Page 85 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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Whitehouse and Williamson (1973), however, go on to emphasize that the Sasanian
system was highly successful and duplicated only once, during the rule of Adud ad-
Daula (A.D. 948-72) and the subsequent Buyid rulers.
By these historical accounts, there should be ample evidence for Sasanian
influence on Bahrain. Whitehouse and Williamson (1973) present a strong case for
Sasanian trade along the Iranian coast between Bushire and Gujarat State in India
based on characteristic Indian pottery from both extremes of the route.
Intermediate concentrations are found at both Siraf and Bandar Abbas on the
Persian coast. This ceramic assemblage has not been recognized on Bahrain.
Sasanians claimed control over Arabian Gulf shipping, but piracy still
interferred with the network. This is apparent in the eleventh-eentury Chronicle
of Seert (Scher 1908, Collins 1969), which mentioned that ships returning from India
were attacked along the coast of Fars during the reign of Yazdagird I (ca. A.D.
399-421). Lack of political control was also suggested by al-Balkhi (Le Strange
1912), who claimed that Ardashir was no more successful than the Buyid or Seljuk
rulers of the medieval period in controlling the coasts of southern Iran.

Bahrain in the Islamic Era

In the mid-eighteenth century, Carsten Niebuhr (1792) observed that the cultural
makeup of the Arabian Gulf coastal zone did not adhere to the contemporary
European conception of geography. In his words:
Our geographers are wrong • • • in representing a part of
Arabia as subject to the monarchs of Persia. So far is it from
being so, that, on the contrary, the Arabs possess all the sea
coast of the Persian Empire, from the mouths of the
Euphrates, nearly to those of the Indus. These settlements
upon the coast of Persia belong not, indeed, to Arabia properly
so-called. But, . . . they are independent of Persia, and use
the same language, and exhibit the same manners as the native
inhabitants of Arabia. [Niebuhr, 1792:11:137]