24BEFORE OILearlier, Bahrain was the capital of one of the oldest civilizations in the
Middle East, ancient Dilmun, which enjoyed trade links with Mesopo-
tamia five thousand years ago.
In the 1500s, control of Bahrain shifted from Arabs to the Portuguese.
In the 1600s, the island fell to the Persian Empire. Persia governed
Bahrain until a Sunni Arab tribal clan seized control in 1783.^23 Since
then the emirate has been governed by the al- Khalifa family, which for-
tified its power during the long period of British domination from 1880
until independence in 1971.
Unique among the Gulf monarchies, Bahrain’s citizen population is
70 percent Shiite, a legacy of Persian control. Many Bahrainis speak Farsi
as their first language. However, the al- Khalifa rulers, the country’s elites,
and the security forces are largely Sunni, which is a source of perennial
discord between the regime and disenfranchised Bahraini Shia. Bahrain
remains the second- poorest and least politically stable Gulf state.
Bahrain was also the first of the monarchies to discover oil, in 1932,
which allowed the sheikhdom to modernize ahead of its neighbors. How-
ever, the island’s small reserves were all but depleted long ago. Bahrain
has for decades depended on the largesse of Saudi Arabia, at the cost of
allowing Riyadh deep influence over Bahraini affairs. The Saudis pro-
vide Manama with half the revenues from the Abu Safah oilfield, equiv-
alent to 75 percent of Bahrain’s total oil production, despite the fact that
the Abu Safah field lies under Saudi territorial waters. A Saudi pipeline
to the island ferries a further supply of light crude for Bahrain to refine
and export.^24
FOUNDATIONS OF THE RENTIER STATEIn each of these domains, power accumulated in the hands of ruling
families that remain in control today: the al- Saud in Saudi Arabia, al-
Sabah in Kuwait, al- Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, al- Maktoum in Dubai, al-
Thani in Qatar, al- Said in Oman, and the al- Khalifa in Bahrain. These