus prevented from affording
protection to his dependants in western Qatar, the Ruler’s authority there
became merely nominal. In 1878, his enemies attacked Zubarah, destroying the
town and scattering its inhabitants. Had the Resident permitted the Ruler to
defend Zubarah, the town might have been saved and his authority preserved.
To bolster his authority and influence with the shaikhs of the Na‘im, the Ruler
increased his subsidies to their leading shaikhs. He continued to pay these
subsidies until 1937, when the Al Thani of eastern Qatar defeated the Na‘im
in battle, bringing the whole of Qatar under their control. The Na‘im migrated
to Bahrain soon after, thus bringing to a close 171 years of Al Khalifah
overlordship in Qatar.134

9. Protection-seeking and the Protector-protégé Relationship

Hitherto, historians have explained the relations between, and the protection-
seeking tactics of, the Gulf Arab rulers as a result of rational calculations of
self-interest and shrewd pragmatism. No historical explanation has yet taken
into account Arabian political culture. The tribute system of Eastern Arabia was
based upon the Arabian custom of protection-seeking. Its norms and obligations
and the resulting protector-protégé relationship provided the rulers with an
effective survival strategy in the face of Arabia’s ever-shifting power dynamics.
In so far as the need for protection weighed heavily upon the minds of the
rulers, these customary norms and obligations shaped the conduct of regional
relations—including, in time, Anglo–Arab relations.
As political relations between the shaikhdoms were really relations between
individual shaikhs, studies of protection-seeking customs at the individual level
are relevant to the study of regional political relations in the Gulf. Paul Dresch
has examined how protection operates on a personal level in South Arabia.135
The same practices are described in Harold Dickson’s study of Eastern Arabia,
although his analysis is not as extensive.136 Just as personal honour was central
to regional political relations, so too was it central to the politics of protection.
If someone requests protection, honour demands that protection be given.137
Once this happens, Dresch notes, the protégé (al-da˙il or al-bar) is ‘on the
honour’ ( fi wabhi-hi) of his protector (mubawwir).138 The protégé is henceforth
in his charge and must be defended by him.139 Protégés of the same protector

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are forbidden to offend or attack each other, just as all others—including the
protector himself—are forbidden to violate the protection placed over them.140
For a protector to offend his own protégé is the greatest disgrace of all.141 This
law of entering another’s protection, known as da˙alah (entering), is a sacred
and honoured custom in Arabia.142 One claims da˙alah by saying ana da˙ilak
or ana da˙il ‘ala Allah wa-‘alayk (I am your protégé, I enter upon God’s pardon
and yours).143 Dresch describes this as entering the ‘personal peace’ of another.
Every tribesman has a ‘peace’ by virtue of his personal honour.144 If a protégé
offends someone else, especially a fellow protégé, or otherwise behaves badly,
he violates this ‘peace’ and insults the honour (wabh) of his protector. When
this happens, the protector may justifiably take action against his protégé or
revoke his protection. The penalties for violating da˙alah and insulting a
person’s honour are severe.145 The onus is on the protector to exact compensa-
tion or take revenge on behalf of the victim. If he cannot, he must personally
compensate the victim out of his own pocket. Only compensation or revenge
will wipe out the disgrace to the protector and restore the honour of his protégé.
If a third party offends someone living in the ‘peace’ of another and escapes
being penalized, he has not only affronted the protector’s honour, but also
disgraced him by revealing his inadequacy as a protector. In this system of
protection, a protégé is answerable to his protector who, in turn, is answerable
to the public for the actions of his protégé. If one has a claim against a protégé,
he must go to the protector, not the protégé.146 This effectively casts the
protector in the secondary roles of mediator, arbiter and guarantor of settle-
ments. If one side breaks a settlement, the settlement’s guarantor must intervene
on the side of the victim.147 These norms and expectations eventually shaped
Anglo–Arab relations.
Dresch notes that one may become the protégé of another without demeaning
himself. The protégé has a ‘peace’ of his own and one day the protector may be
in need of it.148 A ruler who seeks protection, however, loses some of his
personal honour and prestige, as Rosenfeld’s comments above suggest. Protégés
of rulers—be they individuals, tribes, or other rulers—normally paid tribute to
their protector.149 In this sense, protégés become like a ruler’s own subjects,
from whom he collects taxes such as zakat. In both cases the payee is obligated
to protect the payer.
If a ruler was unable to secure, or unwilling to accept, the protection of a
regional power, or an alliance with a less powerful ruler, and faced certain defeat
in battle against his enemy, he had one last resort. It was acceptable for him to
place himself under his enemy’s protection as a form of reluctant nominal
subservience. This was a political compromise preferable to outright military
defeat. A skilful ruler might even use such a temporary submission to his advant-
age. This practice may originate from the tactic Bedouin warriors resorted to

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in the face of certain death in battle, whereby the supplicant says to his enemy,
ya fulan ana fi wabh-ak (O so-and-so, I place myself under your protection/on
your honour). If he gets the reply, inta fi wabhi, sallim silahak (You are under
my protection /on my honour, hand over your arms), the supplicant is safe. The
protector must then defend the supplicant with his life until the battle, and
possibly the war, is over. The supplicant becomes, effectively, a prisoner of war
and is not free to go on his way.150
For a ruler, there was little advantage in surrendering after the commence-
ment of hostilities; only his life would be spared. It was far better for him to
offer submission before battle, then his rulership would be spared as well. If
he did this, he became a protégé and was required to pay tribute as a sign of
submission and political subordination. Henceforth, the ruler’s shaikhdom was
considered a dependency of his protector, as discussed in Section 7. The ruler
became, in effect, a governor who ruled on behalf of his protector.151 Unlike a
military conquest, a submission was not normally followed by military occupa-
tion, although the protector might send a political agent (wakil or mu‘tamad) to
reside at the ruler’s court, making the ruler’s submission largely symbolic and
the incorporation often nominal. This was for a good reason. For, as Frauke
Heard-Bey notes, a tribe under the protection of a more powerful tribe typically
rebelled if its protector imposed its own governor.152 A protector would
normally send a wakil or impose his own governor in only two circumstances,
therefore: (1) if he was distrustful enough of his protégé; or (2) if the depend-
ency had a mixed tribal population and no ruler, making problematic the
appointment of one of the local tribal leaders to the governorship. If the depend-
ency was inhabited or dominated by only one tribe, the protector was well
advised to leave the administration in the hands of the ruler or leader of that
tribe.153 With his rulership intact, a submissive ruler or tribal leader would pay
tribute and bide his time until he was able to reassert his independence, often
by securing the protection of another regional power or an alliance with a less
powerful ruler or tribal leader. For powerful rulers and tribes, these submissions
were often nominal and always temporary, lasting no more than a few years.
For weak rulers and tribes, submission involved a greater loss of autonomy and
tended to be more permanent, lasting for decades or even generations, as did the
tribute payments.
Frauke Heard-Bey also explains how the greater the geographical distance
between a governor and his ruler, the greater the governor’s independence, and
the less his ruler’s personal influence was felt in the town, district or depend-
ency under the governor’s supervision.154 Another factor was a ruler’s choice
of governor. The stronger the bonds of trust between governor and ruler, the
more a ruler could delegate authority without the risk of secession. ‘This is the
reason’, says Heard-Bey, ‘why most Rulers put a brother or a son in charge of

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an important dependency, but this was not always a sure safeguard against
secessionist movements, either led by the wali [governor] or perpetrated by the
inhabitants themselves.’155

10. The Al Khalifah’s Rule of Qatar and Bahrain

The centrality of protection and the implications it had for Gulf rulership and
Anglo–Arab relations are well illustrated by the Al Khalifah’s rule of Qatar and
Bahrain. Three patterns in particular emerge: the identification of rulerships and
governorships with forts or fortified buildings (see Map 2), the remarkable
autonomy of governors, and the high turnover of allies and protectors. Historical
accounts of the first 35 years of Al Khalifah rule in Bahrain vary widely. What
follows is a synthesis of the various accounts.
When the Al Khalifah made Zubarah the capital of their new shaikhdom in
1766, they constructed Marayr Fort to protect the town and solidify their ruler-
ship on the west coast of Qatar.156 After his conquest of Bahrain in 1782–83,
Shaikh Ahmad bin Khalifah ‘al-Fatih’ (Ruler 1783–96) appointed Shaikh ‘Ali
bin Faris Al Khalifah, a close relative, Governor of Bahrain.157 Shaikh ‘Ali
resided in Diwan Fort in Manamah (also known as Manamah Fort, the present-
day Police Fort), then on the southern outskirts of Manamah.158 Shaikh Ahmad
also placed Bahrain Fort—five kilometres west of Manamah at the former
commercial centre of Bahrain—in the care of one of his military commanders,
a protégé tribal leader named ‘Abab.159 Between 1783 and 1796, the capital of
the Al Khalifah shaikhdom alternated between Zubarah, where Shaikh Ahmad
resided during the winter, and Diwan Fort in Manamah, where he lived during
the summer.160
When Shaikh Ahmad died in 1796 in Manamah, his sons, Salman and ‘Abd
Allah were residing in Zubarah.161 They assumed joint rulership of the
shaikhdom, with the elder son, Salman, holding most of the power.162 At the
time, Zubarah was under siege by the Wahhabis and Salman made the decision
to evacuate to Bahrain.163 By 1800, Salman had most likely moved to Muharraq,
where he almost certainly had command of ‘Arad Fort.164 ‘Abd Allah may have
initially moved to Manamah, taking up residence in Diwan Fort, but by 1819 he
was living in Muharraq.165 In 1816, Salman retired from active rulership and
moved to Rifa‘ Fort at some distance from Muharraq at the centre of Bahrain
Island.166 Thereafter, ‘Abd Allah became the de facto Ruler of Bahrain.167
‘Abd Allah’s rise to power was symbolized by his construction of Abu Mahir
Fort (also known as Muharraq Fort) upon the ruins of a much older fort on Abu
Mahir Island. Abu Mahir was an ideal fortress island, just off the shore of
Muharraq town but connected to it at low tide by a sand bar. The fort stood on
the island’s southern tip, at the end of a sandy point jutting out into Bahrain’s

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AR
AB

TARUT ISLAND THE GULF

CO

Qatif
DAMMAM ISLAND
AS
T

Muharraq
Manamah Ruways
Abu Duluf
Jumayl Fuwayrit
Rifa Khor Hassan Huwaylah
(Khuwayr)
BAHRAIN Farayhah
Zubarah

Da˙irah

Khor Vaqiq
(al-Khor)
HAWAR
‘Uqayr ISLANDS Sumaysmah

Lusayl

QATAR
Hofuf Bid‘
(Dohah)
AR

Wakrah
AB

HASA
CO
AS
T

‘Udayd

Map 2. The locations of towns (underlined) governed by the Al Khalifah or their

protégés.

