1741. BEFORE OIL
Joao Teles e Cunha, “The Portuguese Presence in the Persian Gulf,” in The Persian
Gulf in History, ed. Lawrence Potter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 209; John
Wilton, “Saudi Arabia,” in The Middle East, Handbooks to the Modern World (New
York: Facts on File, 1988), 470– 71; Juan Cole, Sacred Space and Holy War (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2002), 37– 39.
- J. E. Peterson, “Britain and the Gulf: At the Periphery of Empire,” in The Persian Gulf
in History, ed. Lawrence Potter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 277– 94.
- Frederick Anscombe, “The Ottoman Role in the Gulf,” in The Persian Gulf in His-
tory, ed. Lawrence Potter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 264.
- Anscombe, “The Ottoman Role in the Gulf,” 264– 65.
- Abdul Wahhab was an Islamic scholar in the early 1700s who promoted an austere
monotheistic brand of Sunni Islam. His followers are known as Wahhabis or Salafis.
The pact between the al- Saud and Abdul Wahhab dates to the 1740s.
- Toynbee, “An Historical Outline to 1970,” 226– 27.
- Vitalis contradicts this claim, pointing out that Ibn Saud conceded some sovereignty
rights to Britain in a 1915 treaty in exchange for protection. Vitalis speculates that
Ibn Saud, who initiated the treaty, may have sought British protection as a tactic to
consolidate control over recently conquered parts of the peninsula that might have
otherwise been taken by neighboring states. His acquiescence to Aramco’s domina-
tion of the Saudi oil sector and the construction of a US airbase in Dhahran reveal a
similar strategy when the mantle of regional protection passed from Great Britain to
America. See Robert Vitalis, America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Fron-
tier (London: Verso, 2007), 5– 6.
- Chas W. Freeman, “The Arab Reawakening: Strategic Implications,” Middle East Pol-
icy 18, no. 2 (2011): 29– 36. A more sober assessment comes from Britain’s military gov-
ernor of Iraq, the historian Stephen Longrigg, who suggests that the region’s autonomy
stems more from a lack of interest by colonizing powers than the Arabs’ ability to repel
such inroads. See Brigadier Stephen Longrigg, “The Liquid Gold of Arabia,” Journal of
the Royal Central Asian Society 36, no. 1 (1949): 20– 33.
- More specifically, rulers must be from the lines of Mubarak’s two immediate succes-
sors, his sons Salim and Jabir.
- Jill Crystal, “Kuwait: Ruling Family,” Persian Gulf States: A Country Study (Washing-
t o n : L i b r a r y o f C o n g r e s s , 1 9 9 3 ) , h t t p : / / c o u n t r y s t u d i e s. u s / p e r s i a n - g u l f - s t a t e s / 2 6. h t m.
- Chief among these is Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants
in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
- Michael Herb, The Wages of Oil: Parliaments and Economic Development in Kuwait
and the UAE (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).
- Frauke Heard- Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transi-
tion, 3rd ed. (Dubai: Motivate, 2005), 24. Archaeological finds reviewed by Peter
Hellyer at the National Media Council in Abu Dhabi could point to a temporary pop-
ulation surge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
- Historical British allegations of Qawasim piracy are disputed. Sharjah’s ruling sheikh,
Sultan bin Muhammad al- Qasimi, wrote a history on the topic as his PhD disserta-
tion at Exeter University and argues that piracy was a pretext for Britain to take over