Chapter2

Containment Politics
in the Persian Gulf

State policy toward Shi‘is varies throughout the Persian Gulf, often standing in marked contrast to the cases of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain discussed in this book. Consider the example of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of that country in 1990 put to the test the relationship between Kuwaiti Shi‘is, a minority of some 25 percent, and the Sunni Al Sabah ruling family. While Shi‘is constituted the backbone of the Kuwaiti resistance to the Iraqi occupation, and bore the brunt of it, members of the Al Sabah family fled to Saudi Arabia. Yet with the return of the Al Sabah in the wake of the Gulf War, Shi‘is put aside their reservations against the ruling family and reaffirmed their allegiance to the emir, Jabir Al Sabah, viewing him as a symbol of national unity.

What explains the positive attitude of Shi‘is toward the ruling family in Kuwait? The sense of Kuwaiti nationalism generated by the Iraqi invasion is only one factor. Another, and no less important, has been the tolerant policy of the Al Sabah toward Kuwaiti Shi‘is during the twentieth century, a policy that did not strip them of their dignity. Although the Al Sabah occasionally discriminated against Kuwaiti Shi‘is, and kept them out of the inner circle of power, the Shi‘i community has played a significant role in the economy, and its members participated in parliament and held positions in the army and the police. As a result, Kuwaiti Shi‘is have taken pride in their Kuwaiti identity and have felt that their destiny was tied to that of the ruling family—a fact acknowledged by both Shi‘is and their adversaries, as well as by Western writers.¹

In contrast to Kuwait, where the rulers took steps to integrate the Shi‘is into the state, in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain the ruling families have often viewed the Shi‘is with hostility. The problem has been especially noticeable in Saudi Arabia, where the rulers and the state clergy have considered the Shi‘is as beyond the pale of Islam.

Under the Shadow of Wahhabism

We are Arabs, but
our land has become desolated
and we who live on it have become
[a people] without identity . . .
O God, give us American nationality
so that we can live with dignity
in the Arab countries.²

The poetry of Saudi Shi‘is conveys the despair of this small minority. Almost a century after Ibn Sa‘ud’s conquest of Hasa in 1913, Shi‘is have still not reconciled their sectarian and national identities—a problem which they attribute to the failure of the Al Sa‘ud to create bonds that could unite the different communities and religious currents within the kingdom. Shi‘is view the process of Saudi state formation as the victory of Najd, with its tribal culture and puritanical Wahhabi Islam, over the settled communities and more tolerant Muslim populations of the Hijaz and Hasa. They charge that Ibn Sa‘ud and his successors have treated Saudi citizens as their subjects and made no serious attempt to build a state based on partnership between the diverse communities of the kingdom. Before the increase in oil revenues in the 1950s, force was the glue that held the Saudi state together. The ruling family has enjoyed a monopoly on power and economic resources, and its members have encouraged a concept of nationalism that required Saudis to put their loyalty to the king before their allegiance to the country (al-malik, thumma al-watan). In the absence of a “unifying nationalist project,” Shi‘is have argued, people in the Hijaz, ‘Asir, and Hasa have flaunted their regional and communal identities. This was their reaction to the Al Sa‘ud’s use of sectarian, tribal, and regional origins as the criteria for determining the status of people in the state.³

The Al Sa‘ud’s adoption of Wahhabi-Hanbali Islam as the religious ideology of Saudi Arabia has had direct bearing on the inferior status of Shi‘is in the state. From the Wahhabi point of view there is little to choose between the various Shi‘i sects. All Shi‘is, including those who adhere to the main branch of Shi‘i Islam, are considered either extremists or infidels. On several occasions in the twentieth century, Wahhabi activists and ulama argued that Shi‘ism contains Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, and Sasanid seeds, ruling out any possibility for accommodation between Shi‘i and Sunni Islam. Some even went so far as to portray the Shi‘is as a “virus” and a “fifth column” within Islam, urging the Saudi government to eradicate Shi‘ism in order to secure the preservation of Islam.⁴ The inferior status of Shi‘is, below even Jews and Christians, is evident from Ibn Sa‘ud’s remarks to John Philby, his British confidant: “I should have no objection to taking to wife a Christian or a Jewish woman, and she would have full liberty of belief and conscience though her children would necessarily be brought up as Muslims. The Jews and Christians are both people of the book; but I would not marry a Shi‘a . . . [who] have been guilty of backsliding and shirk [polytheism] . . . for do they not pay divine honours to Muhammad, ‘Ali, Husain, and other saints and seers?”⁵

The extent of Wahhabi hostility toward the Shi‘is may be appreciated from the dissemination in Saudi Arabia of an old myth to the effect that the founder of Shi‘ism was a Jew named ‘Abdallah ibn Saba’. Very little is known about Ibn Saba’ other than his appearance after the death of the fourth caliph, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, in 661, and his propagation of the idea that ‘Ali would return one day to defeat his enemies.⁶ Yet the apocryphal story associating Ibn Saba’ with Shi‘ism gained adherents among Sunnis as early as the medieval period. In modern times, the myth has been widely current in Saudi Arabia (and to a much lesser extent elsewhere in the Arab world), as well as in Pakistan, where Shi‘is are a minority of about 20 percent and Wahhabi doctrines have a large following. The volume of publications espousing this myth increases in periods of upheaval and sectarian strife, leading to angry responses by Shi‘is. In the 1920s and 1930s such publications were connected to the failure of Muslims to unite against the European presence in the Middle East—a failure that supporters of Ibn Sa‘ud ascribed to the refusal of Iran and the Shi‘i ulama to recognize Saudi Arabia as the power that should lead Muslim opposition to imperialism.⁷ New publications of this kind appeared after the Egyptian religious university of al-Azhar recognized Shi‘ism in 1959 as one of the five Islamic schools of law, and following the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978–79. The most recent waves were inspired by the rise of a new generation of anti-Shi‘i Wahhabis in the wake of the Gulf War of 1991, as well as the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of these writers are ulama who enjoy the patronage of the Saudi state. All of them depicted Ibn Saba’ as a malicious Yemenite Jew who caused the first breach in Islam by stirring up the rebellion against the caliph ‘Uthman, and invented the doctrine that ‘Ali was the divinely appointed heir of the Prophet Muhammad.⁸