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JAMES ONLEY

main harbour, Khor al-Qulay‘ah. It commanded both the entrance of the harbour
and Muharraq’s principal water source, an underwater spring, making it the most
important fort in Bahrain.168
After the Al Khalifah moved to Bahrain, the island shaikhdom was rapidly
divided into a number of governorships, with each governor occupying or
building his own fort. Drawings of the main forts, comparing their size and
design, are shown in Figure 1, below. Once their rule became secure in Bahrain,
the Al Khalifah rulers and governors shifted their primary residences from their
forts to qasrs (fortified palaces) and bayts (mansions), such as Qasr Khalifah in
Manamah (built c.1829), Qasr Rifa‘ in Rifa‘ and Bayt ‘Isa in Muharraq (built
c.1820–30s).169
The most populous governorships in Bahrain were the towns of Muharraq,
Abu Mahir, Hidd, Manamah, ‘Awali, Rifa‘ and Budayyi‘, and the island of
Sitrah (whose governor controlled a large coastal area on eastern Bahrain

‘Arad Fort, built 16th century

Abu Mahir Fort, built c.1820s

Diwan Fort (present-day Police Fort), built c.1740s

Rifa Fort, built c.1810s

Figure 1. The main forts of Bahrain (scale indicated by the man beside each fort).

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

Island). There were many more governorships of villages and rural estates.
Captain George Brucks of the Indian Navy, who visited Bahrain in 1827, noted
that there were about 50 forts or fortified buildings in different parts of the
islands, suggesting the existence of an equal number of governorships.170 Many
of these were held by members of the Al Khalifah, including the Ruler himself.
Fuad Khuri has identified 29 towns, villages and rural estates personally
governed by eleven Al Khalifah shaikhs in the late nineteenth century.171 Other
governorships were held by protégé tribal leaders or high-ranking fidawiyah.172
The Al Khalifah and their governors ruled an island population, estimated at
60,000 in 1827 and 100,000 in 1905,173 composed mostly of Baharinah (the
Shi‘i Arabs of Bahrain) and tribes from Qatar, Hasa and Najd; as well as several
thousand Hawalah (Arabs from Persia174); several thousand Mawali (African
slaves and former slaves); and a few hundred ‘Abam (expatriate Persians),
Banias (Hindu merchants from India) and Khojahs (Isma‘ili merchants from
western India).175
The governors had a high degree of autonomy and collected their own
taxes.176 Rulers had only a loose control over their governors. When Lieutenant
John MacLeod (Resident 1822–23) visited Bahrain in January 1823, for
instance, he observed that ‘the authority of the Shaikhs of Bahrain in their own
dominions did not appear to be so absolute as might have been expected’.177
This seems to have been a common state of affairs throughout much of Eastern
Arabia, a point reflected in the ambivalence of the words for ‘governor’ and
‘ruler’ used by most ruling families. Before independence, the Al Khalifah used
the title of amir (meaning commander, ruler, chief and prince) for their gover-
nors of towns, while the ruling families of the Trucial States used the title of
wali (governor). Both groups of families used the title of hakim (meaning both
governor and ruler) for their rulers.178 Upon independence, the rulers of Bahrain,
Kuwait and Qatar adopted the title of amir, while the rulers of the United Arab
Emirates, paradoxically, retained the title of hakim. The Al Su‘ud of Najd and
the Al Ravid of Ha’il used the title of amir for their rulers in the nineteenth
century, while today the Al Su‘ud use it only for their provincial governors.179
British officials generally used the title of ‘chief’ in the nineteenth century and
‘ruler’ from the 1910s onward. In the interests of clarity, when referring to Gulf
shaikhdoms, this study has employed the titles of Ruler (for hakim, amir and
chief ) and governor (for wali and amir).
Beyond the Bahrain islands, the Al Khalifah directly governed at various time
at least seven of their dependencies: the island of Dammam off the coast of
Hasa, and the towns of Zubarah, Khor Hassan, Ruways, Huwaylah, Bid‘ and
Wakrah, in Qatar. The locations of these towns can be seen on Map 3,
below. Zubarah, on Qatar’s western coast, was directly governed by the Al
Khalifah for 103 years; first by the rulers themselves from 1766 to 1796, and

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JAMES ONLEY

MUHARRAQ ISLAND

THE GULF

Ruler’s house (Bayt Shaikh ‘Isa)

‘Arad Fort
MUHARRAQ

HIDD
Ras al-Rumman
Abu Mahir Fort
British Agency (Bayt Safar)
Govenor’s palace (Qasr Khalifab)
MANAMAH
KHOR AL-QULAY‘AH

Diwan Fort

Ras al-Jufayr

SITRAH
ISLAND

BAHRAIN ISLAND

RIFA‘
Governor’s palace
(Qasr al-Rifa‘) Rifa‘ Fort
(Qal‘at al-Rifa‘)

Map 3. Locations of the main forts and buildings of Bahrain.

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

Table 4. Occasions when the Al Khalifah sought military alliances180

Allies Dates

1. Al Sabah rulers of Kuwait 1770, 1782–83, 1811, 1843181

2. Al Balahimah shaikhs of Ruways and Qays Island 1782–83, 1842182
181

3. Al Bin ‘Ali shaikhs of Qays Island and Bid‘ 1842, 1847

4. Na‘im shaikhs of Qatar c.1766–1937
5. Qasimi rulers of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah 1816–1819, 1843, 1867
6. Al Maktum Ruler of Dubai 1843
7. Bani Habir tribe of Hasa 1843, 1869
8. Al Nahyan rulers of Abu Dhabi 1829, 1867

Occasions when the Al Khalifah sought or accepted protection183

Protectors Dates

1. Bani Khalid rulers of Hasa 1716–95

2. Persian prince-governors of Fars c.1784–89, 1839, 1843, 1859–60
3. Persian Governor of Bushire 1799
4. Wahhabi (Su‘udi) amirs of Najd and Hasa 1801–05, 1810–11, 1816–17,
1830–33, 1836, 1843, 1847–50,
1851–55, 1856–9 1861–65,
1867–71
5. Al Bu Sa‘id imams of Muscat 1800, 1801, 1805–06, 1811–16,
1820–1821, 1829
6. Commander of the Egyptian army in Hasa 1839–40
7. Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt 1853
8. Ottoman Sharif of Mecca 1853
9. Ottoman Vali of Baghdad 1859–60
10. British Residents in the Gulf 1805, 1823, 1830, 1838, 1839,
1842, 1843, 1844, 1846, 1847,
1848, 1849, 1851, 1854, 1859,
1861, 1869, 1872, 1873, 1874,
1875, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881,
1887, 1888, 1892, 1895

then intermittently by a series of family members until 1869. The governorships

of the Al Khalifah’s remaining dependencies in Qatar were all held by protégé
tribal leaders, the most well-known being Shaikh Muhammad bin Thani, the Al
Khalifah’s Governor of Bid‘ (1847–71), who later became the first independent
Ruler of Qatar (1871–76).
The governing of a ruler’s shaikhdom and dependencies by a number of semi-
autonomous governors, some of whom might be rivals for the rulership, meant

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JAMES ONLEY

that a ruler’s authority rested, not only on a general acceptance of his rule and
his command of economic resources and armed retainers, but ultimately on his
superior ability to protect his subjects and dependants. A ruler’s presumed
or actual skill at forging military alliances, and devising effective protection-
seeking tactics when his shaikhdom and dependencies were threatened, was
what kept him in power over his governors. The internal structure of his
shaikhdom and dependencies thus motivated him to obtain the most powerful
protector he could—hence the frequent appeals of the rulers of Bahrain for
British protection.
The protection of the Al Khalifah’s shaikhdom and dependencies from ant-
agonistic regional powers was an on-going problem for the rulers of Bahrain.
Often they lacked sufficient military resources and were forced to seek or accept
outside support (see Table 4, above). The Al Khalifah may have had an un-
usually high number of protectors, but they were by no means unusual in having
been protégés. All the ruling families of the Gulf today have been the protégés
of regional and extra-regional powers in the past. In the nineteenth and twen-
tieth century, most of them sought British protection. The reason was simple:
the Resident had the greatest coercive power in the Gulf at his command: the
Gulf Squadron. The Resident had a better chance than any other regional
protector of punishing and exacting compensation from offenders. As a result,
British protection was the least likely to be violated.
By allying with a powerful protector like the British Government, a ruler also
reinforced his own position. If a ruler could create the impression amongst his
family and governors that he alone had access to the Resident and that the bene-
ficial connection would be lost without him, he gained security for his rulership
against internal rivals.184 In the act of protecting a shaikhdom, either militarily
or politically, Britain also enhanced the political status of the ruler and his
shaikhdom within the regional political system. British protection ‘bestowed a
legal status on the concept of “shaykhdom”,’ as J.E. Peterson puts it.185 It also
served as recognition of shaikhly families as sovereign governments, reinforcing
their independence within the regional political system. Peter Lienhardt explains
that British protection and recognition accorded the rulers ‘a status higher than
the traditional way of life had allowed them’, reinforcing their authority within
their shaikhdoms and dependencies.186 The withdrawal of British protection
and recognition from a shaikhdom or its dependencies, therefore, made a ruler
vulnerable to a family coup d’état or a tribal secession respectively.
Despite the advantages British protection brought, it proved to be a double-
edged sword for the rulers. It came at a high price: accountability to the Resident
for any action he disapproved of. Accountability was common to both British
and Arabian understandings of the protégé-protector relationship, of course,
but the problem for the rulers was that the Resident was able to hold them

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

thoroughly accountable. Once a Gulf Arab ruler obtained a promise of British

protection, he disregarded it at his peril, as Shaikh ‘Abd Allah bin Ahmad Al
Khalifah (Ruler 1796–1843) and Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah Al Khalifah
(Ruler 1843–68) discovered at the cost of their rulerships.

