Page 76 - Arabian Studies (II)

66 Arabian Studies II
characteristic process appears in some incidents in the traditional
history of Kuwait, followed by subsequent incidents in the recorded
history of Bahrain.
In Ibn Rushaid’s account of the history of Kuwait,8 the ruling
family of Kuwait, the Al as-Sabah, and the ruling family of Bahrain,
the Al Khalifah, and their followers originally lived together in the
interior of Arabia. Defeated in an intra-tribal war, the whole group
made their way to Qatar and settled there by an arrangement with
Qatar’s then rulers. After a period of unknown length, the shaykhs of
Qatar expelled them because of a case of homicide, and they sailed
northwards in their boats, for by that time they had become sailors.
After settling for a time in one place or another in the north of the
Gulf, they established the town of Kuwait.
Here the Al as-Sabah and the Al Khallfah and their followers
appear in the traditional history as one of those thrown-off tribal
segments, leaving bedouin life in the interior to settle in Qatar, then
leaving Qatar under their own leaders, as the Sudan left Shaijah and
the Al Bu Falasah Abu Dhabi, and settling eventually as an
autonomous tribal group at Kuwait.
After some time in Kuwait, the group divided. The Al as-Sabali
remained in control of Kuwait, whilst the Al Khallfah and their
followers left Kuwait and went back down the Gulf to settle at
Zubarah, on the coast of Qatar opposite Bahrain. Here, the Al
Khallfah were independent.
Turning now to recorded history, in 1782 the Al Khallfah and
their followers seized control of Bahrain. In the conquest of Bahrain,
some of their more important supporters were a group called the Al
Bin ‘All. In their turn, in 1835, the Al Bin ‘All left the Al Khallfah
and went to Abu Dhabi. (They did, however, eventually return to
Bahrain in 1856.)
In view of the involvement of leading citizens in the examples
from Abu Dhabi already mentioned when one member of the ruling
family overthrew another, it is interesting to note the sequence of
events that led up to the departure of the Al Bin ‘AIT according to
NabhanT’s history of Bahrain.9 Here, as in so many cases, a tribal
segment becomes involved in an internal struggle for power within
i the ruling family through being maternal kin to some of the shaykhs.
When these particular shaykhs are defeated, the segment secedes
from the ruling family’s jurisdiction. Two situations that I have
spoken of as alternative ways of limiting the power of rulers now
appear in a different conjunction: the secession of a segment follows
an unsuccessful bid for power.
In NabhanT’s account, the Al Khallfah and the Al Bin ‘AIT