Articles From Our Experts

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.

The sources of the British Library’s Arabic scientific manuscripts are many and various. Here we discover an individual who contributed to the collection and lived an adventurous life in London and the Middle East.

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

The death of an African sailor who had been severely flogged for attempted desertion, exposes the brutal nature of early nineteenth-century maritime life, in which justice could be as capricious as a strong tailwind.

‘Islamic’ and ‘Western’ are terms used to describe different styles of binding but experts agree that much further research is required to create more meaningful categories.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Against a backdrop of bold manoeuvres by different states in the nineteenth century, the British Agent at the Court of the Imam of Muscat wrote numerous letters focused on small matters of prestige.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Fifteenth-century Cairo was the place to be for astronomers and mathematicians. One scholar left his particular mark in a surprising variety of ways on the manuscript records of the period.

From 1900 to 1933 the Persian Oil Concession was the backdrop to a stand-off between the British and newly-renamed Iran.

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 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 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.

The words camphor, lemon, syrup and tamarind all derive from Arabic formularies – books in which Arabic-speaking physicians and pharmacists preserved and adapted the knowledge of earlier civilisations and presented new drugs to the public.

Not all prisoners during wartime are soldiers. During the First World War, many countries interned “enemy” civilians.

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.

A small selection of memoirs by retired political officers provides a unique insight into one generation’s experiences of living and working in the Gulf.

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’.

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.

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.

Keen to maintain peace and wary of inflaming relations with the Trucial Shaikhs, in 1910 the Government of India censured those responsible for a bloody bombardment of Dubai and its aftermath.

How did an Agent of the East India Company use his position to collect the manuscripts that went to form the basis of the British Library’s Arabic-language collection?

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the immediate post-WWII period, despite British opposition, the U.S. sought to increase its influence in the Gulf by distributing propagandistic material in Arabic.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Scribal notes in a Mughal-period manuscript of fourteen musical texts shed light on its historical context and the process of its creation.

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.

For over a hundred years, in tandem with the colonisation of Palestinian land, Palestinian history has been systematically erased, suppressed, and distorted. The QDL however contains multiple sources on Palestine and Palestinians.

Beyond Sykes and Picot, the India Office Records reveal the complex historical and political junctures that shaped the map of today's Middle East.

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

From its foundation at the end of the eighteenth century, the British Residency in Baghdad occupied a strategically important position, linking together various strands of British imperial engagement in the region.

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.

Oman’s lease of a major Persian port was defined by obscure origins, and a relationship that was generally uneasy and often contentious – a situation that British authorities were happy to exploit. This is the first article in a series of two.

In the wake of Indian independence and the United States’ increasing presence, British administrators sought to remind the Gulf’s inhabitants of who remained nominally in control of the region.

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

From its origins as a small London enterprise, the East India Company (EIC) emerged as a powerful commercial and political organisation, whose presence in the Gulf helped shape the region’s modern history.

While Britain more famously held naval bases in Basaidu, Hengam, and Bahrain during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, less is known about the small base on the Musandam Peninsula, which was at one time envisaged as the centre of British power in the region.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

What do the Gombroon Diaries convey about eighteenth-century Persia [Iran] and the Gulf (1708-1763)?

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.

From its earliest years the RAF played a vital role in maintaining and strengthening British power in the Gulf.

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.

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

Played out against Oman’s imposing geographical position, the British relationship with Oman has changed from that of allies against common foe, through informal British imperial influence to an important trading and strategic partner today.