Untold lives blog

On 5 February 1936 Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, Advisor to the Bahrain Government, asked the Political Agent Percy Gordon Loch for help in locating an ancient mosque in Manama, Bahrain. The only piece of information Belgrave had was that the mosque dated to AD 876-9, and had been described by Ernest Diez in 1925.

Diez had indeed visited the place in 1914 and described the mosque’s physical features including its pillars, arches, roofs, plan, and measurements, in addition to the possible timeline of its establishment.

The mosque is believed to be one of the oldest Islamic buildings in Bahrain, whose ruins Deiz thought dated back to the year 740 AH (AD 1339/40). This date is shown with Cufic inscription on an epigraphic tablet that was described by Deiz. The mosque has a unique architectural style with an open plan layout rather than most familiar courtyard mosques spotted in various Muslim countries.

 
From Ernest Diez,  ‘Eine Schiitische Moschee Ruine auf der Insel Bahrain’

Basic local materials were used to build the mosque including clay and teak. Diez states that teak ‘was shipped from India to the Persian Gulf and Egypt and was much utilised in the early Islamic mosques of the towns of Iraq, in Baghdad, and also in the Persian highland country’.

The identical twin minarets on this ancient Islamic monument make it easily recognizable. The foundation dates back to the 11th century and has been rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries. During this reconstruction the twin minarets were added. At the east and west exterior walls of the mosque stand these two distinguishable circular minarets.  Below is one of the oldest photographs taken of the two minarets in 1939.

IOR/R/15/2/1663, ff 252-255

There are two Kiblah stones with Cufic writing around them at the western wall of the mosque. They are called kiblah as they indicate the direction of prayer. They are believed to have been rebuilt in the 15th century.

From Ernest Diez,  ‘Eine Schiitische Moschee Ruine auf der Insel Bahrain’

At some point of its history the mosque was a Shia mosque. The  inscription found on its wooden pillar is a Shia formula: ‘la Ilaha illa Allah, Muhammed Rasul Allah, ‘Ali Wali Allah’.

From Ernest Diez,  ‘Eine Schiitische Moschee Ruine auf der Insel Bahrain’

The design which can be seen on the above wooden pillar can be assigned to at least the 10th century. Such designs can be traced to the mosques of Samarra in present-day Iraq.

If Mr Belgrave had made the same enquiry today, he would have been delighted to learn that the ancient mosque of Manama is now called al-Khamis Mosque. It is found to the south-west of Manama. The mosque derives its name from a local market (Souq) which was held in the area on Thursdays (al-Khamis), hence Souq al-Khamis. It is however rather difficult to trace the date by which the mosque acquired this name, or even to trace any previous names. Most recently the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities  has been working on a project called Souq al-Khamis Mosque Visitors’ Centre which is intended to open by the end of 2015. The project is sponsored by Assistant Undersecretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Mohammad bin Al-Khalifa.

Ula Zeir
Content Specialist/ Arabic Language British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further Reading:
Diez, Ernest ‘Eine Schiitische Moschee Ruine auf der Insel Bahrain’ von Ernest Diez, pp 101-105, (‘The Ruins of Shia Mosque on Bahrain Island’), Jahrbuch der asiatischen Kunst II (The Annual Book of Asian Arts), Part II, edited by Georg Biermann (1925).
IOR/R/15/2/1771 File 34/1 Ancient Monuments and Tombs. Ancient Mosque in Manamah.
IOR/R/15/2/1663, ff 252-255 File 20/1- Vol: III Ceremonial and Celebrations: New Year's and King's Birthday's Celebrations.
Article by Muhammad Al Khatam, Al-Yaum Newspaper. 
al-Khamis Mosque

Today is the 85th anniversary of the start of the historic crossing by Bertram Thomas of the Rub’ al-Khali, the vast desert known in English as the Empty Quarter which occupies the south-east corner of Arabia.  On 10 December 1930 Thomas set off from Dhofar, Oman, arriving 59 days later in Doha, Qatar - the first European to traverse this extreme, inhospitable environment.  This landmark achievement in desert exploration is being marked by an expedition of three Omanis and a Briton to retrace the steps of the Omanis and Thomas.