11. The Protection-seeking Tactics of Shaikh ‘Abd Allah

The tactics of Shaikh ‘Abd Allah bin Ahmad Al Khalifah (Ruler of Bahrain
1796–1843) provide a good illustration of the complexities of protection-
seeking in regional politics.
In November 1838, the Shaikh submitted a request to the Resident, Captain
Samuel Hennell (1838–41, 1843–52), for British protection against an Egyptian
army that had recently occupied Najd and was now pushing towards Hasa.187
Hennell drew up a full report on the Egyptian threat to Bahrain and submitted
it, along with Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s request, to his superiors in India. Approval
for a formal commitment to protect Bahrain must come from the East India
Company’s Secret Committee of the Court of Directors in London, came the
reply. Until the Court’s views were known, the Company authorized Hennell
to intervene militarily if the Egyptians invaded. The Commander of the Royal
Navy squadron in the Gulf at the time, Rear-Admiral Sir Frederick Maitland,
verbally informed Shaikh ‘Abd Allah of this temporary measure. Meanwhile,
Hennell opened up diplomatic channels with the Commander of the Egyptian
army, Khurshid Pasha, to discourage him from invading Bahrain.
By January 1839, the Egyptian army had occupied all the main ports of Hasa
and Khurshid Pasha despatched a wakil to Bahrain demanding tribute from
Shaikh ‘Abd Allah. With the British response still pending, the Shaikh decided
to hedge his bets. As mentioned above, he first sought Persian protection but,
realizing that Persia could not protect him, changed his mind and placed himself
under the protection of the Egyptian army. He chose this course of action instead
of holding out for a formal commitment of British protection partly because of
Khurshid’s generous terms: the Commander would send no wakil to reside in
Bahrain and would abstain from interfering in Bahraini affairs. In return, Shaikh
‘Abd Allah must pay a yearly tribute of MTD 2,000. The Shaikh considered
this ‘a trifling and merely pecuniary sacrifice’ for the ‘virtual immunity from
disturbance’ he received in return.188
In July, Hennell received authority from London to offer only a verbal
promise to the Shaikh of the temporary protection of the Royal Navy squadron
in the Gulf. When Hennell made the offer to the Shaikh, he declined it, arguing
that he could not repudiate his agreement with Khurshid Pasha for anything less
than a formal, written promise of British protection. This seems to have been an
attempt by the Shaikh to play Hennell off against Khurshid to obtain a more

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JAMES ONLEY

permanent form of protection for his rulership. The Shaikh may have had this
end in mind when he submitted to Khurshid in the first place. In the end, his bid
to turn Bahrain into a British protectorate was unsuccessful. Hennell had no
authority to provide the Shaikh with a written promise of temporary defence, let
alone permanent protection, and the Court of Directors in London considered a
regular protectorate inexpedient.189 Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s bid for lasting security
from his many foes and rivals had disastrous long-term consequences. Captain
Hennell and Lieutenant Arnold Kemball (Assistant Resident 1841–52) con-
sidered Shaikh ‘Abd Allah ‘to have forfeited the friendship of the British
Government’ when the Shaikh chose Egyptian over British protection. The
Secret Committee in London even discussed ‘the possibility of his being
displaced by a more favourably disposed Shaikh’.190 Unfortunately for Shaikh
‘Abd Allah, the Egyptian army withdrew from Hasa and Najd the following
summer. Within a few years he would need military assistance again. This time,
promises of British protection would not be forthcoming.
After the withdrawal of the Egyptian army in 1840, a group of concerned
Hasawiyah (Arabs from Hasa) sent a representative to Shaikh ‘Abd Allah with
a proposition. Would he send his grand-nephew, Shaikh Muhammad bin
Khalifah, to the mainland to wrest the governorship of Hasa from Wahhabi
hands? Khurshid Pasha had placed the current Wahhabi Amir, Khalid ibn Su‘ud
(1837–41), in power after his conquest of Najd. The Hasawiyah thought ill of
Amir Khalid and believed Al Khalifah rule would be preferable to his.191 Six
years before, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah had blocked his grand-nephew’s assumption of
the joint rulership of Bahrain after the death of the young Shaikh’s father,
Shaikh Khalifah bin Salman (joint Ruler 1825–34). It appears that Shaikh
Muhammad believed his great-uncle was obliged to support the proposal of the
Hasawiyah as compensation for this denial. But Shaikh ‘Abd Allah did not agree
and rejected the plan. A violent difference of opinion resulted between the
Shaikh and his grand-nephew over the summer. Shaikh Muhammad asked for
British assistance to overthrow his great-uncle, but Captain Hennell declined to
interfere in the affair and told the Shaikh he must settle his differences with the
Ruler on his own.192 Shaikh Muhammad then left Bahrain for Khor Hassan,
where he began organizing opposition to Shaikh ‘Abd Allah. Shaikh Muham-
mad returned to Bahrain in 1842 at the invitation of Shaikh ‘Abd Allah in the
hope of reconciling their differences, but his visit led only to confrontation.
A dispute quickly broke out between Shaikh Muhammad and one of Shaikh
‘Abd Allah’s sons, sparking the Bahraini civil war of 1842–43.193 The camps
divided, Shaikh Muhammad gathering his supporters in Manamah and Shaikh
‘Abd Allah gathering his in Muharraq. A military build-up ensued, with both
sides recruiting Bedouin warriors from the mainland. Skirmishes between the
two camps soon began, during which a brother of Shaikh Muhammad and a

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

grandson of Shaikh ‘Abd Allah were killed. In June, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah attacked
and captured Manamah. Shaikh Muhammad fled to the mainland.194
Back on the mainland, Shaikh Muhammad sought Wahhabi support for an
eventual counter-attack on Bahrain. He also enlisted the support of Shaikh Bavir
bin Rahmah Al Balahimah and Shaikh ‘Isa bin Tarif Al Bin ‘Ali of Qays
Island.195 Shaikhs Bavir and ‘Isa seem to have feared the Resident’s support of
Shaikh ‘Abd Allah, for they sought the permission of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry
Robertson (officiating Resident 1842–43) before agreeing to join Shaikh
Muhammad, as mentioned briefly before. Recalling the Egyptian episode of
1839–40, Robertson had no interest in rescuing Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s rulership.
He sanctioned the Shaikhs’ request to oust Shaikh ‘Abd Allah from Bahrain.196
In November 1842, Robertson despatched Lieutenant Kemball, his Assistant, to
Bahrain to warn Shaikh ‘Abd Allah about this. Robertson likely intended the
warning as notice of the withdrawal of British support for the Shaikh’s ruler-
ship. The Shaikh received Kemball’s words with ‘much surprise and apprehen-
sion’.197 Resorting to a previous tactic, he threatened to seek the protection of
the Wahhabi Amir, of whom the British disapproved.198 But the threat fell on
deaf ears. In February 1843 Shaikh ‘Abd Allah again appealed to the Resident,
but he did not reply. The Shaikh made his request for a third time the following
month and the Resident finally issued a refusal.199
In March 1843 Shaikh Muhammad recaptured Manamah. Shortly afterwards,
the Qays Island shaikhs arrived in Manamah with several hundred armed men
and preparations began for the final assault on Muharraq. The allies attacked
Muharraq in April 1843 and overwhelmed Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s forces. The
Shaikh capitulated and was permitted to leave for exile on Dammam Island,
where his son, Mubarak, was Governor.200 Shaikh Muhammad’s allies, the
Al Balahimah and Al Bin ‘Ali of Qays Island, then returned to Qatar, which
they had left in 1826 and 1835 respectively, and settled at the Al Khalifah’s
dependency of Bid‘.
Over the summer Shaikh ‘Abd Allah turned to Bushire, Dubai and Sharjah
for military assistance to regain his rulership. Kemball, now acting Resident in
Bushire (April-December 1843), refused the Shaikh’s request and forbade the
Rulers of Dubai and Sharjah to assist him.201 While he indicated that the
Maritime Truce had determined his decision, Kemball’s real motive was obvi-
ously his dislike of the Shaikh.202 In fact, the Maritime Truce barred members
from maritime warfare against each other, not against outsiders like Bahrain.
Kemball then offered to mediate in the dispute, although he would not guarantee
any settlement reached. But Shaikh ‘Abd Allah did not accept the offer.203 His
requests denied, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah resorted to his previous tactics. During
October 1843-March 1844 he attempted to play the Prince-Governor of Fars off
against Kemball and later against Captain Samuel Hennell (Resident 1843–52)

