Page 87 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

The making of Gulf port towns before oil 67

‘the influx of Persian settlers during the past two years is creating demand
for a better class of prints, woollen cloths, cheap velvets and silks.’ The
consumption of dates and coffee was central to the lore of the Arab
population of the town, irrespective of their wealth. The Indian lawyer
Manockjee Cursetjee was dutifully instructed in the ‘correct Arab style of
eating dates’ while dining in one of Manama’s rich households. The
ceremony of serving coffee in long beaked pots was an indication of high
social status among Arab notables in the same way as tea, rose water and
shoes dictated trends among the Persians following the fashion of
Bushehr. 66
The diversity of idioms used for trade and administration is suggestive
of the fragmentation of Manama’s commercial and public life. Sindi and
Gujarati were the languages of bookkeeping in the customs house,
replaced by English only after the appointment of a British director in
1923. Arabic was lughah al-ghaws, the language of pearling, and that of the
Al Khalifah court in Muharraq. In the same way as Hindu merchants,
Bohrah shopkeepers from Bombay who controlled the retail of cheap
Japanese and British household goods on the eve of World War I spoke
very poor Arabic, conducting their business in English. Persian continued
to be the language of trade and education among the community,
although second generation settlers adopted a variant heavily infused
with Arabic and English. Moreover, the variant of Arabic spoken by the
indigenous Shi‘i population, which was mostly of rural extraction, dif-
fered substantially from that of their Sunni counterparts. 67
The acceptance of religious diversity and social separation constituted
the foundations of a tacit social contract which permeated Manama’s civic
spirit. It was commonplace to encounter a Hindu performing his ritual
ablutions in tight white cotton pants and silk-fringed cloth wrapped
around his waist alongside a well-to-do Persian wearing a waistcoat,
pantaloons, woollen socks and shoes. Travellers and foreigner residents
tended to portray diversity as an exotic trope, and underlined the peaceful
coexistence of the town’s communities. Their impressionistic sketches of
urban society seldom depict episodes of conflict. Instead, they are instruc-
tive on the visual and cultural texture of the urban landscape. This blend
of settlers and outsiders, and kaleidoscope of languages, colours and dress

66
‘Administration Report on the Persian Gulf Political Residency and Maskat Political
Agency for 1902–1903’ in The Persian Gulf Administration Reports 1873–1949, vol. V,
p. 35; Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. II, p. 345; Cursetjee, The Land of the Date, pp. 80–2 (p. 85).
67
Political Agent Bahrain to Political Resident Bushehr, 21 September 1920 and 2
September 1923, R/15/1/331 IOR; Cursetjee, The Land of the Date, p. 87; C. Holes,
Language Variation and Change in a Modernising Arab State: The Case of Bahrain (London
and New York: Kegan Paul, 1987), pp. 16–17.