Abstract
In June 1953 Abdulwahhab Muhammad, a Kuwaiti student on scholarship in Cairo, published an article in the Kuwaiti journal Al-Be‘tha in which he outlined the history of Anglo-Kuwaiti relations prior to the reign of Shaikh Mubarak al-Sabah. Muhammad placed the subject within the broader context of British interests in India and their relations with the Ottomans. He affirmed Mubarak’s pro-British stance, which he attributed to his general dissatisfaction with the Ottomans, and noted Britain’s initial reluctance to establish a protectorate over Kuwait. Muhammad made a number of minor related points in the article, including a comment calling into question the efficacy of Ibn Sa‘ud’s blockade of Kuwait and a note on Yousef al-Ibrahim’s failed attempt to dislodge Mubarak, which he said enjoyed Persian support.1
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Notes
See also Salwa Alghanim, The Reign of Mubarak Al-Sabah: Shaikh of Kuwait, 1896–1915 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998); for the Ottoman perspective, see
Frederick F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf: the Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); for the most recent attempt
see B. J. Slot, Mubarak Al-Sabah: Founder of Modern Kuwait, 1896–1915 (London: Arabian Publishing, 2005).
Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 114.
One Kuwaiti historian makes similar observations on the primacy of oral sources in writing Kuwaiti history, dating the tradition of oral history back to early Islam. See Jassim Muhammed Al-Salamah, Ta’seel Shahadat Al-Uyan wal-Riwaya al-Shafahiyya fi Kitabat Tarikh al-Kuwayt, 2nd ed. (Kuwait: Al-Rubay‘an, 2006) 54–55.
See Assem Dessouki, “Social and Political Dimensions of the Historiography of the Arab Gulf,” in Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory, and Popular Culture, ed. Eric Davis and Nicolas Gavrielides (Miami: Florida International University Press, 1991), 92–115.
Shaikh Uthman b. Bishr al-Nadji al-Hanbali, Unwan al-Majd fi Tarikh Najd (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Riyadh al-Haditha, n.d.), first published in AH 1288 /AD 1871. For examples of studies that use Ibn Bishr’s work, see Hala Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1750–1900 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997)
Ahmad Mustafa Abu-Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia, 1750–1800: the Rise and Development of Bahrain, Kuwait and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia (Beirut: Khayats, 1965).
Abdul-Aziz al-Reshaid, Tarikh Al-Kuwayt (Beirut: Dar al-Hikma, 1971).
Yacoub Y. Al-Hijji, Shaikh Abdul-Aziz al-Reshaid: Sirat Hayatih (Shaikh Abdul-Aziz al-Reshaid: a Narrative ofHis Life) (Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2005).
Khalifa b. Muhammad Al-Nabhani, Al-Tuhfa al-Nabhaniyya fi Tarikh Al-Jazira al-Arabiyya (Manama: Al-Maktaba al-Wataniyya, 2004).
Khaled al-Bassam, Ya Zaman al-Khalij (London: Dar al-Saqi, 2002).
For examples, see also Fatin Ahmad Farid, Safhat Min Tarikh Misr Al-Hadith (Pages from the Modern History of Egypt) (Cairo: F.A.F. Ali, 2007)
Yusuf Muhammad Amr, SafhatMin Madi al-Shi‘a wa Hadirihim fi Lubnan (Pages from the Shi‘ites Past and their Present in Lebanon) (Beirut: Dar al-Mahajjah al-Bay-dha’, 2006)
Kamal Muzhar Ahmad, Safhat Min Tarikh Iraq al-Mu‘asir (Pages from the Modern History of Iraq) (Baghdad, Maktabat al-Bidlisi, 1987).
Yacoub Yousef Al-Hijji, Al-Nashatat al-Bahriyya al-Qadima fil-Kuwayt (The Old Maritime Activities of Kuwait) (Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2007). The book was translated into English as Kuwait and the Sea: a Brief Social and Economic History by Fahad Ahmad ‘Isa Bishara (London: Arabian Publishing, 2010).
Yacoub Yousef al-Hijji, Nawakhithat al-Safar al-Shira‘i fi al-Kuwayt (The Deep-Sea Nakhodas of Kuwait) (Kuwait: Al-Rubay‘an, 1993), 7.
Yacoub Y. al-Hijji, Sina‘at al-Sufun al-Shira‘iyya fi al-Kuwayt [Dhow-building in Kuwait], 2nd ed. (Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2006); the first edition was translated as The Art of Dhow-Building in Kuwait (London: The London Centre of Arab Studies, 2001).
See also Ahmed Abdul-Aziz al-Muzaini, Kuwayt wa Tarikhuha al-Bahri, aw Rihlat al-Shira‘ (Kuwait and Its Maritime History, or Sailing Trip) (Kuwait: That es-Salasil, 1986)
Adel Muhammad Al-Abdulmoghni, Nawakhithat al-Ghaws wa al-Safar fi al-Kuwayt (Deep Sea and Pearling Nakhodas of Kuwait) (Kuwait: privately published, 1999).
Abdulmohsen Abdullah al-Khorafi, A’ilat al-Othman: Madrasat al-Safar al-Shira‘i fil-Kuwait (The Al-Othman Family: A Kuwaiti Sailing School) (Kuwait: Privately Published, 2003).
Saif Marzouq al-Shamlan, Tarikh al-Ghaws ala al-lu’lu’fi al-Kuwayt wal-Khalij al-Arabi (The History of Pearl Diving in Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf) (Kuwait: That es-Salasil, 1975).
English version, Saif Marzooq al-Shamlan, Pearling in the Arabian Gulf: A Kuwaiti Memoir, trans. Peter Clark (London: London Centre of Arab Studies, 2001).
Rashid al-Zayyani, Al-Ghaws wal Tawashah (Pearl Diving and Trading) (Bahrain: Al-Ayyam Publishing, 1998).
Rashid al-Zayyani, Dhikrayat wa Tarikh (Memories and History) (Bahrain: Al-Ayyam Publishing, 1995); the book was translated into English as Memories and History (Bahrain: Al-Ayyam Publishing, 1999).
Muhammad Abdulhadi Jamal, Aswaq al-Kuwayt al-Qadima (The Old Souks of Kuwait) (Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2004).
J. B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968)
James Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Examples of recent English works that show similarities in their approach to narrating history include Jeremy Prestholdt, Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008)
Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility Across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006)
Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
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© 2014 Lawrence G. Potter
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Bishara, F.A. (2014). Narrative and the Historian’s Craft in the Arabic Historiography of the Gulf. In: Potter, L.G. (eds) The Persian Gulf in Modern Times. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137485779_3
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