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JAMES ONLEY

by threatening ‘to throw himself into the arms of Persia’ to regain his rulership
of Bahrain, if the British would not help him.204 Both Kemball and Hennell
refused to help. In the end, the Shaikh’s threat came to nothing as the Prince-
Governor failed to deliver the 100 cavalry and 500 infantry the Shaikh had asked
for.205 In December 1843 Shaikh ‘Abd Allah tried a different approach, arguing
that, as a signatory of the General Treaty of 1820, he was entitled to British
naval protection from his foes. This was a common interpretation of the General
Treaty by the Gulf rulers, first made in 1823 by Shaikh ‘Abd Allah himself and
by Shaikh Sultan bin Saqr al-Qasimi of Sharjah (Ruler 1803–66).206 Hennell
rejected the interpretation,207 as had all Residents prior to Britain’s incorpora-
tion of the Coast of Oman and Bahrain into the trucial system in 1835 and 1861
respectively. In January 1844, the Shaikh argued that Hennell was to blame for
his ousting because the British Government had lulled him into a false sense
of security.208 The Resident was, therefore, obligated to restore him to power.
Hennell rejected the Shaikh’s argument. In March 1844 the Shaikh again
pleaded hard for the Resident’s support and protection, but to no avail.209 Shaikh
‘Abd Allah made his last bid for British support later that year. Trying the
same tactic as before, he threatened to ally himself with the Amir of Najd and
Hasa unless the Resident helped him retake Bahrain. Again, Hennell refused
to help.210
At this point the Shaikh gave up on Hennell and took matters into his own
hands. In October 1845 he made an attempt on Bahrain with the military assist-
ance of the Wahhabi Governor of Qatif, but Shaikh Muhammad foiled the
operation almost before it began.211 In June 1846, the Prince-Governor of Fars
renewed his offer of military assistance to Shaikh ‘Abd Allah, but the Shaikh
declined, not believing in it.212 He made a second attempt on Bahrain in 1847,
this time with the military assistance of Shaikh ‘Isa bin Tarif Al Bin ‘Ali, who
had helped oust him four years before, but Shaikh Muhammad’s military
defeated the force near Fuwayrit in northern Qatar and killed Shaikh ‘Isa in
battle.213 In 1848 the Persian Consul-General in Baghdad assured Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah of the support of the Persian Government should he again try to retake
Bahrain. The Consul-General broke off his correspondence with the Shaikh
at the insistence of the British Resident in Baghdad, however.214 In 1849
Shaikh ‘Abd Allah set sail for Zanzibar in the hope of winning the support of
his life-long enemy, Sayyid Sa‘id (Imam of Muscat and Zanzibar 1807–56).
He died en route at Muscat, an old and bitter man.
This illustration of protection-seeking is drawn from just ten years in the life
of one Gulf Arab ruler. Before the 1839 Egyptian occupation of Hasa, Shaikh
‘Abd Allah made at least ten requests for protection from various regional
powers between 1796 and 1838, two of which were addressed to the British
Resident. During 1843–44, he made repeated requests for British protection,

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

as detailed above. Shaikh ‘Abd Allah’s successors, Shaikh Muhammad bin

Khalifah (Ruler 1843–68), Shaikh ‘Ali bin Khalifah (Ruler 1868–69), Shaikh
Muhammad bin ‘Abd Allah (Ruler 1869) and Shaikh ‘Isa bin ‘Ali (Ruler
1869–1923), all made requests for either British, Persian, Ottoman, Wahhabi, or
Muscati protection, or military alliances with less powerful rulers, whenever
trouble threatened, often using the same tactics as Shaikh ‘Abd Allah in attempt-
ing to play rival powers off against each other. This cyclical pattern of protection-
seeking persisted until the British Government finally accepted responsibility for
Bahrain’s defence in 1861 and diplomatic representation in 1880.

12. Britain and the Role of Protector

Before Britain accepted formal responsibility for the maritime protection of the
Trucial States in 1835, the British Government had been extremely reluctant for
a variety of reasons to assume the role of protector in the Gulf. The principal
concerns were, first, that it might draw Britain into the unstable and unpredict-
able affairs of the mainland, forcing it to commit military forces there. Even the
island shaikhdom of Bahrain had mainland dependencies. Shortly after the
establishment of the Gulf Residency, Britain realized that the Pax Britannica
would be more effectively maintained without land forces. The high death rate
of the first Gulf garrison—444 soldiers and 10 officers killed in battles against
just one interior Omani tribe during 1820–21 and the decimation of the garrison
by disease during 1821–22—prompted Britain to withdraw its land forces from
the Gulf in early 1823.215 Thereafter, Britain limited its military activity to the
range of its naval guns. It re-constituted its Gulf garrison only in wartime or
when war threatened (1856–58, 1914–18, 1939–45 and 1961–71). Added to this
was the problem that the imams of Muscat, the amirs of Najd and Hasa, the
Persian prince-governors of Fars, and the Ottoman valis of Baghdad all claimed
Bahrain as a dependency and had attempted to subjugate it at one time or
another. Successive Residents feared, rightly, that the protection of Bahrain
would bring them into conflict with these regional powers.
The second principal concern was that permanent British protection might
encourage despotism, as it had in some Indian princely states. The third, that the
British Government would lose political leverage with the Gulf rulers if it
switched from a conditional to an unconditional protection policy. The fourth,
that permanent protection would shoulder Britain with the role of guarantor of
the state. The British Government feared that such a role might considerably add
to the Resident’s burdens by placing upon him ‘the onus and responsibility of
being the arbiter in every dispute, and [the] settlement of endless claims’, to use
the words of Major James Morrison (Resident 1835–37).216

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JAMES ONLEY

Possible misunderstandings about what the Gulf rulers were asking of the
Resident might have also contributed to the British Government’s reluctance to
assume a protective role in the Gulf. The British concept of protection relied on
the protector’s ability to defend his protégé physically and bring an attacker to
justice. As a deterrent to attack, it relied on a would-be attacker’s respect for the
firepower of the protector. The Arabian concept relied more on a would-be
attacker’s respect for the honour of the protector. It also relied on the protector’s
secondary roles of mediator, arbiter and guarantor of settlements, to provide
a peaceful channel for would-be attackers to settle their differences with the
protégé, as discussed above. It seems that early Residents either misunderstood
or rejected the duties of this role, in which Gulf rulers were trying to cast them.
Many rulers were frustrated by the failure of successive Residents to live up to
these expectations. For instance, early Residents were usually willing to mediate
between rulers, but they refused to play the role of guarantor for the settlements
reached, as illustrated by the history of the Al Khalifah’s tribute payments to
the amirs of Najd and Hasa and the imams of Muscat. Settlement negotiations
usually broke down as a result, as Lieutenant Arnold Kemball (Assistant
Resident 1841–52, Resident 1852–55) observed in 1844:

Experience has shown that the most solemn engagements between these chief-
tains … formed without the guarantee of the [British] Government, are no
security whatever for the maintenance of peace … [They] deem the guarantee
of the British to any sort of arrangement a sine qua non … Attempts have been
made to induce the several chiefs to enter into a mutual agreement among
themselves, without British guarantee … but these have ever been rendered
nugatory by Arab pride and sense of honour.217

The greatest frustration, of course, came from early Residents’ routine rejection
of the rulers’ requests for protection in the first place.
Before the first Maritime Truce in 1835, an experimental ban on maritime
warfare during the pearling season, Residents feared that a larger naval presence
and corresponding expenditure would be necessary if Britain were to assume
responsibility for the maritime protection of the Gulf shaikhdoms. The acting
Resident who proposed the truce to the rulers of the Coast of Oman, Lieutenant
Samuel Hennell (1834–35), did so only because of the rulers’ enthusiastic
support for the idea.218 So desirable was British protection in Eastern Arabia
that, shortly after the signing of the General Treaty of 1820, the principal pearl
merchants of Sharjah offered to pay ˙uwah to the Government of India at the
rate of MTD 20 (Rs 40) per boat if the Gulf Squadron would permanently station
a gunboat at the pearl banks to protect their pearling fleets.219 British reports on
the first Maritime Truces clearly indicate that its annual renewal was a product
of the initiative and insistence of the majority of the rulers, and was not imposed

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

upon them by the Resident. When the time came for the Truce’s first renewal
in April 1836, Lieutenant Kemball, observed that it was renewed ‘with the
undisguised satisfaction of the respective chiefs’.220
The idea to extend the Truce’s coverage beyond the summer pearling season
into a perpetual ban on all maritime warfare was first proposed by Shaikh Sultan
bin Saqr al-Qasimi of Sharjah in September 1836, just sixteen months after the
introduction of the first Maritime Truce. The Resident, Major James Morrison,
rejected the Shaikh’s proposal. The British Government, Morrison explained,
lacked the resources to enforce a perpetual truce. Or so he believed.221 The
British were also convinced that, so long as the ban on maritime warfare
permitted rulers to pursue feuds outside of the pearling season, they would be
content ‘to allow their feuds and animosities to remain in abeyance, under
the idea that after a specified date it would always be in their power to indulge
their deeply rooted feelings of animosity, should they feel disposed to do so.’222
Were the ban to become perpetual, it could not provide for this. Lieutenant
Samuel Hennell (Assistant Resident 1826–34, 1835–38) explained in 1830 that
precluding the rulers
from avenging insults, or taking satisfaction for wrongs, whether real or imagin-
ary, would so embitter the sentiments of hatred entertained [by the rulers]
towards each other, that a series of aggressions and retaliations would speedily
arise, which would only tend to defeat the very object for which the peace had
been negotiated.223

