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Chapter Eight

                 their strange language, and their foreign habits all helped to
                 antagonize the Arab and Persian Muslims of the Gulf. Ships in the
                 Gulf flying the British flag were usually commanded by captains
                 born in the British Isles, while most of I he crew were people from the
                 Indian subcontinent. If these British Indian subjects were Hindus or
                 Buddhists they were nevertheless rivals or enemies even though they
                 were protected by the British flag; if they were Muslims, some of the
                 Arab crews felt justified in giving them the choice of conversion to
                 Wahhabism or punishment.

                 The memory of the Portuguese conquests
                 A factor which has to be taken into consideration when discussing
                 the acts of piracy committed by tribesmen on the Arab coast against
                 British shipping, is the longevity of memories among the population.
                 The first Christian power which came to the area behaved in an
                 unspeakably cruel fashion towards anyone who opposed it in its bid
                 to take over the eastern trade. The path of Albuquerque and the
                 Portuguese commanders who succeeded him is stained with the
                 blood of many thousands of Arabs. If a coastal settlement did not
                 hand over the harbour, shipping, and fortifications at once, the entire
                 population risked being put to death or mutilated.
                   In contrast to this, traditional Arab warfare was rarely carried to
                 such extremes; the losing side could admit defeat and a peace was
                 usually arranged before the victorious side had time to annihilate its
                 adversaries. In general the Arab’s concept of war was of a contest of
                 man against man. The civilian population was not considered to be a
                 target in an honourable war between tribesmen; they suffered only to
                 the extent that they were considered to be part of the belongings of
                 the defeated enemy. Thus women and children were as a rule never
                 harmed in a military encounter, but they were sometimes carried off
                 together with the domestic animals and household goods as booty.
                   The memory of the indiscriminate killing of women, children and
                 the old, and the mutilations inflicted on their prisoners, by the
                Portuguese23, became engraved in the minds of Arabs living any­
                where between the Red Sea and the Persian coast, and were
                remembered as the deeds of Christians. There was usually little
                understanding of the differences between one European power and
                another, particularly among the people on the Arab coast where
                there had not been an established trading post. They could hardly be
                expected to be aware of the profound differences in behaviour
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