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132 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

merchants and entrepreneurs. It is difficult to draw a detailed picture of
the urban economy in the 1930s and 1940s as there are no figures on
imports into Bahrain. After the relative prosperity of the late 1930s, the
trade restrictions enforced during World War II drastically reduced sup-
plies and severely affected private investment in commercial enterprises.
By 1948–9, however, the influence of merchant capital peaked as customs
revenue from trade reduced the proportion of oil income to approximately
47
one-third of the total state income.
In the early 1950s Manama’s import economy was booming following
new trajectories of international trade and new patterns of consumption
among the urban population. A wide array of consumer goods made their
appearance in the markets of the inner city, which also served the increas-
ing numbers of foreign residents, visitors and employees of the Bahrain
Petroleum Company (BAPCO). The circulation of modern commodities
explains the rise of a new class of Indian and Iranian merchants such as the
Ashrafs, Jashmals and Khoshabis, who had links with Europe, Japan and
China. Members of the old notability with established international busi-
ness such as ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Khunji and Mustafa ‘Abd al-Latif (the latter an
entrepreneur from Lingah who ranked among the wealthiest in the Gulf)
also branched out as agents of a number of Japanese firms, anticipating the
trade boom with the Far East in the 1960s. 48
Faster sea and air links and the material benefits brought about by oil
exploitation transformed the portfolios of old entrepreneurs who refash-
ioned their business in line with the modern service industry. While
merchant houses amassed fortunes by obtaining the rights to import and
distribute Western products in Bahrain and in other Gulf countries, they
also acted as local agents for international corporations which were mak-
ing inroads in the region. Manama’s modern entrepreneurial class took
more than two decades to become established. After the death of Yusuf
ibn Ahmad Kanu in 1946, for instance, the family started to specialise in a
wide array of services linked to the oil boom. Although some of his
relatives started tanker work for the Saudi government in the 1950s,
it was only in the 1960s that Yusuf’s grandnephews, Ahmad and
Muhammad, were able to rebuild a large fortune, one which far exceeded
the family’s assets in the days of pearling. They became the agents of
Norwich Union, the first insurance company to open a branch in the Gulf,
and of the British Overseas Airways Corporation. 49

47
F. H. Lawson, Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy (Boulder: Westview, 1989), p. 55.
48
Rumaihi, Bahrain, pp. 62–3; Lawson, Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy, pp. 53–6;
interview with ‘Ali Akbar Bushehri, 25 April 2004.
49
Kanoo, The House of Kanoo, pp. 278–91.