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130 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

forces they confiscated goods and pocketed cash, especially from shop-
keepers. This practice had become so widespread that the government
and the agency were forced to issue several appeals between 1930 and
1932 warning the population that no credit should be given to any munic-
ipal worker. 42 Residents responded to these abuses in a variety of ways.
Some used their personal connections and sought the help of individual
municipal councillors, some asked for compensation directly from the
majlis and from Belgrave, while others threatened to file suits against them
in the courts for theft.
Municipal guards and members of the police force were themselves
trapped in the circle of debt. By 1932 some fifty policemen and na’turson
the payroll of the municipality had outstanding cases in the courts for
insolvency. The case of Mahbub ibn Mubarak, a pearl diver turned police-
man originally from al-Ahsa’, is fairly typical of the ways in which debt
continued to affect the conditions of public employment in Manama. In
1932, he was brought to the agency court by a Persian trader for a debt
contracted three years earlier. The British agent ruled that the sum
should be withdrawn from his salary in monthly instalments. As
Mahbub was already paying off a boat captain for a diving debt, the
court made attempts at recovering some of the money from the sale of
his barasti which he claimed was mortgaged to the plaintiff. As the sale fell
through, he was forced to take a huge cut in salary. He was still paying back
his debt in 1937 when he became a worker in the oil refinery. 43
The case of Mahbub highlights the long-term repercussions of the
pearling crisis on the urban workforce. Between 1928 and 1935 many
barasti dwellers on the outskirts of Manama transferred their properties to
Persian traders and shopkeepers living in the inner city. The appropriation
of properties by petty merchants and moneylenders increased dramati-
cally the numbers of homeless among the immigrant communities
of Manama’s shanty towns and created a new class of small property
owners who thrived on real estate speculation. The municipality and the
government attempted to bring under control the spiralling transfer
of properties. In constant need of funds, the baladiyyah issued several
proclamations which made compulsory the registration of real estate

42
MMBM, 28 Safar 1347/15 August 1928; I‘lan n. 11 of 1347, R/15/2/1218 IOR. R/15/2/
1896 IOR: Belgrave to Political Agent Bahrain, 16 Rabi‘ al-Awwal 1351/20 July 1932,
I‘lan Hukumah al-Bahrayn n. 37 of 1349 and n. 33 of 1350; notice n. 1128 of 1932 issued
by the Political Agency.
43
Minutes by Political Agent, 20 July 1932, R/15/2/1896 IOR; Political Agent’s Court:
Muhammad Amin Mir Muhammad Shafi’‘Awadhi (Persia) v. Muhbub bin Mubarak
(Najd), 1932–7, R/15/3/33 IOR.