In 1838, when Captain Hennell, now Gulf Resident (1838–41, 1843–52),

toured the Coast of Oman to renew the Maritime Truce for a third time, Shaikh
Sultan bin Saqr al-Qasimi ‘not only expressed his earnest desire for a renewal
of the truce, but added that it would afford him sincere pleasure if it could be
changed into the establishment of a permanent peace upon the seas.’224 Hennell
rejected the Shaikh’s proposal, for the reasons just mentioned. Undeterred, the
Shaikh urged the Resident to agree to an annual twelve-month truce instead.
As the other rulers consented to the Shaikh’s proposal, Hennell drew up a new
truce accordingly, which the rulers readily signed.225
So successful were the annually-renewed Truces, that the Resident agreed to
guarantee a ten-year Maritime Truce in 1843. The following year, Lieutenant
Kemball observed that the rulers ‘are now quite as much interested in its main-
tenance as ourselves; and of this they exhibited ample proof in their united readi-
ness to renew it for so long a period as ten years, or even more, had such been
desired or deemed expedient.’226 J.B. Kelly explains that
so changed had the shaikhs’ outlook become by the time of the conclusion of
the Ten Years’ Truce that they often acted on their own initiative to punish
infractions of the truce by their subjects, even before these had been brought to

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JAMES ONLEY

the notice of the Resident. Sometimes they even went further and acted to
prevent the commission of piracy. The Shaikh of ‘Ajman, for example, when a
Qasimi vessel from Lingah ran aground in a storm off ‘Ajman in 1845, hastened
to the scene with his brothers, sword in hand, and swore to cut down the first
man who tried to plunder the vessel.227

After the successful completion of the ten-year Truce in 1853, it was evident
to the British that their fears and convictions had been seriously misplaced. That
year, the Resident finally invited the rulers of the Coast of Oman to sign a
Perpetual Maritime Truce, seventeen years after the Ruler of Sharjah first
proposed the idea. All the rulers signed without hesitation.
The slow realization that earlier British fears were misplaced is reflected also
in the British Government’s gradual change in attitude towards the protection
of Bahrain. Until 1838, it maintained a straightforward “no protection” policy
for the reason mentioned above.228 From 1839 to 1860, it observed an “un-
official protection only” policy, albeit on condition of the Resident’s approval
of the Ruler.229 In 1861, after the Ruler of Bahrain became increasingly warlike,
the British Government adopted a “permanent protection” policy and admitted
Bahrain to the Perpetual Maritime Truce, making itself Bahrain’s Protecting
Power, as discussed above.230 Finally, in 1880, it assumed responsibility for
Bahrain’s foreign affairs.231 After 1861, it was able to maintain political
leverage with the Ruler of Bahrain and avoid encouraging despotism, as experi-
enced in the Indian princely states, by limiting its protection to the shaikhdom.
It would not guarantee the Ruler’s position within the shaikhdom. Time and time
again, the Resident informed the Ruler that,

it was highly desirable that the Chief of Bahrein should learn to rely on his own
resources for the maintenance of his position, for as long as he could count on
the constant presence of foreign support he would surely remain careless and
pathetic and disinclined to exert himself in strengthening his position by good
administration and a conciliatory policy towards his people.232

The only way the Ruler could secure British support for his rulership in
moments of crisis was if the Resident wished it to continue. All the trucial rulers
were in the same position. This motivated most of the rulers most of the time
to maintain good relations with the Resident.
The strength of the British position in the Gulf in the nineteenth century was
that it alone had the power to stop the cyclical pattern of protection-seeking,
raiding and invasion amongst the rulers. Residents could use this position to
their advantage as an indirect method of keeping in power those rulers who
co-operated with them to maintain the Pax Britannica, and keeping out of power
those who did not. For example, as related in the previous section, in 1842

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Robertson (officiating Resident 1842–43) granted

permission to two rulers wishing to help Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah (Ruler
1843–68) oust Shaikh ‘Abd Allah bin Ahmad (Ruler 1796–1843) from his
rulership of Bahrain. They succeeded the following year. A few months later,
when the same two rulers sought the Resident’s permission to help Shaikh ‘Abd
Allah regain his rulership, Lieutenant Arnold Kemball (acting Resident 1843)
forbade them to interfere, depriving the Shaikh of allies.
After 1861, Residents employed more direct methods in Bahrain, intervening
personally to remove rulers unwilling to co-operate with them and installing
shaikhs who would uphold the Pax Britannica. This happened three times while
Bahrain was under British protection. In 1868, Colonel Lewis Pelly helped the
Al Khalifah depose Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah and recognized the Ruler’s
brother, Shaikh ‘Ali bin Khalifah, as the new Ruler. The following year, Shaikh
‘Ali was overthrown and killed by Shaikhs Muhammad bin Khalifah and
Muhammad bin ‘Abd Allah. Pelly imprisoned the Shaikhs and engineered the
accession of the late Ruler’s son, Shaikh ‘Isa bin ‘Ali. Fifty-four years later, in
1923, Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Knox forcibly retired Shaikh ‘Isa from active
rulership and handed the reins of government to his son, Shaikh Hamad bin ‘Isa.

Conclusion
Was Britain’s role as ‘arbiter and guardian of the Gulf’ one it assumed in re-
sponse to appeals from the Gulf Arabs, as the 1908 Foreign Office memorandum
quoted at the beginning of this study claims, or was British protection imposed
as a form of domination, as some historians are now arguing?
This study has shown how the Gulf Arab rulers, faced by the endless problem
of protection, defended their shaikhdoms during the nineteenth century by
entering into culturally-sanctioned protector-protégé relationships. It has shown
that the rulers tried to impose the role of protector on the Resident and the
British Government from the very outset of the Gulf Residency and that, in time,
the Resident came to accept the role of ‘arbiter and guardian of the Gulf’ and
to behave, on the whole, as the rulers expected a protector to behave. This
legitimized Britain’s presence within the regional political system in terms of
Eastern Arabian culture and meant that the Resident’s authority in the Gulf was
not based solely on treaties. From the rulers’ perspective, the Resident was a Gulf
ruler himself, except that he was the most powerful and influential ruler they
had ever known. The Gulf rulers gave him the respectful titles of Ra’is al-˙alib
(Chief of the Gulf ) and Fa˙amat al-Ra’is (His Excellency the Chief ).233
Although it cut off Bahrain from its dependencies in Qatar, the Pax Britannica
in the Gulf benefited the shaikhdoms, including Bahrain, as much as it did the
British. This explains why the Pax was so successful: it was largely self-

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JAMES ONLEY

enforcing. To assume, as many now do, that Britain imposed its protection on
the Gulf shaikhdoms against the will of their rulers, is not only to ignore the
Eastern Arabian tradition of protection-seeking and the successful use the rulers
made of it, but also to completely disregard the historical record, set forth in this
study, which shows that the treaties were initiated as much by the Gulf rulers
as by the British, and that it was mainly the rulers who worked towards the
establishment of the Perpetual Maritime Truce. British protection was not im-
posed on the Gulf shaikhdoms, but sought after and welcomed by the Gulf rulers.
The view of British protection as unsolicited and unwanted arose only when
memories of the turbulent years before the Maritime Truce became distant,
when the benefits of British protection became less apparent, and when Britain’s
exclusive presence (based on the Exclusive Agreements) was felt by some Gulf
Arabs to be less beneficial to the shaikhdoms than to Britain.234 Even so, the
need for British protection remained. In 1968, when the British Government
declared it could no longer afford the £12,000,000 per annum to keep its forces
in the Gulf and would be withdrawing its military in 1971, the Ruler of Abu
Dhabi, Shaikh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahyan, offered to pay for the military pres-
ence himself. The Ruler of Dubai made a similar offer, adding that he believed
all four oil-producing states under British protection—Abu Dhabi, Bahrain,
Dubai and Qatar—would be willing to cover the cost. The British Government
declined these offers, however, and withdrew its forces in December 1971.235
One need only compare this with Britain’s withdrawal from Egypt, Palestine,
or Aden to appreciate the difference between Britain’s involvement in the Gulf
and its involvement in the rest of the Arab world.

Abbreviations
Asst. Assistant
BJMES British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
For. Foreign
Gov. Governor
Govt. Government
IO India Office, London
JRAI The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland
JRGS Journal of the Royal Geographical Society
Ks Krans (principal unit of currency of Persia)
MEJ Middle East Journal
MESA Middle East Studies Association of North America
MTD Maria Theresa Dollars
n. footnote
OIOC Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library, London
offg. officiating

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

PA Political Agent
Pol. Political
PRPG Political Resident in the Persian Gulf
Rs Rupees
Sec. Secretary
SNOPG Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf

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Notes
1. Confidential FO memorandum respecting British interests in the Persian Gulf, 12
Feb. 1908, 5–6, L/P&S/18/B166, OIOC, London.
2. For more details of this episode in Gulf history, see C. Belgrave, The Pirate Coast
(London: G. Bell & Sons, 1966); H. Moyse-Bartlett, The Pirates of Trucial Oman
(London: Macdonald, 1966); S.M. Al-Qasimi, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf
(London: Croom Helm, 1986); C.E. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag: An Investi-
gation into Qasimi Piracy, 1797–1820 (Exeter: Univ. of Exeter Press, 1997); P.
R[isso] Dubuisson, ‘Qasimi Piracy and the General Treaty of Peace (1820)’,
Arabian Studies, vol. iv (1978), 47–57; and P. Risso, ‘Cross-Cultural Perceptions
of Piracy: Maritime Violence in the Western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Region
during a Long Eighteenth Century’, Journal of World History, vol. 12 (fall 2001),
293–319.
3. For a history of the Gulf Residency, see D. Wright, The English Amongst the
Persians during the Qajar Period, 1787–1921 (London: Heinemann, 1977), 62–93;
P. Tuson, The Records of the British Residency and Agencies in the Persian Gulf.
IOR R/15 (London: India Office Records, 1979), 1–9; and G. Balfour-Paul, The
End of Empire in the Middle East: Britain’s Relinquishment of Power in Her Last
Three Arab Dependencies (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), 96–136.
4. The title SNOPG was used only after 1869. Earlier variants were the ‘Senior Indian
Marine Officer in the Persian Gulf’ (1822–30), the ‘Senior Indian Naval Officer in