In contrast to Kuwait, where the rulers have relied on Shi‘i merchants both to check other groups in society and to mitigate the spread of Arab nationalism during the 1960s, the Al Sa‘ud have not considered the Shi‘is a partner worthy of inclusion in their system of alliances. Instead, Saudi rulers have sought to isolate the Shi‘is and dissolve their identity. In 1926 the cupolas built over the tombs of Shi‘i imams in the Baqi‘ cemetery in Medina were destroyed—an act that Shi‘is regarded as a Wahhabi attempt to erase Shi‘i heritage. Shi‘is across the Muslim world were outraged by this desecration, but it had an especially humiliating effect on the tiny Nakhawila Shi‘i community in Medina whose members were forced to destroy the cupolas themselves.⁹ The condition of Shi‘is in Hasa and Qatif in the eastern province was hardly any better than that of their coreligionists in Medina. Shortly after his occupation of Hasa in 1913, Ibn Sa‘ud appointed his cousin ‘Ab-dallah ibn Jiluwi as the first governor of the province. Ibn Jiluwi embarked on a campaign intended to force the conversion of Shi‘is to Wahhabism, ordering Shi‘i legal courts to follow Hanbali law, introducing new prayer guidelines, and prohibiting Shi‘is from performing their rituals. The Jiluwi family ruled the eastern province until 1985 when King Fahd appointed his son Muhammad as governor.¹⁰ Until the increase in oil revenues in the 1950s, the burden of taxation fell mainly on the Shi‘is, who were engaged in agriculture, fishing, pearl diving, and commerce. Shi‘is paid a protection tax, as well as other discriminatory taxes, including the jizya, a poll tax normally levied in Islam on non-Muslims, and the jihad, in lieu of service in the army.¹¹

In dealing with the Shi‘is, the Al Sa‘ud have enjoyed the backing of the Wahhabi religious establishment. While the Wahhabi ulama often pushed the Al Sa‘ud to impose restrictions on the Shi‘is, the rulers used “the Shi‘i question” both to appease the ulama on issues relating to the status of minorities and religious freedom, and as a means of reducing tension among competing Sunni groups within the kingdom. A good example of how this trilateral relationship has worked is the way Ibn Sa‘ud handled the challenge posed to him by the Ikhwan in the mid-1920s. The Ikhwan were Sunni tribesmen who settled in religious-agricultural communities established by Ibn Sa‘ud. Organized as a religious brotherhood whose members adopted a strict Wahhabi way of life, the Ikhwan formed the backbone of Ibn Sa‘ud’s forces during the period of Saudi expansion in the 1920s. In October 1926, some three years before he crushed their military power, the Ikhwan held a conference in Artawiyya. The delegates criticized Ibn Sa‘ud’s use of modern technology, notably motor transport, the telegraph, and the telephone, and discussed ways to combat Shi‘ism. In voicing criticism against Ibn Sa‘ud, the Ikhwan challenged not only the authority of the ruler but the competence of his advisers, the ulama of Riyadh. To deal with this challenge, Ibn Sa‘ud invited the heads of the Ikhwan and the ulama to a congress in Riyadh in January 1927. While the ulama took a neutral stand concerning Ibn Sa‘ud’s use of technology, they endorsed the Ikhwan’s demand that Shi‘is be forced to convert to Wahhabism. Accordingly, the ulama issued a ruling in February urging Ibn Sa‘ud to send instructors and teachers to Hasa and Qatif to ensure that the Shi‘is accepted true Islam. The ulama also ruled that those Shi‘is who refused to conform should be exiled from Muslim territory. Subsequently, a large number of Shi‘is were forced to convert to Wahhabism, while many others fled to Bahrain. Among those who were forced to publicly announce their adherence to Wahhabism was Musa Bu Khamsin, the leading mujtahid of Hasa with whom Ibn Sa‘ud had concluded the 1913 agreement guaranteeing security and religious freedom for Shi‘is. The persecution of Shi‘is stopped only in the early 1930s, by which time the decline of Shi‘i cultural life in Hasa and Qatif was well under way.¹²

With the discovery of oil in 1938, the Al Sa‘ud came to regard the Shi‘is as a security problem. Ibn Sa‘ud granted the concession to explore the eastern province for oil to Standard Oil of California. The American company operated its concession through an affiliate, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, to which the Texas Oil Company was admitted as an equal partner in 1936. In 1944 the company renamed itself the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco). Until the 1978–79 Iranian revolution, Shi‘is constituted the backbone of the Aramco work force. The prominent role of Shi‘is in the early decades of the oil industry may be attributed to their predominance among the population in Hasa, the refusal of Sunni tribesmen to accept menial positions which they viewed with disdain, and the fact that in the late 1930s and early 1940s American officials in Aramco did not consider sectarian origin as a criterion for hiring workers. But the oil strikes of 1944, 1953, 1956, and 1967 changed hiring patterns. In all these strikes workers demanded better economic and working conditions, and in 1956 and 1967 they were clearly influenced by the Arab nationalist and socialist ideas of Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser. The strike of June 1956 coincided with the Egyptian president’s visit to Saudi Arabia and his meeting with King Sa‘ud in Dammam in the eastern province. On that occasion protesters threw stones at the king’s car and chanted anti-American slogans. Workers demanded the expulsion of all foreign workers employed by Aramco and the removal of Sa‘ud ibn Jiluwi, the governor of the province. Several hundred Shi‘is also signed a petition against the government’s decision to continue leasing the Dhahran base to American forces. Shi‘is claim that Aramco officials subsequently gave preference to Sunnis in hiring. This trend intensified after the Iranian revolution, when the company laid off many of its Shi‘i workers.¹³

Whereas in Kuwait some Shi‘is in the oil industry grew immensely rich, and a Shi‘i even held the post of oil minister in the mid-1970s, in Saudi Arabia Shi‘is benefited little from the oil boom of the second half of the twentieth century. This reality shaped the political identity of Saudi Shi‘is and their view of the ruling family. In their publications, Shi‘is took pride in their prominent role in the oil industry, which they viewed as the lifeblood of Saudi Arabia. Yet they charged that Ibn Sa‘ud had acted negligently in granting the oil concession to Standard Oil of California in return for a paltry sum of money. Shi‘is deemed the concession a capitulation that enabled foreigners to control the country’s oil wealth and undermine the government’s ability to set oil prices according to Saudi national interests. They came to regard Aramco as a symbol of American imperialism—a view reinforced by the fact that until the 1970s the senior staff in the company were mainly Americans.Saudi Shi‘is likewise resented the medical tests that they had to pass as a condition for employment, a humiliating experience which they compared to the inspection of animals in the marketplace. They were annoyed by the race and class barriers, and by the segregation of Saudi and foreign workers in the company; they protested against the disparity between the low wages and inferior living conditions of the Shi‘is and the high salaries and modern housing of the foreigners. Much of the Shi‘is’ anger stemmed from the requirement that they work during Muslim religious holidays and take their vacation at Christmas instead. Shi‘is compared Aramco to a “flood” that threatened to “wash Shi‘i identity away.” While some depicted the American company as a state within the Saudi state, others portrayed it as a pillar of the Saudi state, which, like Wahhabism, was designed to guarantee the Al Sa‘ud’s survival.¹⁴

