Articles From Our Experts

Although British power in the Gulf was founded on maritime truces with local rulers, in the early 20th century land-based attacks increased, creating the need for new agreements.

By offering military protection to Qatar, the British tried to ensure access to Qatari oil in the run-up to the Second World War. But why did Qatar need weapons and armoured cars in 1935?

Despite inauspicious beginnings, Shaikh Aḥmad al-Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ’s official visit to England in 1919 proved a success.

The EIC’s departure from Bushire in 1769 was one example of how, in the 17th and 18th centuries, groups of traders would settle, then relocate, along the Gulf coast with great adaptability, going where they could freely carry out their business.

As the oil industry developed in the late 1940s, Britain was keen to place a Political Agent in Qatar. To do this the British had to come to an understanding with the Shaikh of Qatar on matters of slavery without being seen to interfere.

A candid exchange between British officials in the 1920s reveals the extent to which Britain had intervened in Bahrain in its own interest.

Common household practices such as consuming hot soups and drinks when one has caught a cold are rooted in humoral medicine, which was the dominant medical paradigm from the time of Galen to the nineteenth century (and beyond) across much of the world.

In the medieval and early modern periods, the same group of individuals who developed new mathematical methods and theories were often directly involved in the historical, philological preservation of ancient texts.

Much Anglocentric writing on Gulf history credits the British with bringing peace to the region. But how accurate is that narrative? A close inspection of the India Office Records reveals another picture of the British presence in the Gulf.

When Captain Francis Erskine Loch arrived in the Gulf, he very quickly made an impact that would continue to have implications for British attitudes to the Gulf for over 200 years.

In the pre-modern Arabic-speaking lands, as the world over, the lives of people and animals were intertwined in manifold ways. This resulted in the production of numerous Arabic scientific, veterinary, and related texts on the world of beasts.

Around 150 AD Claudius Ptolemaeus wrote the great handbook of astronomy, later known as the Almagest, which became the prevalent handbook for the knowledge of the stars in Europe for about 1500 years. The text was handed on to the Europeans through Arabic translations in the ninth century AD, and translated into Latin in the twelfth century.

It’s hard to imagine a natural resource as important to the history of the development of the Gulf States as oil. But in the early days of oil exploration, nothing was more important than water.

In the thirteenth century, Ibn al-Nafīs wrote a substantial commentary on Avicenna’s entire Canon of Medicine thereby revising existing understandings of human physiology and anatomy. His theory of the pulmonary transit of blood formed a cornerstone of the modern theory of blood circulation.

Ptolemaic astronomy became known in mediaeval Europe mainly through translations from Arabic. Latin translations of the Almagest reflect the complex tradition of Ptolemy in the Arab world and show the translators' individual approaches to a demanding and unfamiliar science.

A religious disagreement in 1930 between the Sultanate of Muscat and American missionaries in Muscat reveals more than just a battle for souls.

With the city of Muscat in disarray and growing dissent on the coast, the absent Imam of Muscat had to rely on his close relative to take charge and defend his territories. The person to assume this mantle? Influential, commanding, and female.

Bahrain’s Order in Council gave the Political Agent the power to, on one hand, issue birth certificates, and on the other, to rule on capital punishment for convicted criminals.

When the Residency ship Berenice was destroyed by fire on a trip to Muscat, the Resident in the Persian Gulf endured a ‘week of considerable anxiety’ over-seeing the rescue of 178 men, women, and children.

During the early ʿAbbāsid period (ninth century CE), a diverse group of scholars collaborated on the long-term project of translating an elaborate work of pure geometry dealing with the properties of the parabola, ellipse and hyperbola – Apollonius’ Conics.

Western naval bases have played a significant part in colonial history, and remain an important factor in international relations today. This article explores the early history of the establishment and proliferation of British naval bases in the Gulf.

An Italian bombing raid brought Bahrain into the Second World War’s ‘zone of operations’, sparking fear amongst Bahrainis and concerns amongst the British over the safety of the islands’ strategic oil installations.

In the tempestuous history of the British Residency at Mocha, one of the most notable incidents was the bombardment of the city in December 1820. This followed allegations from British officials and Arab leaders of shocking misconduct on both sides.

Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq: a Medieval Arab scholar who transformed his understanding of ancient Greek medical texts into manuals for the benefit of many successive generations of students.

The British Government had a strong interest in Kharg, a small, strategically placed island in the Gulf.

At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain’s concerns over a possible French invasion of India through Persia led to its deepening intervention in the Gulf.

During WWII, secret instructions for the interception of post passing through the Gulf were circulated to Political Agents in Bahrain, Kuwait and Muscat.

The arrest of a British Subject on spurious charges makes plain Britain’s dominant position in Kuwait in the late 1930s.

For a period of over 150 years, from 1820 until its withdrawal in 1971, Britain was dominant in the Gulf, but the nature of British domination evolved from economic influence to political control, particularly of the Arabian side of the Gulf.

A minor incident at Basaidu in the 1930s led to the Royal Navy launching its First Destroyer Flotilla on a tour of the Gulf, in a very public display of its naval dominance over the region.

Only by mapping and surveying Aden fully were the British able to plan for its reconstruction and fortification, thereby facilitating trade and other shipping to and from India and beyond.