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the Persian Gulf’ (1830–63) and the ‘Commodore at Bassadore’ (1822–63). For
the sake of simplicity, SNOPG is used for all four.
5. Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah became separate Trucial States in 1869, although the
British Govt. did not recognize this until 1921. Fujairah did not follow suit until
1901 and 1952 respectively.
6. For analysis of the treaties, see J.B. Kelly, ‘The Legal and Historical Basis of the
British Position in the Persian Gulf’, St. Antony’s Papers, no. 4: Middle Eastern
Affairs, vol. i (London: Chatto & Windus, 1958), 119–40; D. Roberts, ‘The
Consequences of the Exclusive Treaties: A British View’, The Arab Gulf and the
West, edited by B.R. Pridham (London: Croom Helm, 1985), 1–14; H.M. Al-
Baharna, ‘The Consequences of Britain’s Exclusive Treaties: A Gulf View’, The
Arab Gulf and the West, 15–37; and Al-Baharna, The Legal Status of the Arabian
Gulf States: A Study of Their Treaty Relations and Their International Problems
(Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1968).
7. For details, see J. Onley, ‘A Rose by Any Other Name: Bahrain and the Indian
States under the Raj, 1880–1947’ (conference paper presented at MESA 1999,
Washington DC) and idem., The Infrastructure of Informal Empire: A Study
of Britain’s Native Agency in Bahrain, 1816–1900 (Oxford D.Phil. thesis,
2001).
8. J.G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ’Oman, and Central Arabia, vol. i:
Historical (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1915), vol. ii: Geographical
and Statistical (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1908) and J.B. Kelly,
Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968).
9. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 837.
10. K.H. Al-Naqeeb, Society and State in the Gulf Arab Peninsula: A Different
Perspective (London: Routledge, 1990), 27, 32, 45–52, 58–9, 62–3, 68, 71–5, 121;
J.S. Ismael, Kuwait: Dependency and Class in a Rentier States (Gainsville: Univ.
of Florida Press, 1993), 38–40, 43, 47–8, 51, 57; A.O. Taryam, The Establishment
of the United Arab Emirates, 1950–85 (London: Croom Helm, 1987); and S.M.
Al-Qasimi, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London: Routledge, 1986). For
an analysis of Arab historical revisionism, see U. Freitag, ‘Writing Arab History:
The Search for the Nation’, BJMES, vol. 21 (1994), 19–37 and Y.M. Choueiri,
Modern Arab Historiography: Historical Discourse and the Nation-State (London:
Curzon, 2002).
11. Al-Qasimi, The Myth, xiv.
12. Ibid., xiii.
13. Ibid., xv.
14. R.G. Landen, ‘The Arab Gulf in the Arab World 1800–1918’, Arab Affairs, vol. i
(summer 1986), 59, 64.
15. Pelly (PRPG) to Gonne (Sec., Bombay For. Dept.), 19 June 1869, L/P&S/9/15,
OIOC, London.
16. For more details, see H. Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia,
and the Gulf, 1745–1900 (Albany: S.U.N.Y. Press, 1997), 63–90; F. Heard-Bey,
From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1996),
164–97; idem., ‘The Tribal Society of the UAE and its Traditional Economy’,
Perspectives on the United Arab Emirates, edited by E. Ghareeb and I. Al-Abed

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(London: Trident Press, 1997), 254–72; and P. Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of

Eastern Arabia, edited by A. Al-Shahi (London: Palgrave, 2001), 24–32, 114–64.
17. Doha and Bid‘ were separate towns in the nineteenth century. During his visit to
them in early 1863, William Palgrave noted that Doha was about half the size of
Bid‘. W.G. Palgrave, Personal Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and
Eastern Arabia (London: Macmillan, 1865), 236–7.
18. Trade reports on the Gulf ports in the nineteenth century can be found in the Govt.
of India’s annual Reports on the Administration of the Persian Gulf Political
Residency and Muscat Political Agency for the Years 1874–1900 (Calcutta:
For. Dept. Press, 1875–81; Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1882–1900) and
Saldanha’s Précis of Commerce and Communications in the Persian Gulf,
1801–1905 (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1906). For an assessment
of Bahrain’s economy, see Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 233–53 and A.M. Abu
Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 1750–1800: The Rise and Development of
Bahrain and Kuwait (Beirut: Khayats, 1965), 165–80.
19. Govt. of India, Report on the Administration of the Bushire Residency, 1873–74
(Calcutta: For. Dept. Press, 1874), 10, 15.
20. Saldanha, Précis of Commerce, 170, 173, 176, 179, 182, 184.
21. Or MTD 1,466,515. British trade reports on Muscat were always listed in Maria
Theresa Dollars.
22. Or MTD 751,400.
23. The table identifies the Trucial States as the ‘Arab Coast’.
24. Saldanha, Précis of Commerce, 170, 176, 182.
25. See, for example, Maj. D. Wilson, ‘Memorandum Respecting the Pearl Fisheries
in the Persian Gulf’, JRGS, vol. iii (1833), 283–6; Capt. E.L. Durand, ‘Notes on
the Pearl Fisheries of the Persian Gulf’, Govt. of India, Report on the Adminis-
tration of the Persian Gulf Political Agency for the Year 1877–78 (Calcutta: For.
Dept. Press, 1878), appendix a, 27–41; and Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf,
29–30.
26. Govt. of India, Report on the Administration of the Bushire Residency for 1873–74,
15 and Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 246.
27. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 238, 243 and R.S. Zahlan, ‘Hegemony, Dependence
and Development in the Gulf’, Social and Economic Development in the Arab
Gulf, edited by T. Niblock (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 63.
28. S.B. Miles, The Countries and Tribes of the Persian Gulf (London: Harrison &
Sons, 1919), 291; Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade, 5–6, 31, 36–8, 47–9, 60,
126; F.I. Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain: The Transformation of Social and
Political Authority in an Arab State (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980),
19–20; M. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis: The Rashidis of Saudi Arabia
(London: I.B. Tauris, 1990), 111–17; Al-Naqeeb, Society and State in the Gulf
Arab Peninsula, 11, 13–16; Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 263; and Abu
Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 170 (n. 1).
29. The British referred to the Ruler of Muscat as the ‘Imam of Muscat’ (often spelt
‘Imaum’) until the mid-nineteenth century and as the ‘Sultan of Muscat’ thereafter.
The Ruler himself used the title of Imam until 1786, after which he used the title
of Sayyid (Lord). The British Government first referred to the Ruler as the ‘Sultan

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THE POLITICS OF PROTECTION IN THE GULF

of Muscat’ in the Anglo-Muscati Treaty of 1839. For more details, see Kelly,
Britain and the Persian Gulf, 11–12.
30. Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade, 48–51, 54 and Al-Rasheed, Politics in an
Arabian Oasis, 95–132.
31. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 263–4 and Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to
United Arab Emirates, 228–9. Patricia Risso prefers to describe gazu as ‘piracy’.
P. R[isso] Dubuisson, ‘Qasimi Piracy and the General Treaty of Peace (1820)’, 47.
32. H. Rosenfeld, ‘The Social Composition of the Military in the Process of State
Formation in the Arabian Desert’, part ii, JRAI, vol. 95 (1965), 184 and H.R.P.
Dickson, The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait and
Sa’udi Arabia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949), 440–1, 443–4.
33. P. Lienhardt, ‘The Authority of Shaykhs in the Gulf: An Essay in Nineteenth
Century History’, Arabian Studies, vol. ii (1975), 64–5; idem., Shaikhdoms of
Eastern Arabia, 19–20, 222–3; and Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, Rulers
and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1995), 4, 21, 24–5.
34. Abu Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 35, 181 and Lienhardt, Shaikhdoms of
Eastern Arabia, 21, 186, 200–1.
35. Lt. A.B. Kemball, ‘Memoranda on the Resources, Localities and Relations of the
Tribes Inhabiting the Arabian Shores of the Persian Gulf’ (1845), Selections from
the Records of the Bombay Government, no. xxiv, new series (Bombay: Bombay
Education Society Press, 1856), 94.
36. Ibid. and Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 66–7, 97.
37. C.U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to
India and Neighbouring Countries, vol. xi: The Treaties, &c., Relating to Aden
and the South Western Coast of Arabia, the Arab Principalities in the Persian
Gulf, Muscat (Oman), Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (Delhi:
Manager of Publications, 1933), 193 and R.S. Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar
(London: Croom Helm, 1979), 42–3.
38. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 114.
39. Rosenfeld, ‘The Social Composition of the Military’, part i, 79.
40. Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 15.
41. For a discussion of the military in nineteenth century Arabia, see Rosenfeld, ‘The
Social Composition of the Military’, parts i and ii, 75–86, 174–94; Al-Rasheed,
Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 133–58; and Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 60.
42. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 252.
43. Ibid., 1010–14 and H.M. Govt., A Handbook of Arabia (London: Intelligence Div.,
1916), 84–5, 608.
44. Capt. G.B. Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf of Persia’,
part 1 (1829), Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, no. xxiv,
566.
45. Rosenfeld, ‘Social Composition of the Military’, part ii, 178.
46. There has been extensive work on alliance-seeking in Arabia. See Al-Rasheed,
Politics in an Arabian Oasis; F.F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation
of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1997);
Alghanim, The Reign of Mubarak Al-Sabah: Shaikh of Kuwait, 1896–1915