Saudi Shi‘is thus came to view themselves as the disinherited. Referring to themselves as the indigenous population of Hasa and Qatif, they charged that the Al Sa‘ud had exploited the resources of the region ever since the eighteenth century. Before the discovery of oil, Shi‘is related, the oases of Hasa and Qatif were the agricultural core of inner Arabia, while the ports of Qatif, Jubayl, and ‘Uqayr served as commercial gateways to the Persian Gulf. The discovery of oil enriched the Al Sa‘ud but dealt a blow to agriculture—the time-honored occupation of Shi‘is in the eastern province. They attributed the abandonment of agriculture to the lure of cash payments in the oil industry, the lack of government investment, the transfer of large tracts of land into the hands of a few princes, and the development of a construction industry, which inflated the value of landed property. The increase in oil revenues, Shi‘is charged, benefited mainly the Sunni population of the province, while the Shi‘i areas remained neglected. The government settled Sunni tribesmen in new cities and constructed large ports in Khobar and Dammam that eclipsed those of Qatif, Jubayl, and ‘Uqayr. In 1950 the administrative center of the eastern province was moved from Hufuf to Dammam, where Sunnis formed a majority.¹⁵ The decline of their cities and villages has sharpened the Shi‘i sense of exclusion from the state.

Saudi Shi‘is regard the decade following the Iranian revolution of 1978–79 as one of the worst in their modern history. The tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran led to an increase in Wahhabi attacks on Shi‘ism as a belief system. The Saudi government restricted the names that Shi‘i parents could choose for their children. Names like Muhammad Hasan, Muhammad ‘Ali, or Muhammad al-Baqir, as well as the use of the title Sayyid to designate individuals claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad, were forbidden. At the same time, Wahhabi ulama, led by the chief state cleric ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Baz (d. 1999), issued new rulings against the Shi‘is, reaffirming that they were infidels and prohibiting Muslims from dealings with them.¹⁶

The Iranian revolution had a strong impact on the Shi‘i minority in Saudi Arabia, inspiring the mass demonstrations of 1979–80. On 28 November 1979 Shi‘is took to the streets of cities and villages in the eastern province, defying a government ban on the rituals of Muharram in commemoration of the martyrdom of imam Hussein at Karbala. During the ten-day commemoration period, Shi‘is chanted slogans critical of the royal family, and called on the government to stop supplying oil to the United States and to support the Iranian revolution under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The demonstrations continued intermittently for about four months, ending only after government forces arrested hundreds of protesters and Saudi officials pledged to improve Shi‘i living conditions. The demonstrators were young men between the ages of twenty and thirty, mostly workers in the oil industry. They were led by a few clerics and by students from the University of Minerals and Petroleum in Dammam. Most of the leadership went into exile in Iran in the early 1980s, and some later moved to Lebanon and England. Interestingly, the outbreak of the Shi‘i demonstrations on 28 November followed the occupation of the Meccan sanctuary a few days earlier by a group of Sunni radicals led by Juhayman ibn Muhammad al-‘Utaybi and Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah al-Qahtani,who protested the religious and moral laxity in the kingdom and demanded the removal of the Saudi ruling family. The overlap between the two movements indicated mounting tensions within very different segments of Saudi society. Yet while ‘Utaybi and Qahtani (like the Ikhwan in 1927) protested against the ills of modernity, Shi‘is were driven primarily by a sense that they had been deprived of the fruits of modernization.¹⁷

The Muharram demonstrations marked a departure from the quietist behavior of the Saudi Shi‘i minority throughout much of the twentieth century. The shift from quietism to activism among Saudi Shi‘is is evident from the development of a memory around the demonstrations, which became known as “the uprising (intifada) of the eastern province.” The various accounts, written in the 1980s and 1990s, reveal the transformation of the community, as well as the tension between the older and younger generations. The first attempt to give meaning to the demonstrations was a book published in 1981 by Saudi members of the Organization for Islamic Revolution in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Iran. It chronicled the ten-day demonstration period, fusing it with the rituals in commemoration of imam Hussein. Both this account, and later publications that built on it, presented the uprising as an event that ushered in a period of renewal within the Shi‘i minority and as a turning point in its relations with the Saudi government. The uprising, we are told, was spontaneous, nonsectarian, and Islamic in nature; it was directed against a tribal regime that sought to erase the identity of Shi‘is and deny them freedom, justice, economic benefits, and equality in the state. Inspired by the experience of Hussein and his followers, who confronted a superior Umayyad force at the battle of Karbala, the authors compared the Saudi Shi‘i protesters to David, who defeated Goliath with only a stone as his weapon. The uprising, Shi‘is relate, culminated on the tenth day of Muharram when both men and women clashed with armed government forces, thus breaking “the barrier of fear” that had held back the Saudi Shi‘i community and ending its isolation.¹⁸

The tense relations between the elders of the Shi‘i community, who were guided by caution and by a desire to mend fences with the government, and the younger generation, whose members adopted a defiant approach, was built into the accounts of the uprising. Written mostly by young Shi‘is in exile, they questioned the right of notables, landowners, and merchants to lead the community and speak for it. These writers portrayed the elders as driven by fear and by personal and material interests, and viewed their attempts to stop the demonstrations as an act of betrayal. By contrast, they related, the uprising saw the emergence of a new generation of grassroots leaders, who fought to end the status of Shi‘is as second-class citizens in the kingdom and assumed responsibility for the future of the community.¹⁹

The desire of a small minority to attach itself to movements that transcended the confines of the eastern province is evident in the Saudi Shi‘i view of the Iranian revolution as an alternative to the tyranny of the Al Sa‘ud. The revolution preached freedom, justice, and equality, and as such it tapped the grievances of Saudi Shi‘is. Khomeini was the new Saladin. He was the reformer who carried the torch of the movement for Islamic revival—the great hope of Saudi Shi‘is and all the other disinherited groups (al-mustad‘a-fun).²⁰ The Iranian revolution had thus succeeded in emboldening Saudi Shi‘is, giving them the courage to challenge the Saudi ruling family. Nevertheless, by the 1990s, a growing number of activists had come to recognize the limits of this revolution. Khomeini was dead, and his followers were losing fervor. But the Saudi ruling family was still in power. These realities had a sobering effect on Shi‘is, who began to seek accommodation with the government as a way to improve Shi‘i life in the kingdom.²¹

