Page 86 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

66 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

4 The staff of the British political agency in front of the agency building.
Sitting in the centre of the front row is Charles Geoffrey Prior, British
Political Agent between 1929 and 1932

Urban elites were the mirror image of the communities they led, organ-
ised along lines of ethnicity, religion and sect. Until the oil era, the
heterogeneous make-up of the urban population did not generate a proc-
ess of cultural osmosis between different urban groups. Dress, taste and
material culture continued to distinguish members of individual com-
munities regardless of their social status. Blue was always worn by
Baharna women, while their Persian and Sunni Arab counterparts were
wrapped in Islamic dress and black shawls. The distinctive features of
male settlers of tribal origin were their white robes and different headgear,
often tied with headbands made of camel hair in Bedouin style. 65
European visitors generally disdained the manners of the Arab notables,
preferring the more sophisticated and worldly etiquette of the Persians.
British observers took for granted the superior taste of Manama’s
Persians. A British report on Bahrain trade compiled in 1902 noted that:

65
Palgrave, Narrative of a Year’s Journey, vol. II, pp. 211–12; G. N. Curzon, Persia and the
Persian Question (London: Longmans, 1892), pp. 467–8.