Articles From Our Experts

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.

The subject of railways appears time and again in the India Office Records. What was Britain’s obsession with them and how did they transform how Britain thought about, protected, and ran its empire?

In the 1860s, speculation on Indian cotton, followed by failed harvests left Bombay’s banks in crisis and customers struggling to access funds. Lewis Pelly was one such customer.

How a state of the art communications technology arrived in Bahrain in 1916.

Captain Owen’s plan to take over the portal town of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean put British officials in a contentious situation with the Sultan of Muscat and Zanzibar.

Before oil, the inhabitants of the Gulf’s Arab coast depended on diving for natural pearls for their economic livelihoods. And, like oil, it was chiefly European and North American demand that dictated the success or failure of each pearling season.

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.

The Death of Karim Khan Zand, ruler of Persia, in 1779 marked the beginning of a bloody period lasting 15 years and culminating in the rise to power of the Qajar dynasty.

Astrology was considered a scientific discipline in the Middle Ages, when political powers patronised astronomical research that was considered necessary for obtaining ‘scientific’ astrological predictions.

In the ninth century, Ḥunayn ibn Ishāq decided to explain Greek terminology, instead of simply adopting it, in his translations of the medical treatises of Galen. In doing this he helped establish Arabic as an international language of science.

Between the world wars, Reza Shah Pahlavi brought great changes to Iran and a challenge to British predominance in the Gulf, the legacy of which is still felt in the region.

How and why were the early voyages of the East India Company made? What were the challenges and first encounters?

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.

What was the life of a diver like and how did the trade function? Papers in the India Office Records provide some fascinating clues.

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.

The peoples of the Islamic world excelled at designing and building water-clocks as these manuscripts show.

Germany’s desire for ‘a place in the sun’ saw her challenge Britain’s commercial dominance in the Gulf in the early years of the twentieth century.

In 1830, the long-term relationship between Prince Najaf Ali Khan Zand and the Government of Bombay was put to the test when the Prince was accused of murder.

While Britain’s more distinct political and strategic interests in the Gulf grew over time, it was initially a matter of textile trading with Persia that first lured them to the shores of the Gulf.

The environment has greatly influenced life in the Gulf and Indian Ocean over the centuries. Before the era of steamships, a hugely significant factor affecting life and trade in this region were the winds of the Indian Ocean monsoon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Qatar’s exploratory wells were drilled relatively late, although Major Frank Holmes sought an exploratory lease in 1922.

al-Bīrūnī’s Qānūn is the most complete astronomical encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. It represents the most successful attempt to correct and rewrite Ptolemy’s Almagest, and was based on the results of three centuries of research in Islamic lands.

During the American Civil War (1861–65) cotton supplies to Britain’s textile mills dwindled, causing a boom in production elsewhere in the Empire.

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.

Britain’s historical presence in the Gulf was based on a claim to be fighting “piracy”. But what did British officials mean by this, and how was it interpreted by the region’s residents?

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.

The shipwreck in 1852 of a merchant vessel off the Oman coast, led to the plunder and loss of enough indigo to supply the entire Gulf region for a year.

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.

In medieval Islamic societies, education in the mathematical sciences was based not on solving problems, or producing new results, but rather on careful study of the accomplishments of past masters.

With pearling in decline and oil exploitation on hold, what drove Bahrain’s economy between the World Wars?

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.

The name Mīr Muhannā is much celebrated in Iran today because he stood up to imperialism and won.

The struggle for power in Muscat 1866–68 following the death, in suspicious circumstances, of Sayyid Thuwaynī bin Sa‘īd Āl Bū Sa‘īd, Sultan of Muscat.

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.

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.

What is a kharita, what are its main components, and how was it dispatched?

Early examples of watermarks in paper can display a variety of seemingly obscure imagery. What were these images attempting to communicate? Why were they used, and what is their significance?

Due to increased tensions between the British and French, in the 1780s, the Gulf was drawn into a global battle for supremacy. Spying was a significant aspect of the struggle to control strategic shipping routes.

Certain collections within the British Library’s manuscript holdings represent dark links between Britain’s nineteenth-century colonial and military activities, and its acquisition of cultural and intellectual heritage.

Looking to strengthen Persia as a potential buffer for the defence of India, Britain provided military assistance to the Crown Prince of Persia in his struggle against Russian expansion into the Caucasus.

In recognising the importance of the trade, British colonial records cast light on the state of the ancient trade in Frankincense in the Dhofar region at the end of the 19th century, as well as some conflicts that emerged as a result.

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.

Former slaves employed in the Indian Navy’s crews in the mid-19th century often exploited the itinerant existence of naval vessels to escape servitude.

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.

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.

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.