Page 68 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

48 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

The new Sa‘udi threat was ideological as well as military. The religious
doctrine of Wahhabism undermined the precarious Pax Islamica which the
Ottoman and Iranian Empires had established in the Gulf region since
the sixteenth century. As a revivalist movement, Wahhabism disputed the
claims of the Ottoman Sultan to the universal caliphate. Moreover, its
fanatic monotheism rebutted the beliefs of Imami Shi‘ism and the ‘heret-
ical’ manifestation of Sufi cults and of popular religion which permeated the
13
life of tribal, urban and rural populations. At the close of the eighteenth
century, the new Sau‘di administration of al-Ahsa’ in Eastern Arabia
implemented a ruthless policy of eradication of Shi‘ireligious beliefs and
institutions as a manifestation of shirk (idolatry). Moreover, in 1801
Wahhabi forces sacked the Shi‘i shrine city of Karbala and two years later
they occupied Mecca, sending shockwaves through the Islamic world.
Political instability in the age of Wahhabi expansion reconfigured the
fractured political complex of the Gulf. The Wahhabi da‘wah (religious
propaganda) offered the al-Qawasim an ideological instrument to fight the
Omani Empire and a novel military alliance with the Sa‘udi leaders. In
contrast, the al-‘Utub did not espouse the Wahhabi creed but gained
power through political expediency. Both the Al Khalifah and Al Sabah
took advantage of the precarious position of the Banu Khalid, the tribal
confederation which controlled the region between Basra and al-Qatif. In
the second half of the eighteenth century, as the Banu Khalid succumbed
to the military power of the Wahhabis, the Al Sabah consolidated their
position in Kuwait while the Al Khalifah occupied Qatar and Bahrain. 14
A brief description of Kuwait around 1756 by the Dutch resident on
Kharg Island offers a fairly exceptional glimpse of the fierce competition
faced by coastal rulers which severely tested their ability to remain in
control of expanding trading settlements:

At the exit of the Euphrates near the Arabian coast is the island of Feltscha
[Faylaka] and of Grien [Kuwait]. Both are inhabited by an Arab tribe … called
Eutobis [al-‘Utub]. They possess about 300 vessels, but all of these are very small,
because they only use them for pearl-diving … They are about 4,000 men strong,
who almost all have swords, shields and spears, but almost no firearms, they even
do not know how to handle these. This nation is always in conflict with the Houlas
[Hawala of Bushehr who controlled Bahrain], whose mortal enemies they are. 15

13
For a cogent reading of the political and doctrinal challenges faced by the Sunni ortho-
doxy in an Asian context, see Bayly, Imperial Meridian, pp. 179–84.
14
The early history of Kuwait and of migrations of al-‘Utub is unclear. See as the main
contribution Abu-Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, pp. 45–90 and Slot, The Arabs of the
Gulf, p. 351. On the Banu Khalid and Wahhabi power in Eastern Arabia see Abu-Hakima,
History of Eastern Arabia, pp. 125–64.
15
‘Kniphausen Report’, fol. 10, quoted by Slot, The Arabs of the Gulf, p. 350.