Page 183 - Arabian Studies (II)

Development of Culture on the Coast of Oman 175

was one of the factors retarding the development of the society, the
British did not censor the Arabic newspapers and literary journals,
which consequently had great effect. Some awareness of world
developments too was gained from the local merchants who
frequently visited Bahrain and Bombay. However, these changes were
slow, and limited in their effect to a small number of the inhabitants
in the coastal cities. The decline in the pearl trade, which forced the
closure of most of the schools after only a few decades, prevented
the wider expansion of education. Furthermore, teaching within the
schools was mainly conducted on traditional religious lines. The
strong tribal influence prevailing on the Trucial Coast — even in the
cities, which were divided into sub-tribal residential quarters - also
contributed to hinder progress. However, the changes that began to
occur at this time formed the nucleus of intellectual thought, and the
basis for great educational, social and political advances after the
Second World War.
One of the most important issues confronting the Arabs of the
Trucial Coast at that time, as well as their neighbours in the Gulf,
was their attitude towards the Ottomans. The political thinking of
the people of the Coast was dominated by a religious rather than a
national identity, and in this they were influenced by the Cairo
newspapers al-Mu’ayyad and al-Liwa' which described the Ottomans
as leaders of Islam and defenders of the faith. The Persian merchants
of Lingah who had immigrated to Dubai, being Sunni, also fervently
supported the Ottomans, an attitude which strengthened this feeling
on the Coast. As early as 1876, the Ottoman Consul in Bombay
reported to the Sublime Porte that thirteen Sunni merchants, who
represented towns on the Persian Coast, had given him a large sum of
money which they had collected for the Ottomans, and had written
to the Caliph expressing their willingness to Fight with the Turks
against their enemies.
The Turkish wars in the Balkans had a direct impact on the
inhabitants of the Trucial Coast. We read in a monthly report of the
Persian Gulf Residency of 30 October 1912 that the declaration of
war between the Turks and the Balkan states had practically
paralysed the pearl market. The banks in Bombay refused to make
payments or undertake the dispatch of pearls to London or
elsewhere, as long as the war continued. In January 1913, the
i
Residency Agent reported that Shaykh ‘Abd al-Latlf b. Ibrahim
al-Mubarak, a scholar from al-Hasa’ (which was under Ottoman rule
by this time), and director of Khalaf al-‘Utaibah’s school of Abu
Dhabi, had visited Dubai. At his suggestion, the inhabitants of this !