"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٠‎١‎١] (١٧٨٢/١١٦٦)

1011
Kelationa of
Kuwait with
Bahrain.
were no customs or other taxes, the revenue for public purposes consisting
of about §20,000 a year which was voluntarily contributed by merchants
and otheis; and lelig-ious toleration, extending even to Jews, was the rule.
Beyond the limits of the town the influence of the Shaikh reached
some 8 or 10 miles. Bedouins were not allowed to enter Kuwait armed.
Shaikh Subah, at his death in or about 1866, was succeeded by his eldest
son 'Abdullah.
The intervention of Shaikh Jabir of Kuwait in Bahrain affairs,
occasioned by the struggle there between Shaikhs 'Abdullah and
Muhammad of the ruling Al Khalifah family, is described at length in
the history of the Bahrain principality. Here it will be enough to recall
the facts that in August 1843 the Shaikh of Kuwait of his own motion,
but not without the approval of the British authorities, visited Bahrain
and tried, in vain, to reconcile the rivals ; that in 1S43 or 1844, at the
imminent risk of a collision with Shaikh Muhammad of Bahrain, which
in fact was only averted by the intervention of the British authorities,
be attempted, unsuccessfully, to provision the ex-Shaikh 'Abdullah's
fortress of Dammam, then invested by the Wahhabi forces on land and
blockaded by the fleet of Shaikh Muhammad at sea; that in 1844, after
the fall of Dammam, he harboured for a short time the fugitive Shaikh
'Abdullah at his town of Kuwait; and, finally, that he allowed the ex-
Shaikh to remain at Kuwait from 1845 to 1846, during which period,,
as particularly requested by the British Resident at Bushehr, he was
eaieful to restrain his guest from the commission of maritime irregulari
ties. In 1869 Muhammad, an ex-Shaikh of Bahrain, was deported to
Kuwait, but he did not remain there Ion 0,
£"5 *
At the epoch now under consideration, the attitude of the Kuwait Relations
Shaikh towards the Wahhabi power, hitherto that of a declared opponent withNvTd
or at best of a nominal and unwilling feudatory, became decidedly less
antagonistic. In 1^41 Abdullah-bin-Thanaiyan, a relative and competi
tor of Khalid, the de facto Wahhabi Amir, took refuge at Kuwait, where
he stayed for a short time only ; but before the end of the same year, on
Abdullah, who had meanwhile returned to Central Arabia, obtaining
the upper hand, Khalid in his turn sought and found an asylum
at Kuwait. In 1863 friendly relations existed between the Shaikh of
Kuwait and Faisal-bin-Turki, who then ruled Najd, but no tribute was
paid bv the former to the latter. In 1866, as we shall see further on, the
Wahhabi Amir 'Abdullah, who maintained an agent at Kuwait for
political purposes as his father too had clone even so early as 1851, was
piepared to assist the Shaikh in a quarrel which occurred between the
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