Yet the Saudi government was slow to respond to this changed attitude within the Shi‘i community. At the same time, Saudi Shi‘is came under a new wave of verbal attacks from Wahhabis, who viewed the presence of Western troops in Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Gulf War as proof that a new order was being established in the Middle East with Shi‘is at its core. Two prominent examples of these attacks are the memoranda sent to the association of the leading Saudi ulama by Safar al-Hawali (who was then dean of the Islamic College at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca) and Nasir ibn Sulayman al-‘Umar (a professor of Koranic studies at Imam Muhammad ibn Sa‘ud University in Riyadh). Hawali warned that a block of Shi‘i states could emerge, one that would include Iran, Syria (under the ‘Alawis), and Iraq, as well as the Shi‘is of Saudi Arabia and other monarchies in the Persian Gulf. ‘Umar outlined a comprehensive program for eradicating Shi‘ism in the kingdom.²² Seeking to neutralize this Wahhabi critique, the government in 1992 imprisoned and executed a number of Shi‘is and razed four Shi‘i mosques—a move reminiscent of Ibn Sa‘ud’s response to the Ikhwan threat to his rule in 1927.²³ The attacks of the early 1990s led Shi‘is to conclude that Wahhabism had developed into a political order that did not tolerate any degree of religious pluralism or intellectual dissent, prompting them to seek closer alliances with other minority and opposition groups in the kingdom.²⁴

The attacks on Shi‘ism abated only after a reconciliation in 1993 between the Al Sa‘ud and leaders of the Shi‘i opposition—a development that I will discuss in chapter 5 in the context of Saudi Shi‘i demands for minority rights. The Al Sa‘ud’s decision to appease the Shi‘is coincided with the improvement of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran from the mid-1990s; this was mirrored in Saudi newspaper articles that questioned the myth that ‘Abdallah ibn Saba’ was the founder of Shi‘ism and caused the first breach within Islam.²⁵ Nevertheless, the Al Sa‘ud stopped short of recognizing Shi‘ism as a legitimate form of Islam, and did not grant Shi‘is the status of full-fledged citizens—a problem they would find increasingly difficult to ignore in the face of the assertion of Shi‘i power in post-Ba‘th Iraq.

The problem of rights of citizenship has not been unique to the Shi‘is of Saudi Arabia; it has also influenced the strained relations between Shi‘is and the ruling family in neighboring Bahrain.

Tensions in the Bahrain Archipelago

The Al Khalifa’s time-honored practice of relying on foreign powers to preserve their authority, and their tendency to rule the islands as their private estate, accounted for many of Bahrain’s sociopolitical problems. Bahrain’s precarious position as a tiny country between Iran and Saudi Arabia has shaped the Al Khalifa’s strategy for survival and their treatment of the Shi‘is. After their conquest of the islands in 1783, the Al Khalifa made several token submissions, and simultaneous offers of submission, to a variety of pretenders to sovereignty over Bahrain, hoping that one submission would cancel the other. This strategy worked well in the case of Oman and the Ottoman Empire, but proved less effective in coping with the challenges posed by Iran and Saudi Arabia. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Iranian rulers made several claims to Bahrain on the basis of the periodic submission of the islands to provincial governors in southern Iran from 1602 to 1783. Under Muhammad Reza Shah, Bahrain was listed in official publications as a province of Iran. Although the shah knew that he had neither a strong legal basis nor the military force to make good on Iran’s claim to Bahrain (which was a British protectorate until 1971), he kept the claim alive, trying to make some political gains from it. In 1970, however, Iran officially dropped its claim to Bahrain. This Iranian act followed a UN-administered referendum in Bahrain earlier that year in which the vast majority of Bahrainis, irrespective of their sectarian affiliation, had expressed a desire for an independent Arab state in Bahrain. The shah’s announcement that he accepted “the will of the people of Bahrain” enabled Saudi Arabia to increase its leverage in the islands.²⁶

Saudi Arabia’s interference in Bahrain reflected the geographical proximity of the two countries, the close contacts between Shi‘is on the islands and those on the Saudi mainland, and the Al Sa‘ud’s desire to spread their Wahhabi ideology outside Arabia. The Al Khalifa had first succumbed to the Al Sa‘ud in 1801. Under the first Saudi state the Al Khalifa for a time paid tribute to the Al Sa‘ud and accepted religious instructors sent to the islands to convert Bahrainis to Wahhabi doctrines. When in 1810–11 the Al Khalifa stopped paying tribute and obstructed the propagation efforts, the Al Sa‘ud imprisoned their leaders for about a year in the Saudi capital Dir‘iyya. In 1831, after the Saudis established their second state, the Al Khalifa were again forced to acknowledge their supremacy until the Egyptians reduced the power of the Wahhabis in 1838. After Ibn Sa‘ud captured Hasa province in 1913, he made claims to Bahrain on the ground that his forefathers had once controlled that territory. The Saudi ruler appointed ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Qusaybi as his agent in the islands and supported the Sunni Dawasir tribe, whose leaders objected to British attempts to give Shi‘is equal rights with Sunnis. The pressures that Ibn Sa‘ud exerted over Bahrain led the British political resident in the Persian Gulf to observe in 1927 that Iran did not pose a significant threat to Bahrain, and that the real danger lay in the growth of Saudi power.²⁷ It was the British presence in Bahrain that kept Saudi influence in the islands at bay until the 1970s.

After Bahrain gained independence in 1971, the Al Khalifa grew dependent on the Al Sa‘ud for their survival. As Britain prepared to withdraw its forces from the Persian Gulf, King Feisal of Saudi Arabia reached an understanding with the shah of Iran whereby the latter recognized the Arab emirates and sheikhdoms of the Gulf as falling within the Saudi sphere of influence, while Saudi Arabia acknowledged Iran’s role as guardian of the Gulf waters. Feisal also persuaded the British to grant Bahrain and Qatar independence as separate states, thus detaching them from the original plan for a federation of nine emirates that Britain had proposed. Following the Iranian revolution, Bahrain became embroiled in the tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both the Al Khalifa and the Al Sa‘ud feared that the revolution would lend weight to the grievances of Shi‘is, but the former were also anxious that the Islamic Republic might revive Iran’s claim to Bahrain. During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88, the Al Khalifa publicly acknowledged the Al Sa‘ud as their guardians and encouraged publications that highlighted the ties between the two families as descendants of the ‘Anaza tribal confederation of Najd. The opening in 1986 of the King Fahd Causeway connecting the Bahrain islands with the Saudi mainland brought the two countries closer together. When in 1996 Bahrain’s oil fields began drying out and its revenues decreased, its welfare became dependent on the aid that it received from Saudi Arabia, most notably the right to the income from oil production in the Abu Safa offshore field that the two countries had previously shared. By the end of the twentieth century, Saudi aid amounted to about 45 percent of Bahrain’s annual budget.²⁸ Saudi Arabia’s leverage on Bahrain has influenced the way the Al Khalifa have dealt with the Shi‘i majority in the islands.

