Page 91 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

when Carsten Niebuhr named both “KOUEIT” and “GRAN” on his
map “Sinus Pcrsicus”.

The Utub remained under the protection of the Bani Khalid
Shaikhs until 1756 when the Khalidi Shaikh Sulaiman al Hamid died:
they then chose, as their Ruler, Sabah bin Jabir (1756—62). Kuwait
% thus emerged an independent State with the establishment of the Al-
Sabah Dynasty which has continued ever since; the present Amir
Shaikh Sabah al Salim al Sabah (1965— ) being the twelfth of his line.
f: It is of interest to note that three of the great families who rule in
5 Arab countries today — the Al Saud of Arabia, the Al Sabah of Kuwait
A
$ and the Al Khalifa of Bahrain - all stem from the Anaza tribe.
.',v|
Another of the Utub families, the Al-Khalifa, who had also
migrated to Kuwait early in the century, again moved in 1766 to found
a settlement at Zubara on the West coast of Qatar. It was the AI-
Khalifa from Qatar who, with the assistance of the Al-Sabah from
Kuwait, occupied Bahrain in 1782-83 and transformed it from a
Persian dependency into an independent Arab state.
As early as 1758 Shaikh Sabah’s authority had been sufficiently
well established for Kuwait to have become a transit port for goods
from India and for travellers wishing to cross the desert to Aleppo;
and both Kuwait and the Dutch settlement on Kliarg Island benefited
from a trade route avoiding Basra. The trade caravans from Kuwait to
Aleppo carried Bengal and Surat piece goods, cotton yarn, coffee and
pepper and often numbered 5,000 camels and 1,000 men; the transit
charge for a camel with a 700 lb. load was 35-40 Piastres and the
journey took 70 days.
Although he was the youngest of five brothers, Shaikh Abdullah
al Sabah succeeded his father in 1762; and during his fifty years rule
he achieved greatness for Kuwait that was not matched again until the
end of the nineteenth century. In 1765 Carsten Niebuhr recorded that
the town possessed 800 fishing and pearling boats and had 10,000
inhabitants. Although Niebuhr does not mention it, the wall around
the town was probably built in the 1760s; certainly the town was
walled in 1777 when the East India Company ship “Eagle” reported on
the suitability of the harbour for anchorage. The wall, mud-built, was
strengthened as recently as 1919 when Wahhabi invaders threatened
the town; and it was only demolished - the old gateways being

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