'File 12/1 II Persian Claim to Bahrain, April 1946-December 1950' [‎5r] (9/20)

carriers and some important merchants who trade princi
pally with Persia. Some of them are Bushiris and Kazer-
roonis and most of them are from the Persian littoral.
The Persian school provides for the education of many
of their sons though some attend the Grovernment schools.
They have their own matems, for men and for women, their
own club, the Firdosi Club, and their own mosques. Taken
as a whole they are a poor, harworking community. Many
of them live in Barastis and few of them own property*
The majority of them live in Manamah though there is a
PersianShia community in Muharraq. Their language is
Persian and in many cases, especially among the women,
they speak no Arabic. In this community, who have very
little to lose, there are certainly many who would like to
see Bahrain taken over by Persia. They suffer certain
disadvantages at present through being foreigners and they
probably imagine that under a Government of their own kind
and creed they would enjoy a better position than they do
now. There are young men among them who are sympathetic
to the "Tudeh" movement. During recent years a certain
amount of propaganda literature has been brought into
Bahrain from Persia but it appears to be mostly directed
against the old fashioned Shia religious beliefs and obser
vances and is frowned upon by the older generation of Per
sian Shias.
5. The Sunni Persians include a number of wealthy
and important merchants who own property in the State such
as Mohomed Tyeb Khunji, Yusuf Ali Akbar, Shaikh Izhaq and
others. Most of them are self made men who came to Bahrain
with little or no money and acquired riches from successful
trading. Twenty years ago all these people were Persian
subjects and they had no wish to acquire Bahrain nationality
but when the nationality law came into force in 1939 they
were compelled to become Bahrain subjects to avoid losing