Page 74 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

54 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

position as the political and commercial strongholds of British informal

empire in the Gulf. They replaced Ras al-Khaymah, which had dominated

the eastern Gulf in the eighteenth century, and Muscat, which by the end

of the nineteenth century suffered from the partition of the Omani Empire

following the establishment of an independent ruler in Zanzibar in 1856.

The growth of port settlements mirrored the expanding horizons of

their fast-growing economies. Bombay – now closer to the Persian Gulf as

a result of the establishment of steamship services – increasingly supplied

brokers, merchants and capital to finance pearl exports, besides providing

political and military protection. Overseas migrations to the coast inten-

sified as the booming pearl industry and evolving entrepôt economies

demanded an increasing supply of labour. Manama and Dubai blossomed

as the cosmopolitan centres of the pearl era. Manama’s population

increased threefold in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, due

mainly to an influx of labourers and mercantile groups from Bahrain’s

agricultural hinterland, Iran, East Africa and from al-Ahsa’ and al-Qatif. 33

The rise of Dubai was even more spectacular. Inhabited by around 800 Al

Bu Falasah tribesmen in 1833, the town had approximately 10,000 inhab-

itants by 1905. Dubai’s port economy boomed with the establishment of a

customs administration in Lingah in 1900, which followed the reimposi-

tion of direct Qajar rule over southern Iranian ports. Fixed tariffs on

imports and exports precipitated a large scale migration of Arab and

Persian merchants towards the southern Gulf, who came to control

much of the trade with India and East Africa. Like Manama, Dubai

became a port of call for British steamships with influential Persian and

Indian mercantile communities. 34

Kuwait doubled in size in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The

town outgrew the wall which separated it from the desert, becoming an

open settlement until a new wall was built in 1922. Commercially and

politically, Kuwait looked towards southern Iraq and Najd as until World

War I it was the most important market centre outside direct Ottoman
control which served central and northern Arabia. The bulk of the town’s
sea trade, which was confined to the northern Gulf and to the estuary of
the Shatt al-‘Arab, remained in the hands of the descendants of the first
33
For details see pp. 90–5.
34
Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf’ (1829–35), fiche 1096,
pp. 545–6, V 23/217 IOR; Lorimer, Gazetteer,vol.II, pp.454–6; F. Heard-Bey, From
Trucial States to United Arab Emirates (London and New York: Longman, 1999),

pp. 243–5; Kemball, ‘Memoranda on the Resources, Localities, and Relations’ (1845),
fiche 1090–1, p. 100, V 23/217 IOR.