Following their conquest of Bahrain in 1783, the Al Khalifa invited Sunni tribes to settle in the islands, thus altering the sectarian balance between Shi‘is and Sunnis on the islands. While the Al Bu Falasa and the Bin Jawdar tribes were already present in Bahrain at the time of the conquest, the bulk of Bahrain’s Sunni tribes, including the Dawasir and the Na‘im, arrived either with the Al Khalifa or during the nineteenth century. Like the ‘Utub tribe of the Al Khalifa, most of these tribes were Maliki Sunnis. The sheikhs of the tribes became part of a new Bahraini upper class that developed during the nineteenth century. Acting as landowners and as boat captains and dealers in the pearl industry, they were usually loyal to the Al Khalifa, with whom they shared a tribal past and vested economic interests. A clear social and cultural divide separated the Sunni tribes from the Shi‘is. The newcomers regarded social standing as a matter of tribal lineage. Although by the twentieth century the Sunni tribes had settled, they continued to refer to themselves as tribes and looked down on the Shi‘i cultivators, pearl divers, and fishermen as a nontribal population. The Sunni tribesmen were often exempted from taxation, the burden of which fell on the Shi‘is. Until the fiscal reform of 1923, Bahraini Shi‘is, like their coreligionists in Saudi Arabia, were subject to various discriminatory taxes, including a poll tax alongside water, date gardening, and fish taxes.²⁹

The case of the Dawasir shows the preferred status enjoyed by Sunni tribes in Bahrain. The Dawasir originated in southern Najd. They migrated to Bahrain around 1845 at the encouragement of the Al Khalifa, settling mainly in Budayyi‘ and Zallaq in the northwestern part of the country on land granted to them by the ruling family. By the twentieth century the tribe included several thousand people and had become the second largest and most powerful tribe after the ‘Utub. So powerful were the Dawasir that their members recognized Sheikh ‘Isa Al Khalifa as ruler in name only and considered themselves immune from taxation. They gained wealth from the pearl trade, owning a fleet of pearling boats and employing many divers under conditions of near servitude. The tribe played an important role in Bahraini politics. Its leaders opposed the British deposition of Sheikh ‘Isa Al Khalifa (who was replaced in May 1923 by his son Hamad as the deputy ruler), as well as the proposed reforms of the tax system and the pearl industry aimed at putting Shi‘is and Sunnis on an equal footing. When in November 1923 the Dawasir leaders realized that Sheikh Hamad, with British support, was determined to enforce their submission, almost the entire tribe took to their boats and crossed to Dammam in Saudi Arabia. Acting under British pressure, Sheikh Hamad ordered the seizure of Dawasir property and the release of their divers from contractual obligations and any debts that they owed the tribe.³⁰

The events surrounding the subsequent return of the Dawasir to Bahrain reveal the leverage exercised by the Al Sa‘ud on the Al Khalifa, as well as the dependence of the Bahraini ruling family on Sunni tribes to preserve its rule. Once in Saudi Arabia, the leaders of the Dawasir received the backing of Ibn Sa‘ud. They set out conditions for their return to Bahrain, demanding restoration of their property and government compensation for both the rents collected from their property during their absence and the cash that their divers owed them. The British political agent in Bahrain opposed this settlement since it would be construed by the tribe as a sign of government weakness and would enable its leaders to regain their former privileged status. However, Sheikh Hamad spoke of the “disgrace” that he had suffered on account of the confiscation of Dawasir property in his name. The sheikh was anxious to see the return of the Dawasir, and in a goodwill gesture toward Ibn Sa‘ud, he decided to accept all their demands. He explained to British officials that Ibn Sa‘ud “was the one big Arab ruler and it was natural for all smaller Shaikhs such as himself to look up to him and try to please him.” The Dawasir were accordingly allowed to return to Bahrain in April 1927, recovering their property and gaining one-third of the rents collected during their absence. In explaining the return of the Dawasir, British officials noted that the Al Khalifa were a Sunni people governing a Shi‘i population, and that they did not desire to weaken their position by expelling a powerful Sunni group. The British saw no point in opposing the return of the Dawasir against the wishes of the ruler.³¹

The Al Khalifa’s conquest of Bahrain altered the class structure on the islands, reducing the Shi‘i owners of the land to something little better than serfdom. Because Bahrain did not submit peacefully to the Al Khalifa, the ruling family under Islamic law considered all property on the islands as booty, confiscating most of the agricultural land and leasing it back to Bahraini Shi‘is. By the twentieth century the ruling family had become the largest owner of property and date gardens in Bahrain, controlling as much as 80 percent of the agricultural land. Under the new government system that the Al Khalifa introduced, family members acted as feudal lords, each controlling several villages and deriving income from the taxes extracted from the population in his domain. As the ruling family increased in size, reaching some two hundred members in 1935, competition intensified among its male members for property in Shi‘i villages. The livelihood of Shi‘i cultivators, who until 1783 owned their land outright, now became dependent upon their securing tenancy of a garden. Since the demand for gardens exceeded supply, the new landlords were able to charge inflated rates. When tenants defaulted on their rent, which was common, their houses were confiscated and their belongings auctioned. Thus the Shi‘i cultivators, in the words of British officials, became a “shamefully rack-rented peasantry” and “helots,” who could call no land or produce their own. The status of Shi‘i cultivators changed little before the development of the oil and construction industries in the 1940s and 1950s, which reduced the amount of agricultural land and put an end to date growing as a significant economic activity in Bahrain.³²

The position of Shi‘is in the pearl industry was hardly any better than that of the Shi‘i cultivators. Before the production of oil in commercial quantities in 1934, Bahrain’s prosperity depended on the pearl trade. A successful season meant that more money was in the hands of the diving community, raising demand for imported goods. This, in turn, increased government revenues that derived mainly from customs. Shi‘is were a majority of the pearl industry workforce, estimated in 1930 at fifteen thousand men. The Shi‘is were employed mainly as divers and were hired by a captain to work on his boat during the catch seasons, the longest of which was between mid-May and the end of September. The majority of boat captains were Sunnis of tribal descent and were allied with the Al Khalifa. Most divers were not paid wages, but shared in the profits from the sale of the catch and also received a small allowance during the season to buy their food. They were attracted to the industry by a cash advance paid by the captain at the beginning of the season, and another during the off-season. Having taken an advance, the divers were compelled to work for the captain in the following season. Because of occasional poor catches, and the abuses that crept into the industry, many divers became virtual slaves of the captains. Their patrons charged high rates of interest on the advances (a practice forbidden under Islamic law) and forced the divers to work for them as unpaid servants in the offseason. Divers could be transferred without their consent from one captain to another, or handed over to a shopkeeper in payment of a debt and forced to pay a proportion of their earnings to the shopkeeper every season. When a diver died, his debt passed to his sons, who, as soon as they were old enough, had to dive for the captain to whom their father owed money. If there was no son to take the deceased’s place, his belongings were seized by the captain. The condition of the divers remained unchanged until Sheikh Hamad, under pressures from the British political agent, introduced new diving laws in 1924, much to the chagrin of the Sunni tribal leaders. The world recession, followed by the Japanese development of cultured pearls in the 1930s, dealt the pearl industry in Bahrain a blow from which it never recovered. Bahrain’s pearl diving fleet, which in its heyday in the 1920s had numbered 2,000 sailing craft, dropped sharply to 192 in 1945.³³

