Page 66 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

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24 BAHREIN.

the latter part of the same century, it was reduced by the Generals
of Sultan Sulaiman the Soph], and continued to recognise the authority
of this dynasty until its close in the early part of the succeeding, or
eighteenth century, in the person of Shah Sultan Hussein. Sultan the
son of Suif next became possessed of the island, after a bloody and
obstinate resistance; and retained the supreme authority until he was
driven out by Nadir Shah, under whose power it remained until his
death.
After this, during a period of fifty-seven years, it passed into the
hands of four different chiefs of districts on the Persian shore of the
Gulf, at no great distance from each other. The first of these was
Jabara bin Yasir the Nasiri, surnamed Nasuri, Shaikh of Tallin, who
held it fourteen years; next, the family of the Shaikhs of Abooshahar
retained the government for thirty years; after them, Mahomed bin
Jabir, of the family of Haram Shaikhs of Aseeloo, for five years; from
whom, after a sanguinary contest, it reverted once more to the Shaikhs
of Abooshahar, for eight succeeding years, when the Uttoobees wrested
the island from the Shaikhs of Abooshahar, and have retained it ever
since.
The celebrated traveller Carsten Neibuhr gives the following more
particular account of these sudden revolutions in the government of
this island :—
“ Within the last few years Bahrein has had many masters. It once
belonged to the Portuguese, who were deprived of it by the Shaikh of
Lahsa. He was himself in turn obliged to deliver it up to the Persians,
who took the island headed by Imaum Kuli Khan, Governor of Ormus,
in the name of a king of the Saffi dynasty. A Prince of Oman now
possessed himself of it; but ceded it to the Persians for a sum of money,
through the intervention of Shaikh Mahomed Majid, who was still
governor of it at the period of the Afghan invasion of Persia, and was
at his death succeeded by his son, Shaikh Ahmed. The citadel, or
principal fortress of the island, had at this time a distinct and different
commandant, on the part of the Sophis of Persia, one of whom,
Mahomed Kuli Khan, who had succeeded a former officer in this
charge, delivered the surrounding territory to Shaikh Mahomed
i
Majid, of Naband (Nabor), of the race of Haram. From him it was
taken by Jabara-al-Nasur, Shaikh of Tahiri, also of this family of
Haram.
“While Nadir Shah maintained a naval force in the Persian Gulf,
i
Taki Khan, Beglerbeg of Fars, reduced the island, and appointed a
commandant of the citadel; but the moment that Taki Khan had pro­
ceeded to Oman with the fleet, Jabara reconquered the whole domain,
except the citadel, which the commandant bravely defended, unti