Page 88 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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continued throughout the early Abbasid period until massacres by the Chinese
brought an end to them in A.D. 878 (Hourani 1951). During this period of expansion,
five Arabian Gulf seaports are mentioned as important by contemporary writers,
Sohar, Muscat, Siraf, Basra, and Bahrain (Miles 1966).

Although actual historic documentation is rare, Bahrain and coastal
Arabia seem to have been controlled by Abbasid governors, but this was effective
only until the ninth century, when slave revolts shook Basra and eastern Arabia
(Khulusi 1976). Khulusi describes al-Hasa as ruled by the Zanj revolutionaries for
twenty years (A.D. 863-83). Bahrain may not have been directly under their
political control, but it seems likely that there was at least a severance of formal
ties with Baghdad during this unsettled period. The Abbasid governorship of the
Arabian coast is mentioned by Salil ibn Razak from the perspective of Oman.
Muhammed bin Nur (ca. A.D. 892-902) reasserted Abbassid authority along the
Arabian coast as far south as Oman, but this control was short-lived. During the
time of bin Nur's excursion against Oman, Abu Said al-Qarmati declared the
foundation of a Carmathian religious state in eastern Arabia (ca. A.D. 892).
TTie Carmathian State had its base in the widespread dissenting Ismaili
religious movement of the late ninth century (Madelung 1978). It gained
prominence through the extraction of tribute from the pilgrimage traffic to Mecca.
In addition to Iraq and Fars being attacked, caravans to Mecca were plundered and
disrupted. Hostilities ended in A.D. 939, when an accord was reached with the
government in Baghdad. This included an annual stipend from Baghdad for
protection. Madelung notes that Carmathian aggressiveness subsided during this
period.
From the reports of Nasir-i-Khusraw and ibn Hawkal in the mid tenth
century, the programs of the Carmathian State were directly financed by the
extraction of tribute. Ibn Hawkal mentioned that other income was derived from
fruit and grain sales, but Nasir-i-Khusraw noted that the agriculture was carried
out by slave labor. Bahrain played a specific role in the system. During the late

tenth century it acted as a Carmathian customs station regulating trade, or