The decline of agriculture and the pearl industry coincided with the discovery of oil and the development of a modern administration in Bahrain. This, in turn, led the Al Khalifa to employ a large number of foreign workers in the economy and the bureaucracy, as well as in the army and the security services, thereby attempting to prevent the rise of political organizations and labor unions that cut across regional and sectarian lines. The proportion of expatriates in the workforce in Bahrain, which in 1935 was 20 percent, had climbed to about 41 percent in 1956. It reached 60 percent in 1995 and was as high as 65 percent in 2002. Between the 1930s and 1950s, Indians were the main group among the foreign workers in Bahrain, followed by Iranians. Indians played a prominent role in the oil industry, the banking system, customs, the post office, and the police. Iranians dominated commercial activity in Manama during much of the twentieth century, but their number decreased significantly following the Iranian revolution. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Indians continued to form a substantial part of the foreign workforce in Bahrain, followed by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos. The large number of foreign workers has led to a substantial cash flow from Bahrain in the form of remittances. It also caused high unemployment among the native population; the rate was put at 15 percent by the government in 1997 but was estimated by Shi‘i opposition groups to be as high as 30 percent.³⁴

As the case of the oil industry demonstrates, the demand of Bahrainis for job opportunities and improved working conditions has been a bone of contention between Shi‘is and the ruling family. Oil was first discovered in Bahrain in 1932 by the Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco), a subsidiary of Standard Oil of California. Although the discovery of oil in Bahrain preceded that in other monarchies in the Persian Gulf, the country’s oil reserves proved to be small, and Bahrain became the poor relation among the oil monarchies. The sheikh took one-third of the oil revenue for the privy purse and used part of it to pay the allowances of his innumerable relatives. The other two-thirds was invested in British banks and used for administration and development.³⁵ Between the mid-1930s and the 1950s Bapco was the largest employer in Bahrain. The majority of its workers were foreigners, and the rest were mostly Shi‘is, who were hired from a pool of unemployed cultivators and pearl divers. These Shi‘is formed the nucleus of the working class in Bahrain.

Bapco’s decision to reduce its local workforce from 3,350 in 1937 to 1,569 in 1938 sparked off protests among Bahrainis. They demanded the right to form a representative body to defend their interests, preference in job hiring in all cases where Bahrainis and foreigners had equal qualifications, an increase in wages to reduce the gap between their pay and that of foreign workers, improved housing for Bahrainis who lived in huts, free transport to work like that provided for foreign workers, compensation for workers who became disabled on the job, annual paid leave of twenty days, training courses, and the building of two mosques. Company officials rejected most of these demands, particularly the request for a wage increase, arguing that Indians were more efficient than Bahrainis. A new wave of protests erupted in 1943. Bahraini workers in the refinery on the island of Sitra went on strike, and this spread to other sectors in the economy in what amounted to the first industrial strike in the Persian Gulf. Workers again demanded a pay increase (above the maximum of one rupee a day earned by Bahrainis), improved working conditions, and training courses. Backed by the government and the British administration, Bapco rejected most of these demands, including the request that Friday be designated as the weekly day of rest with pay. Seeking to downplay the social significance of the protest, Sheikh Salman ibn Hamad put the blame on Bahraini Shi‘is and Iranians, whom he portrayed as the strike’s instigators.³⁶

With the decline in oil reserves, Bapco lost its position as the largest employer in Bahrain, retaining only 10 percent of the local workforce in 1971. This development coincided with the Al Khalifa’s attempt to position Bahrain as a banking and communications hub for the Persian Gulf and the larger Middle East. By 1982 Bahrain had more than 120 banks. The islands had become a service center for the Saudi economy, capitalizing on the decline of Beirut, which experienced a setback to its position as the financial center of the Arab world during the Lebanese civil war of 1975–90. This transformation spurred the growth of a foreign-based bureaucracy in the latter part of the twentieth century and pushed Shi‘is into the service and distribution sectors of the economy. The increase in foreign workers caused resentment among Bahrainis and was a major factor behind the strikes of 1965, 1967, 1970, and 1972, as well as the uprising of 1994–99.³⁷

The presence of a large number of foreigners holding positions in the security services, and dominating important sectors of the economy, has had an impact on Bahraini nationalism and the Shi‘i view of the state. This point is evident from the rise and fall of Charles Belgrave, the British adviser to both Sheikh Hamad and his successor Sheikh Salman between 1926 and 1957. An Oxford graduate and a former administrative officer in the British Colonial Service, Belgrave was recruited by the British political agent in Bahrain for Sheikh Hamad, who wished to employ an Englishman as his adviser. The sheikh, as Belgrave wrote in his memoirs, “could not depend permanently on the sole advice of the Political Agents . . . [and] wanted someone belonging to him, whom he could trust and rely upon.”³⁸ Belgrave’s official designation by the India Office was that of financial adviser to the sheikh. But over time the sheikh came to rely on his advice in political and personal matters, and delegated numerous responsibilities to him, making Belgrave one of the most powerful figures in Bahrain.

As financial adviser, Belgrave produced a first budget of seventy-five thousand pounds for Bahrain in 1926. He saw the economy as in transition from one dependent on agriculture and the pearl trade to one relying on the production and refining of oil. Belgrave “kept a tight hold of the purse strings,” and by the time he left the country in 1957, he controlled a budget reaching almost five and half million pounds. During World War II, he introduced price controls and food rationing, setting up a Food Control Department that continued to function for several years after the end of the war. In 1953 he replaced the Islamic with the Gregorian calendar as the basis for all fiscal and government operations. Belgrave held judicial responsibilities as well, acting as the first judge of the civil court in Bahrain together with Sheikh Salman, who would become ruler in 1942. In 1938 Belgrave established the Minors’ Department, which protected the interests of minors, widows, and orphans. Together with his wife Marjorie, Belgrave left his mark on the field of education. While she supervised the establishment of the first girls’ school in Bahrain, he controlled for many years the development of education, assisted by a Lebanese inspector and by Sheikh ‘Abdallah, who acted as the “minister.” In 1928 Belgrave persuaded Sheikh Hamad to build a school for Shi‘is in Manama, arguing that they would not attend a school in which all the teachers were Sunnis. Belgrave also oversaw the development of the medical system in Bahrain, setting up the Public Works Department, which was responsible for building hospitals. As the commander of the police, Belgrave introduced a system of passport control. He recruited a British national to serve as chief police officer and built a force that by 1957 relied heavily on Baluchis, Omanis, Yemenis, and Iraqis. Belgrave continued to oversee police operations in Bahrain even after the appointment of Sheikh Khalifa as director of public security in 1954.³⁹

