J. E. Peterson - The Emergence of the Gulf States

The Jewel of Muscat. A modern reconstruction in Oman of a ninth- century Arab sailing vessel. Photo Miguel Willis. Copyright 2010 Oman Ministry of Foreign Affairs

A View of Lingah from R. Temple (1810), illustrating British naval action against pirates in 1809. Crown Copyright: UK Government Art Collection

Christian and Jewish merchants in Basra (1891). P.H. Hotz, Royal Geographical Society

The mahmal (the camel litter sent along with the Egyptian hajj delegation) passing through Makkah on the way to Arafat (c.1914). Humphrey Bowman Collection GB165-0034 Album 1, Middle East Centre Archive, St Antonys College, Oxford

An Ikhwan member (1923). Major R.E. Cheeseman, Royal Geographical Society

Landing the cable of the Indo-European Telegraph at al-Faw, northern Gulf (1865). Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Distant view from the sea of Bushihr (Bushire) on the Iranian coast of the Gulf (1856). Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Wind tower in al-Bastakiyyah area of Dubai (1937). Sir Rupert Hay, Royal Geographical Society

Fort al-Jalali, constructed by the Portuguese, and the British consulate in Muscat harbour (1905). Percy Cox, Royal Geographical Society

A durbar held by Lord Curzon, viceroy of India, with the Trucial Shaykhs aboard the RIMS Argonaut off of Sharjah (1903). British Library Board (Persian Gulf) PG 49/1 (7)

Telegraph Island in Elphinstone Inlet of Omans Musandam Peninsula. The name comes from the establishment of a station of the Indo-European Telegraph on the island in 1864. J.E. Peterson

Maritime view of Bombay with a number of East Indiamen in the foreground (c.1750). National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

View of the boat harbour in Kuwait as seen from the British Political Agency (1911). W.H.I. Shakespear, 1911, Royal Geographical Society

Pearl dealer in Kuwait (1946). Reproduced from the BP Archive

Suq al-Khamis (Friday market) in al-Hufuf, al-Ahsa (1905). Percy Cox, 1905, Royal Geographical Society

A pearling boat on the Bahrain pearling banks (1926). Sir R. Hay, 1926, Royal Geographical Society

Abdullah al-Sulayman, Saudi Arabias Minister of Finance, and Aramco Vice-President J. MacPherson approving the Saudi Arabian Railways agreement in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (1947). Saudi Aramco Archives

Gathering of tribal leaders at a majlis of a tribal shaykh, near Kuwait (1911). W.H.I. Shakespear, Royal Geographical Society

Bedouin of the Ajman tribe on the march near Thaj, now in Saudi Arabia (1911). W.H.I. Shakespear, Royal Geographical Society

A reception following the opening of a Quranic school near Nizwa, Oman (1978). Guest house (sablah) etiquette offers a key index of notions of person and social value. Dale F. Eickelman

King Abd al-Aziz and his son Saud returning from prayers on a Friday in Riyadh (1939). Gerald de Gaury, 1939, Royal Geographical Society

Four men and a boy at a coffee hearth inside a house in Bal Qarn tribal territory in Asir (1946). Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, 1946 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (Accession Number: 2004.130.6331.1)

Abu Dhabi shaykhs standing outside Qasr al-Husn fort in Abu Dhabi (1948). From left to right, a shaykh from the Naim tribe, Shaykh Hazza ibn Sultan Al Nahayan, Shaykh Shakhbut ibn Sultan Al Nahayan (the ruler of Abu Dhabi), Shaykh Khalid ibn Sultan Al Nahayan, unidentified young man. Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, 1946 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (Accession Number: 2004.130.17650.1)

A woman of Hail, now in Saudi Arabia (c.1900). Gertrude Bell Archive, c1913, Newcastle University

Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, later king of Saudi Arabia, and Sir Percy Cox, High Commissioner of Iraq, at the Uqayr conference (1922). H. St. John B. Philby, Philby Collection 16/1235, Middle East Centre Archive, St Antonys College, Oxford

The Bahrain Constituent Assembly in session (1972). M.H. Kamaluddin, Diaries of a Minister

The signing of the agreement ending the treaties of protection between Britain and the Trucial States (1971). Seated (left to right): Sir Geoffrey Arthur (British Political Resident in the Persian Gulf), Shaykh Zayid ibn Sultan Al Nahayan (ruler of Abu Dhabi), Shaykh Rashid ibn Said Al Maktum (ruler of Dubai). Standing behind them on the left are Ahmad ibn Khalifah al-Suwaydi of Abu Dhabi and Mahdi al-Tajir of Dubai. No credit

Sultan Qabus ibn Said Al Bu Saidi on his annual meet the people tour at Shinas on Omans al-Batinah coast (2005). Hamid alQasmi/AP, Ref AP05020802281

Kuwaiti oil riggers during training (1957). Reproduced from the BP Archive

Boy on a camel with the UAE national flag during a parade in Dubai celebrating the UAE National Day (2012). Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters/Corbis, Ref 42-48843653

From Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Ortelius (152898), Antwerp, 1570. British Library Board Maps C.2c.3

The Indian Ocean

The Arabian Peninsula: topography and place names

The Arabian Peninsula: imperial zones of influence and expansion of the First and Second Saudi States

The Arabian Peninsula: boundaries and the expansion of the Third Saudi State

The Gulf: boundaries and oil and gas fields

The Gulf: ports and communications

The United Arab Emirates and boundaries

The pearling industry in the Gulf, 1907

Gulf trade with India, 1904

Kuwaits retail merchant community, 1904

Merchant groups in Eastern Arabia

Percentage share of military spending in GDP, 19882012 average

Annual electricity generation in Saudi Arabia, 196984

Water supply from Saudi desalination plants, 197084

Paved roads in Saudi Arabia

Ratio of government to private consumption in GCC and select international cases

Segmentation of GCC labour markets by sector and nationality

Fahad Ahmad Bishara is an Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, and a Prize Fellow in Economics, History and Politics at Harvard Universitys Center for History and Economics. He was previously Assistant Professor of History at the College of William and Mary. He specializes in the economic and legal history of the Indian Ocean and Islamic world. His current book, A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 17801940 (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press) is a legal history of economic life in the western Indian Ocean, told through the story of the Arab and Indian settlement and commercialization of East Africa during the nineteenth century, a period of emerging modern capitalism in the region and the transformations in Islamic law that accompanied it. He is also working on a history of the dhow trade between the Gulf (specifically Kuwait and Sur) and the Indian Ocean. He received his PhD in history from Duke University in 2012 and holds an MA in Arab Gulf Studies from the University of Exeter. His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center.