An enormous effort was made to translate almost all known Greek literature into Arabic during the 8th to 10th centuries, and Baghdad was at the centre of this work. Why was it that so many of the translators were Christians?

How did a fourteenth century illustrated ‘Treatise on the Art of Riding and using the Instruments of War’ end up in the British Library’s Arabic manuscript collection? A ‘Nincumpoop’ of the Napoleonic era, who moonlighted as an antiquarian, holds the answer.

In AD 137, Ptolemy compiled a catalogue of forty-eight constellations containing 1022 stars. ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūfī revised critically Ptolemy’s catalogue, added new stars and identified those appearing in the Arabic folk tradition.

Bertram Thomas completed his historic crossing of the Empty Quarter in 1931, then the largest territory in the world outside Antarctica still unexplored by Europeans. But why is he still a minor figure in the history of exploration and Empire?

In spite of legally abolishing slavery in its Empire in 1833, the British Government struggled to eradicate the practice in its protectorates in the Gulf.

The movement for political reform in Kuwait in 1938 signified change in the region and highlights the country’s – and Britain’s – response to the ideas and forces that delivered it.

Over 800 manumission statements, collected by numerous British administrators in the Gulf over the course of three decades, offer invaluable insights into the lives and labours of the enslaved peoples of the Gulf region.

Among pre-modern Arabic scholars, the Almagest was generally regarded as the most authoritative work on astronomy. This esteem for Ptolemy's text, however, contrasted with a common practice among Arabic readers not to consult the Almagest directly but to rely on later commentaries for studying Ptolemy's theories.

Lewis Pelly, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf 1862–72, witnessed rapid expansion in the value of trade in the region as well as political upheaval and crisis caused by famine.

During a period often characterised as one of decay and decline, the Andaluso-Tunisian astronomer Ibn al-Raqqām wrote his Risālah fī ‘ilm al-ẓilāl, the most important treatise on sundials of the Islamic West. The instruments he describes are much more elaborate and sophisticated than the surviving examples of Medieval sundials from al-Andalus and the Maghrib.

The life and times of Shaikh Khaz’al bin Jābir bin Mirdāw al-Ka‘bī (1861-1936), the Emir of Mohammerah and chief of the Banu Ka’b tribe.

Gwadar was an enclave of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman for nearly 200 years, but records show that while the Sultans were reluctant to lose sovereignty over the territory, they were nevertheless open to negotiations with the British.

During the first four centuries of Islam, almost all the Greek scientific literature available in manuscripts was translated into Arabic in an effort, centred on Baghdad, known as the ‘translation movement’.

In the early 20th century, British Officials responsible for the administration of justice in cases concerning British subjects and foreigners in the Gulf had to maintain a delicate balance, so as not to stoke bad relations between neighbouring states.

For eight hundred years, the Arabic scientific tradition was superior to that found in western Eurasia. It gave birth to new theories and fields of scientific inquiry that laid the foundations for the Scientific Revolution, and continued to flourish thereafter.

An unassuming financial file that forms part of the India Office Records contains an unexpected example of British, Arabic-language propaganda.

Britain and its Allies maintained supremacy over the Gulf’s airspace during the Second World War, but mechanical failure could quickly turn the tables, making crewmen dependent on the region’s local population for their survival.

Who were the Bania, and how are they depicted in the India Office Records?

The culmination of extensive travel and research, George Curzon’s Persia and the Persian Question was a critical success. Yet was its author happy with it?

The death of the Persian Ambassador in Bombay almost spelled disaster for relations between Persia and British India in July 1802.

Papers highlighting a difference in 1915 between Western and Arab interpretations of judicial procedure in Bahrain may not be representative of the history of Britain’s jurisdiction in the Gulf as a whole.

The 1930s was the decade that transformed the Gulf from its role as conduit between Britain and her empire to a strategic locus in the run-up to the war and a ‘highway between east and west’.

Murder, suicide, communal riots, racial snobbery and a colourful, much-maligned British Agent caught up in the midst of it all: a record of life in Gwadar 1928–32.

Sir Lewis Pelly is a key figure in the history of the Gulf who, in his role as Political Resident, was Britain’s senior official in the region from 1862 to 1873. He holds particular importance for Qatar due to his recognition of its independent sovereignty in 1868.

Today’s leaders look to their medical, economic, military, and other expert advisers, but historically rulers have also consulted astrologers, dream-interpreters, and specialists in other forms of divination and occult sciences.

Ownership of a medal of the Order of the Lion and Sun becomes the subject of an unseemly quarrel, as related by the British Envoy in Tehran.

During the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran, Britain established the Anglo-Iranian Relief Fund not only to deliver humanitarian aid to the Iranian people, but also to justify and promote its military presence inside the country.

In 1910, British officials discovered that the Persian authorities at Bandar-e Lengeh were charging travellers a domestic rate to travel to Bahrain, reigniting a decades-long dispute over Persian claims to the islands.

Sharjah 1940, and Nazi radio broadcasts in Arabic filled the air, stirring pro-German sentiment amongst the town’s inhabitants – and provoking consternation amongst British officials.