By the late 1940s, Shi‘is, as well as Sunnis, had come to regard Belgrave as the symbol of colonialism in Bahrain. Among the local population he was known simply by his designation as “the adviser.” Bahrainis associated Belgrave with the Al Khalifa as the source of their poverty and suffering. They resented the power that he wielded, as well as his position as a confidant of the ruler. In a petition to the British minister of colonies in July 1947, the writers complained that in the absence of a constitution, Belgrave had become “the main source of regulation” in the country and the person responsible for the wage gap between Bahrainis and foreign workers in Bapco. In various publications Bahrainis noted that Belgrave’s power exceeded the influence of most of the British political agents who served in Bahrain between 1926 and 1957. They took the employment of his son James in various government positions as proof that Belgrave was grooming his son to succeed him upon his retirement. The campaign for Belgrave’s dismissal was shaped by the growing influence of Arab nationalism in Bahrain. It intensified in 1956 after the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser and the dismissal of John Glubb Pasha, the British commander of the Arab Legion in Jordan. In organizing their campaign, Bahrainis took advantage of the competition between Belgrave and the political agents, who considered him a liability for the British government and suggested ways to hasten his retirement. In August 1956, the Bahraini government announced Belgrave’s resignation, but no date was set for the termination of his position. Belgrave left Bahrain in April of the following year, only after being diagnosed with cancer, which required treatment in England.⁴⁰

The Al Khalifa have grown yet more dependent on foreign workers, as well as on foreign powers, in the years following Belgrave’s departure and the coming of independence in 1971. On the eve of its withdrawal from Bahrain, Britain ceded part of its sphere of influence in the islands to the United States. While ex-British officers were hired to run the Bahraini security services, the U.S. Navy negotiated an agreement with the Al Khalifa to lease British bases on the islands. Bahrain thus became the home port of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. Its importance to U.S. strategic interests was evident in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution and during the Gulf War of 1991, when Bahrain became an advance U.S. military outpost in the campaign against Saddam Hussein. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. administration designated Bahrain a major non-NATO ally (a status reserved for a handful of countries), a move followed by the signing of a free trade agreement between the two countries in September 2004. These developments signaled both the effort of the administration to assert U.S. supremacy in the Persian Gulf and an attempt on the part of the Al Khalifa to draw closer to the United States in order to reduce their dependency on Saudi Arabia. The growing U.S. military presence in Bahrain, however, has influenced domestic politics in the country and exacerbated tensions between Shi‘is and the Al Khalifa.⁴¹

The tensions had already come to a head in the late 1970s. In 1975 the emir dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution that he had granted two years earlier. Four years after this act the Islamic Revolution brought Shi‘i clerics to power in neighboring Iran. I will discuss the dissolution of parliament in chapter 5 in the context of the constitutional movement in Bahrain. Here it is important to highlight the struggle for leadership that erupted within the Bahraini Shi‘i community following the revolution, and the eventual success of Shi‘is in isolating the radicals in their midst—an outcome reminiscent of the one that took place in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and which carries important implications for the political reconstruction of post-Ba‘th Iraq. In 1981, the Bahraini government foiled a Shi‘i coup attempt by the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, which sought to establish an Islamic government in the country and called for the departure of American forces from the islands. More than seventy Islamic Front members received long sentences and scores were deported, but it remained the most vocal Bahraini Shi‘i group throughout the 1980s. The Islamic Front was led by foreign clerics, most notably the Iraqi-born Hadi al-Mudarressi and the Iranian Sadiq Ruhani,Khomeini’s representative in Bahrain, who challenged the position of the more established Shi‘i clerics in the country. Initially, the Islamic Front recruited young urban Shi‘is, but over time its influence extended to villages—the power base of native ulama such as ‘Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, a member of the dissolved parliament who envisaged reforming, not dismantling, the Al Khalifa’s rule. As it turned out, the call for an Islamic state failed in its appeal to the majority of Shi‘is. But the struggle for leadership, and for the political direction of the community, took its toll and led Shi‘is to refer to the 1980s as one of the “darkest” decades in Bahrain’s modern history.⁴²

The Islamic Front was isolated during the uprising of 1994–99, which revealed a tangible degree of cooperation among the Bahrain Freedom Movement (which attracted primarily Shi‘is of rural background), the National Liberation Front (consisting of Marxists and Arab nationalists, both Shi‘is and Sunnis), and the Popular Front (which had support among workers, students, and intellectuals from both sides of the sectarian divide). The willingness of members of the Sunni minority to side with the Shi‘i majority reflected primarily their frustration with the ruling family’s tight control of legislative powers since the 1975 dissolution of parliament. The reluctance of the Islamic Front to fully cooperate with this alliance enabled the Bahrain Freedom Movement to emerge as the leading Shi‘i opposition force. The 1994–99 uprising grew out of the Gulf War of 1991. There had been talk then about a new world order led by the United States, and the Al Khalifa, like other ruling families in the Persian Gulf, embarked on a campaign promising human rights and political openness. Encouraged by these signs, Bahrainis submitted a petition to the emir in November 1992. It was signed by some three hundred people and called for elections to a restored parliament, the release of political prisoners, and the return of exiles. The petition was sponsored by a committee of six. Its Shi‘i members were the clerics ‘Abd al-Amir al-Jamri and ‘Abd al-Wahhab Hussein, as well as Hamid Sangur, a professional. The Sunni members included two clerics, ‘Isa al-Jawdar and ‘Abd al-Latif al-Mahmud, and a nationalist, Muhammad Jabir al-Sabah. The petition, though polite in tone and expressing respect for the Al Khalifa, went unanswered. Meanwhile, the government announced in December the formation of a nonelected consultative council composed of an equal number of Shi‘is and Sunnis. This development led to demonstrations in 1993–94 that grew into a protest movement. In October 1994 leaders from both sects submitted a new petition to the emir signed by twenty-three thousand people. It called for the return of exiles, a reduction in the number of foreign workers, freedom of expression, and the restoration of the constitution and parliament. The organizers asked to present the petition to the emir in person, but this request was turned down.⁴³

A few weeks later, the government deported three Shi‘i clerics— ‘Ali Salman, Hamza al-Dayri, and Haydar al-Sitri—on charges of organizing the petition. This move triggered large demonstrations in December 1994, marking the beginning of the uprising. In its first stage the uprising lasted about a year, leaving more than thirty people dead and hundreds wounded. Between three thousand and five thousand Bahrainis, including women and children, were arrested during that time. Hardly any Sunnis were arrested at this stage because the government strategy was to co-opt the Sunnis and deal firmly with the Shi‘is. Among those arrested was the cleric ‘Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, who would emerge as a national leader recognized by both Shi‘i and Sunni opponents of the government. Jamri was inspired by India’s leader Mahatma Gandhi. He advocated passive resistance—a strategy that according to British officials had generally been preferred by Shi‘is in Bahrain in the twentieth century.⁴⁴ In his sermons, Jamri portrayed the uprising as an indigenous movement of all Bahrainis, irrespective of sectarian affiliation and ideological preference, urging the government to introduce reforms for the benefit of the entire people. Jamri was first arrested in April 1995, but he was released four months later as part of an agreement between opposition leaders and the government. While the opposition agreed to end the demonstrations, the government promised to start a dialogue with the opposition. A period of relative calm followed Jamri’s release, but the demonstrations resumed in December after the government had refused to make any serious concessions. Jamri was arrested again in January 1996 and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on charges of spying for a foreign country, running an illegal group, and fanning unrest in the country.⁴⁵