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(London: I.B. Taurus, 1998) and F.I. Khuri, Tents and Pyramids: Games and
Ideology in Arab Culture from Backgammon to Autocratic Rule (London: Saqi
Books, 1990), 114–17.
47. For a discussion of the subsidy system, see Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian
Oasis, 81–2, 116.
48. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 252.
49. Landen, ‘The Arab Gulf in the Arab World 1800–1918’, 59 and Al-Rasheed,’The
Rashidi Dynasty: Political Centralization among the Shammar of North Arabia’,
New Arabian Studies, vol. ii (1994), 152 (n. 20).
50. For a discussion of the first two conditions, see Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of
Eastern Arabia, 184–6, 212–14.
51. H.R.P. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait
and Sa’udi Arabia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949), 52–53, 118, 120–21.
52. P.W. Harrison, The Arab at Home (New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell & Co., 1924),
126. Also see 139–45.
53. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 52.
54. Ibid., 53 and Lienhardt, ‘The Authority of Shaykhs in the Gulf’, 68.
55. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 53.
56. Ibid., 441.
57. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 53.
58. For more details, see Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 197–9, 206.
59. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 93.
60. Harrison, The Arab at Home, 150.
61. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 53.
62. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 115 and Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of
Eastern Arabia, 31, 229.
63. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 118.
64. P. Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
1989), 59–61, 63–4, 122–3, 373.
65. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 115.
66. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 53.
67. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 116.
68. Ibid., 115–16; Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 118, 188, 200;
C. Belgrave, Personal Column (London: Hutchinson, 1960), 37; and T. Farah,
Protection and Politics in Bahrain, 1869–1915 (Lebanon: American Univ. of
Beirut, 1985), 14.
69. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 81–82 and Al-Rasheed, ‘The Rashidi
Dynasty’, 146.
70. Kemball, ‘Memoranda on … the Tribes …’ (1845), 94.
71. This is the earliest estimate available. Capt. F.B. Prideaux (PA, Bahrain) to Maj.
P.Z. Cox (PRPG), 24 June 1905, L/P&S/10/81, register no. 1508/1905, OIOC,
London. This is reproduced in Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 251.
72. Ross to Sec., Indian For. Dept., 3 Nov. 1877, Saldanha, Précis of Bahrein Affairs,
1854–1904 (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1904), 50.
73. Saldanha, Précis of Bahrein Affairs, 49.
74. Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 209–10; Khuri, Tribe and State in

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Bahrain, 51–2; idem., ‘From Tribe to State in Bahrain’, Arab Society: Social
Science Perspectives, edited by S.E. Ibrahim and N.S. Hopkins (Cairo: A.U.C.
Press, 1985), 435.
75. Idem., ‘The Authority of Shaykhs in the Gulf’, 69 and Khuri, Tribe and State in
Bahrain, 435.
76. Lienhardt, ‘The Authority of Shaykhs in the Gulf’, 69.
77. Ibid., 68. Lienhardt was summarizing the ideas of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al-Rashid in
Ta’ri˙ al-kuwayt [History of Kuwait] (Cairo, 1926).
78. Lienhardt, The Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 19–21.
79. Idem., ‘The Authority of Shaykhs in the Gulf’, 63–5, 72–3 and idem., The Shaikh-
doms of Eastern Arabia, 19–23.
80. Rosenfeld, ‘Social Composition of the Military’, part i, 78–9 and Landen, ‘The
Arab Gulf in the Arab World 1800–1918’, 59.
81. Rosenfeld, ‘Social Composition of the Military’, part i, 76.
82. Harrison, The Arab at Home, 125.
83. For examples of customary tribute payments, see Dickson, The Arab of the Desert,
443–44 and Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 113–14.
84. For more information on zakat, see Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 440–1 and
Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 161.
85. Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 20.
86. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 115. Al-Rasheed discusses ˙uwah at
length on 111–17.
87. Harrison, The Arab at Home, 156.
88. Rosenfeld, ‘Social Composition of the Military’, part i, 79.
89. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, 116–17.
90. Rosenfeld, ‘Social Composition of the Military’, part i, 85 (n. 3).
91. Ibid., 79.
92. Unless otherwise indicated, the following account is based on Govt. of Bombay,
Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, no. xxiv (1856), 91–119,
140–52, 361–425; Saldanha, Précis of Bahrein Affairs (1904), 1–36, 152; Lorimer,
Gazetteer, vol. i, 169–277, 841–8, 851–9, 879–80; Miles, The Countries and
Tribes of the Persian Gulf, 291–7, 318, 322, 329; and Kelly, Britain and the
Persian Gulf, 103–4, 121–2, 126, 221–2, 229–30, 303–5.
93. These are the dependent tribes the Resident identified in 1869 (reprinted in
Aitchison’s Treaties), with the exception of the ‘Abman, Al Bin ‘Ali, Kibisah,
Manana‘ah and Sadah, whom the British had identified in previous years. This list
is based on a compilation from: Aitchison, Treaties, vol. xi, 193; Brucks, ‘Memoir
Descriptive’, part 1 (1829), 559–63; Kemball, ‘Memoranda on … the Tribes …’
(1845), 104–8; Kemball, ‘Historical Sketch of the Uttoobee Tribe of Arabs
(Bahrein) from the Year 1832 to 1844’ (1844), Selections from the Records of the
Bombay Government, no. xxiv, 390; Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 840 and vol. ii,
754, 1530–5; and Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 18–19, 33–4, 36–7, 39, 41–3.
94. ? indicates the known location of a tribe at the time of Lorimer’s investigations
during 1904–07. This may or may not have been the tribe’s location at the time of
Al Khalifah’s overlordship of eastern and northern Qatar (c.1766–1871). See
Lorimer’s footnote comments on this: Gazetteer, vol. ii, 1505 (n. *).

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95. There is some confusion over the precise dates of the two Muscati attacks on, and
occupation of, Bahrain between 1799 and 1801. See Kelly, Britain and the Persian
Gulf, 104 (n. 1).
96. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 327.
97. Alexei Vassiliev incorrectly identifies the force as British. Vassiliev, The History
of Saudi Arabia (London: Saqi Books, 1998), 108. In marked contrast to the sources
above, Charles Davies argues that it was the wakil’s brother, Fahd bin Sulayman
bin ‘Ufaysan, who was captured. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 327.
98. Davies, 327.
99. Kemball, ‘Historical Sketch … 1832 to 1844’ (1844), 414.
100. Ibid., 415.
101. Lorimer misprints $4,000 as 84,000. Gazetteer, vol. i, 880. For the correct amount,
see Lt. H.F. Disbrowe, ‘Historical Sketch of the Uttoobee Tribe of Arabs (Bahrein),
1844–1853’ (1853), Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government,
no. xxiv, 416.
102. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 384–5.
103. Comdr. Porter (SNOPG) to Hennell, 21 July 1851, L/P&S/5/471, 6, OIOC,
London.
104. Hennell to Malet, 9 Aug. 1851, L/P&S/5/471, 28–9, OIOC, London.
105. Disbrowe, ‘Historical Sketch … 1844 to 1853’ (1853), 423 and Kelly, Britain and
the Persian Gulf, 399–402.
106. Disbrowe, ‘Historical Sketch … 1844 to 1853’ (1853), 424.
107. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 501–10.
108. Ibid., 512–14, 523, 528.
109. Ibid., 514.
110. Ibid., 515–16, 518.
111. Ibid., 514, 524.
112. Jasim to Jones, 23 May 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
113. Jones to Muhammad bin Khalifah, 18 May 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
114. ‘Purport of two conversations held between Capt. Jones and Ali ben Khaleefa’,
21 & 23 May 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
115. Jones to Comdr. Drought, 26 May 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
116. Jones to Muhammad bin Khalifah, 28 May 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
117. Marginal note, ibid.
118. Jones to Chief Sec., Bombay Govt., 1 June 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
119. Ibid. and Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 525–7.
120. Muhammad bin Khalifah to Jones, 31 May 1861 and Jones to Chief Sec., Bombay
Govt., 1 June 1861, L/P&S/9/162, OIOC, London.
121. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 525–7.
122. Henvey (offg. Under-Sec., Indian For. Dept.) to Ross (PRPG), 10 Dec. 1874, qtd.
in Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 761.
123. Pelly to Muhammad bin Khalifah, 2 Sept. 1868, enclosed in Gonne (Sec., Bombay
Pol. Dept.) to Seton-Karr (Sec., Indian For. Dept.), 9 Oct. 1868, L/P&S/5/261,
OIOC, London.
124. Pelly to Gonne, 25 Sept. 1868, L/P&S/5/261, 2, OIOC, London.
125. Ibid., 3.

