Page 97 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Ordering space, politics and community in Manama, 1880s–1919 77

on supply and demand. Particular professional groups were able to organ-
ise themselves in informal syndicates which protected employment. For
instance, the Faramansis, a group of immigrants from the hinterland of
Lingah renowned for their physical prowess and stout build, monopolised
the unloading and distribution of cargo to Manama’s warehouses. 6
Besides illustrating trends which were specific to the Gulf region, the
harbour economy of Manama encapsulated the tension between mer-
chants and pre-modern states which characterised the development of
many trading ports across the Indian Ocean. The absence of a class of
state-affiliated merchants was testimony to the inability on the part of the
Al Khalifah family to impose monopolies on the marketing of pearls.
Shaykh ‘Isa did not draw direct income from the industry as pearl exports
were not subject to customs duties or taxation. The limited control he
exercised over the customs revenue was a measure of his restricted
capacity to take advantage of Manama’s entrepôt trade and to negotiate
alliances with local merchants. Indeed, it was largely receipts from trade
that determined his ability to consolidate tribal government inside the
town. In fact, the customs house (al-gumruk) was the lynchpin of tribal
government in Manama, a position which was tellingly summed up by its
popular name Dar al-Hukumah, the term used for the tribal administra-
tion of Muharraq.
Evidence of customs collection in the first half of the nineteenth century
is sporadic. Although Khalifah ibn Salman (r. 1825–34) imposed a 5 per cent
duty on imports from India, the Persian coast, Basra and Muscat, we can
assume that customs fees were collected at very irregular intervals as his
attempts at levying regular customs failed in 1832. By 1845 the ruling
7
family did not derive any income from imports or exports. Under Shaykh
‘Isa a regular system of collections started to emerge after 1869, but he
controlled the flow of commodities into Bahrain by proxy by farming out
essential services to local contractors. The system relied on the payment of
cash advances to the ruler, a practice which explains his close dependence
on the foreign merchants and their growing influence towards the end of
the century. The building of a warehouse around 1860 by Ahmad ibn ‘Ali,
‘Isa’s brother, anticipated the organisation of the customs administration
in the second half of the nineteenth century. When Ahmad died in 1888,
Shaykh ‘Isa started to farm out the collection of customs to Indian

6
‘Note on the Persian Communities at Bahrain’, 4 November 1929, in Political Agent
Bahrain to Political Resident Bushehr, L/P&S/10/1045 IOR; interview with Tayyebah
Hoodi, Manama, 21 March 2004.
7
Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf’ (1829–35), fiche 1096, p. 566,
V 23/217 IOR; Kemball, ‘Memoranda on the Resources, Localities, and Relations’ (1845),
fiche 1090–1, p. 105, V 23/217 IOR.