In dealing with this second stage of the uprising, the Bahraini government attempted to divide the opposition along sectarian lines by accusing Shi‘is of collaboration with Iran. Accordingly, the minister of information announced in June 1996 the arrest of fortyfour Bahrainis on charges of plotting to topple the ruling family and replace the government with one modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran. State television broadcast the confessions of six people who said that they belonged to the military wing of an organization called Hizballah al-Bahrain, established on the instructions of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard and with its financial support. Unlike the aborted coup of the Islamic Front in 1981, however, there was little evidence to support the government claim of a coup attempt in 1996. Yet the Al Khalifa won some support from the U.S. administration because of the latter’s fear that political reforms and free elections would lead to a pro-Iranian parliament opposed to U.S. military bases in Bahrain. All three Bahraini opposition groups denied the reality of the alleged plot. Their members pointed out that on various occasions in the twentieth century the Al Khalifa had attempted to deflect attention from their domestic problems by accusing foreign countries of supporting coup attempts in Bahrain. Thus in the mid-1950s the Al Khalifa put the blame on Egypt, in the 1970s on South Yemen, and since the 1980s mainly on Iran. Bahraini Shi‘is argued that the Al Khalifa invoked Iran in order to undermine the nationalist credentials of Shi‘is, to pose as “the guardian of the Sunnis,” and to undercut the demands for job opportunities and political reforms.⁴⁶

The tension between the Shi‘is and the ruling family intensified as the Al Khalifa sought to alter the sectarian balance to the advantage of the Sunnis, as they had done during the nineteenth century. Shi‘is charged that in the mid- and late 1990s the Al Khalifa had invited new sections of the Dawasir from the Saudi mainland, as well as distantly related Shammar tribesmen from the Syrian desert, to settle in Bahrain. The newcomers were granted citizenship and housing, and their children were enrolled in special schools. Some of these tribesmen were recruited to military units responsible for protecting the regime. Shi‘is also denounced the existence of a tight junta of British intelligence officers led by Ian Henderson, a Scot who had been recruited in 1966 and acted as head of Special Branch in Bahrain. In Shi‘i memory, Henderson symbolized the repression of Bahrainis by foreigners—a metaphor once reserved exclusively for Charles Belgrave.⁴⁷ What is more, Shi‘is drew attention to the problem of citizenship, and to the existence of some fifteen thousand people born in Bahrain whose parents and great-grandparents were of Iranian origin, both Persian speakers from the interior of Iran and ethnic Arabs from the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. Known as the bidun (“without” citizenship), they were denied any citizenship rights and ranked at the bottom of the social scale in Bahrain. Shi‘is resented the government’s classification of Bahrainis according to such categories, the most prestigious of which was that designating the Al Khalifa as Bahrainis by descent. Like their coreligionists in Saudi Arabia, Bahraini Shi‘is demanded full citizenship as well as the right to serve in the army.⁴⁸

The role of Shi‘is in leading an uprising that cut across sectarian lines constituted a novelty in Bahrain’s modern history. This development reflected the increase in the share of Shi‘is from around 50 percent in 1941 to some 70 percent in 1996 out of a native population of some 400,000. Shi‘is were the main group affected by the influx of foreign workers to Bahrain, and hence the most strongly motivated to take to the streets in protest. The role of Shi‘i ulama in leading the uprising reflected the rise of Islam as the most viable political force in the Arab world at the expense of Arab nationalism and communism, and the reluctance of the Sunni Muslim Brothers, organized in the Islah Society led by Sheikh ‘Isa ibn Muhammad Al Khalifa, to join the opposition. One may appreciate the changes in the nature of opposition leadership in Bahrain by comparing the 1954–56 and the 1994–99 protest movements. On both occasions the leaders opposed the sectarian policies of the government and the role of foreigners in running the country, and advocated a constitution and an elected parliament. Yet whereas the first movement was dominated by Arab nationalists of Sunni origin whose demands included the establishment of labor unions, the second was led mainly by Shi‘is of religious background whose demands involved an end to Christian missionary activities and to public displays offensive to the Islamic religion. In 1956 the government dealt a blow to the movement by imprisoning and deporting its Sunni leaders and encouraging Shi‘i leaders to organize independently, thus undercutting the national dimension of the movement. By contrast, the arrest and deportation of Shi‘i opposition leaders during the mid-1990s failed to split the movement and led the exiles to mount a public relations campaign, winning support from international human rights groups, members of the British Parliament, and even the European Parliament.⁴⁹

Only in late 1999, after the death of Sheikh ‘Isa, did the Bahraini government declare national reconciliation and open a dialogue with the opposition. This development coincided with publications that urged the Al Khalifa and the Shi‘is not to let the past stand as a barrier between the ruling family and the people. While pleading with the Al Khalifa not to assert themselves as “the conquerors and liberators” of Bahrain, the writers called on Shi‘is to stop referring to themselves as “the original inhabitants” of the islands.⁵⁰ The opening of a dialogue between the government and Bahraini Shi‘is in 1999 was reminiscent of the Saudi government’s reconciliation with its Shi‘is in 1993. Yet the political reforms introduced by the new emir, Sheikh Hamad, were more daring than the concessions made by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, reflecting international pressures, the absence of a Wahhabi clerical institution, and the clout of the Bahraini opposition. In a widely publicized campaign, the government released political prisoners (including ‘Abd al-Amir al-Jamri), permitted the return of exiles, and licensed independent newspapers, as well as civil society organizations and trade unions. It also issued a new passport describing its holder as a citizen of the state of Bahrain, granted citizenship to Bahrain’s bidun residents, modified the state security law of 1975, abolished the state security court of 1995, and settled issues relating to human rights. Moreover, Ian Henderson, head of Special Branch, left Bahrain in 1998—a move recalling the retirement of Charles Belgrave in 1957.⁵¹

The reconciliation of 1999 has reduced tension between the Al Khalifa and the Shi‘is. Yet, as will be shown in chapter 5, the political reforms turned out to be limited in scope. One reason for this was the government’s refusal to reinstate the 1973 constitution and allow a strong parliamentary system in the country. Another was the crackdown on the reformers in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led war on terrorism.