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126. Ibid. and Agreement of 6 Sept. 1868 (signed 9 Sept.), Aitchinson, Treaties, vol. xi,
193, 236–7. Kelly asserts, incorrectly, that it was Pelly who deposed the Ruler.
Britain and the Persian Gulf, 674.
127. Pelly to Gonne (Sec., Bombay Pol. Dept.), 25 Sept. 1868, L/P&S/5/261, 4, OIOC,
London.
128. Ibid.
129. Pelly to Sec., Bombay Pol. Dept., 12 Apr. 1869, L/P&S/9/15, 127–8, OIOC,
London; Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 895; and Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf,
675, 732. For more details of the events of 1867–68, see Saldanha, Précis of
Bahrein Affairs, 13–18; Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 672–6; and Zahlan,
The Creation of Qatar, 41–2, 44–5 (n. 9–13).
130. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 730, 738; Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 46;
P. Tuson, ‘Introduction’, Records of Qatar, vol. 2: 1854–1879 (Slough: Archive
Editions, 1991), xi; and F.F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf, 32–3, 190 (n. 74).
131. Saldanha, Précis of Bahrein Affairs, 35.
132. Talal Farah has done an extensive analysis of this British policy towards Zubarah
and the Na‘im. Farah, Protection and Politics in Bahrain, 37–68. Also see
Saldanha, Précis of Bahrein Affairs, 13–18, 35–37; idem., Précis of Katar Affairs,
1873–1904 (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1904), 1–10; Lorimer,
Gazetteer, vol. i, 906; Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 761–2, 789–91, 795,
798, 842–51; and Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 47–50.
133. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 761.
134. Belgrave, Personal Column, 152–9 and Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 85–90.
135. P. Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
1989).
136. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 133–5, 349–50, 440–1, 443–4.
137. Dresch, Tribes, 258.
138. Dresch refers to the protégé as al-bar, but al-da˙il was more common in Eastern
Arabia.
139. Dresch, Tribes, 59. wabh literally means ‘face’ and fi wabhihi means ‘in his face’.
140. Ibid., 59–60.
141. Ibid., 60–1.
142. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 133–4 and H. Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern
Written Arabic, 3rd ed. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Spoken Language Services, 1976), 273.
143. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 133–4.
144. Dresch, Tribes, 59, 62, 64.
145. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 135.
146. Dresch, Tribes, 60–1.
147. Lienhardt, ‘The Authority of Shaykhs in the Gulf’, 73.
148. Dresch, Tribes, 64.
149. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 440–1, 443–4.
150. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 125.
151. Harrison, The Arab at Home, 126.
152. Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 101–2.
153. I am indebted to Frauke Heard-Bey of the Centre for Documentation and Research,
Abu Dhabi for this information.

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154. Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 81.

155. Ibid., 81–2.
156. Abu Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 65–76, 88–9, 108–17, 181; History of
‘Utub tribe, enclosed in Jasim to Ross (PRPG), 11 Sept. 1873, R/15/1/192, OIOC,
London; Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 24; and H.I. Al-Khalifa, First Light:
Modern Bahrain and Its Heritage (London: Kegan Paul International, 1994), 37,
41–3.
157. Abu Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 117; Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain,
25; P. Ward, Bahrain: A Travel Guide (Cambridge: Oleander Press, 1993), 9;
Al-Khalifa, First Light, 54 and correspondence with ‘Ali Akbar Bushiri, 8 Sept.
2001, Bahrain.
158. For a history and description of Diwan Fort, see Belgrave, Personal Column, 34.
For images, see Belgrave, 33; Gulf Panorama, Old Days (Manamah: Oriental Press,
1986), 43; K.M. Al-Muraikhi, Events Enfolded in Time: A Journey into Bahrain’s
Past (Bahrain: n.p., 1997), 130, 189; and A. Wheatcroft, Bahrain in Original
Photographs, 1880–1961 (London: Kegan Paul, 1988), 67.
159. Al-Khalifa, First Light, 54 and correspondence with ‘Ali Akbar Bushiri, 8 Sept.
2001, Bahrain.
160. Abu Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 117; Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain,
25; Ward, Bahrain, 9; and correspondence with ‘Ali Akbar Bushiri, 8 Sept. 2001,
Bahrain.
161. Abu Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 117; Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf,
28–9; Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 26; F.H. Lawson, Bahrain: The Modern-
ization of Autocracy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 30; and correspondence
with ‘Ali Akbar Bushiri, 8 Sept. 2001, Bahrain.
162. Ahmad Abu Hakima is the only historian who believes Salman ruled alone before
the 1810s. History of Eastern Arabia, 197.
163. Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 26; Lawson, Bahrain, 30; and correspondence
with ‘Ali Akbar Bushiri, 8 Sept. 2001, Bahrain.
164. For history and detailed study of ‘Arad Fort, see A.G. Walls, Arad Fort, Bahrain
(Bahrain: Ministry of Info., 1987).
165. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 850 and Belgrave, The Pirate Coast, 75.
166. Ibid. and Ward, Bahrain, 195. Abu Hakima and Kelly say Salman moved to Rifa‘
in 1796, while Khuri says 1800.
167. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 844, 850.
168. For an analysis of Abu Mahir Fort’s strategic positioning, see Walls, Arad Fort,
35, 41–3 and Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive’, part 1 (1829), 568. For a history see
K.M. Al-Muraikhi, Glimpses of Bahrain from Its Past (Bahrain: Ministry of
Information, 1997), 262. For images, see Lewis (PRPG) to Bombay Govt., 25 Sept.
1868, appendix 4, W/L/P&S/5/15, OIOC and Ward, Bahrain, 114.
169. For histories and images of Qasr Khalifah, Qasr Rifa‘ and Bayt ‘Isa, see Govt. of
Bahrain, Al-bahrayn: hadarah wa-ta’ri˙ (Bahrain: Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and
Info., 1997), 238–9, 303 and Ward, Bahrain, 92–7, 196.
170. Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive’, part 1 (1829), 568.
171. Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 43–4.
172. Ibid., 43, 51–2.

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173. Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive’, part 1 (1829), 566 and Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i:
238.
174. The Hawalah are Sunni Arabs from southern Persia who link themselves genea-
logically to one of the tribes of Arabia. Many could be described as ‘Persianized
Arabs’ in the nineteenth century. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i: 754–55 and Khuri,
Tribe and State in Bahrain, 2, 4.
175. For a detailed census from 1905, see Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 237–41.
176. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. ii, 248; Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, 44–53; and
Farah, Protection and Politics in Bahrain, 10, 45.
177. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 850.
178. See the Gulf Residency’s few surviving files of Arabic correspondence. These
cover the years 1856–72 and can be found in R/15/1/180–182, OIOC. Also see
Lienhardt, Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 185 and H.A. Qafisheh, NTC’s Gulf
Arabic–English Dictionary (Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 1997), 17, 153.
179. Qafisheh, Gulf Arabic–English Dictionary, 17.
180. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 842–946.
181. The Al Sabah were ancient allies of the Al Khalifah. These dates indicate those
times when the Al Sabah came, or were asked to come, to the military assistance
of the Al Khalifah.
182. The Al Balahimah were also ancient allies, but fell out with the Al Khalifah in
1783. These dates indicate those times when the Al Balahimah came to the military
assistance of the Al Khalifah.
183. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 842–946.
184. My thanks to Yoav Alon of St. Antony’s College, Oxford for this insight.
185. J.E. Peterson, ‘Tribes and Politics in Eastern Arabia’, MEJ, vol. xxi (1977), 302.
186. Lienhardt, Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, 15.
187. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 863–5.
188. Ibid., 865.
189. Ibid., 866.
190. Ibid.
191. Ibid., 866–7.
192. Dr T. MacKenzie (acting Asst. PRPG) to Secret Committee, Court of Directors,
London, 18 Sept. 1840, L/P&S/9/116, 223, OIOC, London.
193. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 867.
194. Ibid., 868.
195. The Al Balahimah were a former ally of the Al Khalifah and the Al Bin ‘Ali a
former dependant. They broke with Al Khalifah in 1783 and 1835 respectively.
Shaikh Bavir was the son of Shaikh Rahmah, the Ruler of the Al Balahimah who
waged war against the Al Khalifah from 1783 until his death in 1826.
196. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 868.
197. Kemball, ‘Historical Sketch … 1832 to 1844’ (1844), 396.
198. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 869.
199. Kemball, ‘Historical Sketch … 1832 to 1844’ (1844), 397, 397–8 (n. *).
200. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 870.
201. Ibid., 872–3.
202. Kemball, ‘Historical Sketch … 1832 to 1844’ (1844), 405–6.

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203. Ibid., 402 and Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 873.

204. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 873.
205. Ibid., 874.
206. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 202.
207. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 874.
208. For details of his argument, see Lt. Kemball’s own account of the incident in
‘Historical Sketch … 1832 to 1844’ (1844), 397–8 (n. *).
209. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. i, 874.
210. Ibid., 876.
211. Ibid., 877, 879–80.
212. Ibid., 877.
213. Ibid., 878.
214. Ibid., 878–9.
215. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 167–192.
216. Paraphrase of Morrison (PRPG) to Sultan al-Qasimi, Sept. 1836, qtd. in Kemball,
‘Observations on the Past Policy of the British Government towards the Arab
Tribes of the Persian Gulf’ (1844), Selections from the Records of the Bombay
Government, no. xxiv, 69.
217. Kemball, ‘Observations on the Past Policy’ (1844), 62–3, 68, 73.
218. Ibid., 68.
219. Ibid., 68 (n. *).
220. Ibid., 69.
221. Ibid.
222. Hennell (Asst. PRPG) to Sec., Bombay Pol. Dept., 19 Apr. 1830, qtd. in Kemball,
70 (n. *).
223. Ibid.
224. Kemball, ‘Observations on the Past Policy’ (1844), 69–70.
225. Ibid., 70.
226. Ibid., 74.
227. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 369.
228. For details of this policy and the motives behind it, see Kemball, ‘Observations
on the Past Policy’ (1844), 69 (n. *).
229. Kemball, ‘Historical Sketch … 1832 to 1844’ (1844), 288–89 and Disbrowe,
‘Historical Sketch … from 1844 to 1853’ (1853), 417, 420.
230. Saldanha, Précis of Bahrein Affairs, 10–11.
231. Ibid., 67–8.
232. Paraphrase of a report by Col. Ross (PRPG), July 1874, Saldanha, Précis of
Bahrein Affairs, 41.
233. D. Hawley, Desert Wind and Tropic Storm: An Autobiography (Wilby: Michael
Russell, 2000), 44.
234. My thanks to Frauke Heard-Bey of the Centre for Documentation and Research,
Abu Dhabi for this insight.
235. J.B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West (London: George Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1980), 49–50.

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