Page 100 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

76 7 he Origins of the United Arab Emirates

I he role played by Ibn Sa‘ud in the more developed shaykhdoms
of Kuwait and Bahrain, where British influence was strong, brought
on many crises and many interdepartmental meetings in London.
The Wahhabi interest in Bahrain began during World War I,
when a commercial forwarding station was established there with
the Qusaybi family as agents. This was made necessary by the
fact that, although Ibn Sa‘ud had annexed Hasa, bordering the
Gulf, he possessed no port of any value and so was dependent
on Bahrain and Kuwait for an outlet on the sea. A dispute arose
between him and Shaykh ‘Isa of Bahrain when the latter imposed
customs duties on goods passing through Bahrain to Hasa or Ncjd;
this was eventually resolved, after much trouble, in 1920, when
Bahrain agreed to levy only a 2 per cent transit duty on goods
to Hasa. Ibn Sa‘ud continued to show an interest in the affairs
of Bahrain. During the year of troubles preceding Shaykh ‘Isa’s
renunciation of the shaykhdom in 1923, the Wahhabis played a
prominent role in events, with serious repercussions. In 1922, Shaykh
Hamad bin ‘Isa, who was to assume the leadership of Bahrain
from his father, planned to reform the tax system by extending
it to the entire population—hitherto, the Shi‘ah alone were liable
to taxation. This reform had been urged by the Political Agent,
the Government of India and the Foreign Office, who wished to
diminish any cause for Iranian charges of anti-Shi‘ah discrimination
in Bahrain. But the Dawasir, a powerful Sunni tribe, had no desire
to start paying taxes; their leaders therefore went to Ibn Sa‘ud,
who promised to support their resistance to Sunni taxation. This
caused the Political Agent to cool noticeably in his enthusiasm
for tax reforms. Another instance of Wahhabi interference occurred
in April 1923: ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Qusaybi was the chief instigator
of the great trouble that broke out between the Nejdis and Persians
residing in Manamah.
In Wahhabi relations with Kuwait, the main causes of friction
were boundary disputes and customs duties. The 1915 treaty with
Britain mentioned the need to determine the boundaries of Kuwait
with Ncjd when the war was over. In the meantime, the border
was in constant turmoil, with raid and counter-raid occurring regu­
larly. In April 1920 Kuwait suffered greatly from an attack by
the Ikhwan, repeated six months later. Although attempts were made
by Cox, Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah and others to solve
the dispute, it was not until November 1922, at the Conference
of ‘Uqayr,8 that the territory of Kuwait was finally defined. This
considerably reduced its size, because of its diminished desert power
in the face of the growing Wahhabi strength. Using one of the
few weapons he had available, the shaykh of Kuwait retaliated
by levying a 4 per cent customs duty on goods in transit to