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Kuwait
THE AGE OF COLONIALISM
During the Middle Ages, Muslim countries of the Middle East controlled
East-West trade. However, control changed in the fifteenth century.
The Portuguese, who were building ships with deep hulls that remained
stable in high seas, were thus able to make longer voyages. They
pushed farther and farther down the west coast of Africa until
they found their way around the southern tip of the continent
and made contact with Muslim cities on the other side. In East
Africa, the Portuguese enlisted Arab navigators there to take
them across to India, where they eventually set themselves up
in Calicut on the Malabar Coast in the southwestern part of the
country.
Once in India, the Portuguese used their superior ships to transport
goods around Africa instead of using the Red Sea route, thus eliminating
the middlemen in Egypt. The Portuguese then extended their control
to the local trade that crossed the Arabian Sea, capturing coastal
cities in Oman and Iran and setting up forts and customs houses
on both coasts to collect duty. The Portuguese allowed local rulers
to remain in control but collected tribute from them in exchange
for that privilege, thus increasing Portuguese revenues.
The ruler most affected by the rise of Portuguese power was the
Safavid shah of Iran, Abbas I (1587-1629). During the time the
shaykh of Hormuz possessed effective control over gulf ports,
he continued to pay lip service and tribute to the Safavid shah.
When the Portuguese arrived, they forced the shaykh to pay tribute
to them. The shah could do little because Iran was too weak to
challenge the Portuguese. For that the shah required another European
power; he therefore invited the British and the Dutch to drive
the Portuguese out of the gulf, in return for half the revenues
from Iranian ports.
Both countries responded to the shah's offer, but it was the
British who proved the most helpful. In 1622 the British, along
with some of the shah's forces, attacked Hormuz and drove the
Portuguese out of their trading center there. Initially, the Dutch
cooperated with the British, but the two European powers eventually
became rivals for access to the Iranian market. The British won,
and by the beginning of the nineteenth century Britain had become
the major power in the gulf.
Struggles between Iranians and Europeans contributed to a power
vacuum along the coast of Oman. The British attacks on the Portuguese
coincided with the rise of the Yarubid line of Ibadi imams in
the interior of Oman. The Yarubid took advantage of Portuguese
preoccupation with naval battles on the Iranian side of the gulf
and conquered the coastal cities of Oman around 1650. The imams
moved into the old Portuguese stronghold of Muscat and so brought
the Omani coast and interior under unified Ibadi control for the
first time in almost 1,000 years.
A battle over imamate succession in the early eighteenth century,
however, weakened Yarubid rule. Between the 1730s and the 1750s,
the various parties began to solicit support from outside powers.
The Yarubid family eventually called in an Iranian army, which
reestablished Iranian influence on the Omani coast. But this time
the Iranian hold on Oman was short-lived. In 1742 the Al Said,
an Ibadi family from one of the coastal cities, convinced the
local population to help it expel the Iranians; this put the leader,
Ahmad ibn Said Al Said, in control of the Omani coast. His success
sufficiently impressed the Ibadi leaders so that they made him
imam several years later.
The title of imam gave Ahmad ibn Said control over all of Oman,
and under him and his successors the country prospered for more
than a century. The Omanis extended their influence into the interior
and into part of the present-day United Arab Emirates (UAE), consisting
of the states of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Dubayy, Ras al
Khaymah, Sharjah, and Umm al Qaywayn. They also collected tribute
from as far away as present-day Bahrain and Iraq. The Omanis conquered
the Dhofar region, which is part of present-day Oman but was not
historically part of the region of Oman.
Oman also strengthened its hold on the Muslim cities of East
Africa. These cities had been established by Omani traders in
the tenth and eleventh centuries, but their connection to Oman
had grown somewhat tenuous. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, however, the Al Said reasserted Omani authority in the
area. Said ibn Sultan (1806-65) encouraged Omanis to settle in
Zanzibar, an island off the African coast that had retained strong
connections with Oman and, from Zanzibar, sent expeditions to
take over several cities on the mainland (see Historical Patterns
of Governance , ch. 6).
Although Ahmad ibn Said had succeeded in uniting Oman under an
Ibadi imamate, the religious nature of his family's authority
did not last long. His son, Said ibn Ahmad Al Said, was elected
to the imamate after him, but no other family member won the official
approval of the religious establishment. As a result, the Al Said
called themselves sultans, a secular title having none
of the religious associations of imam. They further distanced
themselves from Ibadi traditions by moving their capital from
Ar Rustaq, a traditional Ibadi center in the interior, to the
trading center of Muscat. As a result of the move, the dichotomy
between coast and interior that had traditionally split Oman was
reinstituted.
The relationship between coast and interior was becoming a major
feature within the gulf. In the eighteenth century, tribes from
the interior increasingly began to move and settle into the coastal
centers. Although the economy on the Arab side of the gulf did
not match past prosperity, coastal conditions remained better
than those in central Arabia. Limited agriculture existed, and
the gulf waters were the site of rich oyster beds for harvesting
pearls. The area's easy access to India, a major market for pearls,
made the pearling industry particularly lucrative, and this drew
the attention of tribes in the interior. The tribal migrations
that occurred around 1800 put in place the tribes and clans that
in 1993 controlled Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE.
The Bani Utub moved from central Arabia into the northern gulf
in the early 1800s, and one of its families, the Al Sabah, established
itself as leaders of present-day Kuwait; another family, the Al
Khalifa, established itself in present-day Bahrain. In the early
1800s, a number of other tribes were living along the gulf. Thus,
Al Sabah and Al Khalifa control meant that these families ruled
loosely over other tribes. Before taking Bahrain, the Al Khalifa
had first established a settlement across the water on the peninsula
that is present-day Qatar. Although the Al Khalifa were successful
in taking Bahrain, they were unable to hold Qatar. They lost the
peninsula to the Al Thani, the leading family from another tribe
that, like the Bani Utub, had recently moved into the area.
The exact origins of the Al Thani are unknown, but they were
already in Qatar when the Al Khalifa came. The origins of the
Bani Yas and the Qawasim tribes that rule in the present-day UAE
are somewhat clearer. The Bani Yas originated in central Arabia
and probably established themselves on the coast at Abu Dhabi
around 1700; they later extended their influence to Dubayy. Historical
evidence indicates that the Qawasim lived along the gulf during
the pre-Islamic period and engaged in trade, pearling, and piracy.
Data as of January 1993
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