Following the defence of Muscat during World War One from the besieging tribesmen from the Interior under the Imam of Oman, the Government of India sought to restructure Muscat State to reduce its dependence on loans and borrowing from Indian merchants.  Part of this reform was the appointment of a British financial adviser to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman.

Bertram Thomas went out to Muscat as Financial Adviser or Wazir to Sultan Taimur bin Faisal Al Bu Sa’id.  After service in Mesopotamia, Thomas jumped at the opportunity of a posting to Muscat.   In December 1924 Thomas wrote from London to Colonel Francis Prideaux, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, that he was ‘tremendously looking forward to the possibilities of Mascat. Some kind friend has compiled a bibliographical list of every work and paper previously published on Mascat or Oman and I’ve made some slight progress towards collecting a library of some of these publications’.

 
IOR/R/15/1/419 

Thomas combined his official duties of bringing a semblance of order to the budget of the Muscat State with his passion for exploring the archaeology, geography and natural history of Muscat and Oman. He honed his skills with some trips to the area round the Musandam Peninsula where he sought to identify the allegiance of different tribes to assist in dispute resolution and tax collection. In 1926 Thomas went up to the northernmost tip of the Arabian Peninsula to investigate the affiliations of the tribes in order to resolve a conflict between the Shaikh of Kalba and the Shaikh of Fujairah.  The Political Agent in Muscat informed the Political Resident in Bushire: ‘Thomas is making enquiries carefully and extensively to procure information, but this will take time. Areas referred to are not clear to us'.

 
IOR/R/15/1/278, f 110

His hand drawn map is shaded with different colours to demarcate the tribal areas of the Al Sharqiyin, Al Qawasim and Al Shihuh.  The Al Shihuh territory of the Musandam Peninsula was deemed to be a feudatory of the Sultan of Muscat.

Thomas stayed at his post in Muscat in the burning hot summer months so he could take leave in the cooler winter months and undertake preparatory expeditions to Dhofar.  He learned that it was essential to have camels used to the sands and he built up the trust of and confidence of the tribes who would help him make the crossing.  In early December 1930 Thomas hitched a ride from Muscat to Dhofar with an oil tanker of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.   He almost had to abandon the expedition because of a tribal feud but his guides turned up at the last moment.  Thomas’s preparation had paid off and his attempt to cross the Empty Quarter could begin…

Dr Francis Owtram
Gulf History Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:
IOR/R/15/1/278 Punishment of the Sheikh of Fujairah. Sheikh Hawad bin Abdullah Sharqiyin
Crossing the Empty Quarter – Tahaddi Arabia
Francis Owtram, A Modern History of Oman: Formation of the State since 1920. IB Tauris, 2004.
Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix: Across the Empty Quarter of Arabia. Jonathan Cape, 1938. 

Stamps are important symbols of national identity. Kuwait had first issued its own postage stamps in 1923, and by the beginning of 1933, the Ruler of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, had decided that he wished to do likewise.

The Sheikh accordingly communicated his request to the British authorities in the Gulf. The issue would be in the form of standard British Government of India stamps, which were already in use in Bahrain, overprinted (or ‘surcharged’) with the word ‘Bahrain’. A similar format had been used for the Kuwait stamps.

However, there was a problem. Iran (still commonly referred to as Persia) had a long-standing territorial claim to the Bahrain Islands, and the issuing of something as symbolic as a set of postage stamps bearing the name of Bahrain would be likely to provoke protests from the Persian Government.  The British agonised between their desire to meet the wishes of a loyal ally on the one hand, and on the other, their desire not to offend Bahrain’s great neighbour on the opposite side of the Gulf.  Eventually, Britain gave the go-ahead for the issue, the surcharged stamps were produced in India by the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department, and they went on sale in Bahrain on 10 August 1933.

Government of India two annas stamp, overprinted ‘Bahrain’, circa 1935. Source: Wikipedia.

When Sheikh Hamad saw the stamps, he was not impressed. For one thing, he was disappointed that the overprinted word ‘Bahrain’ was in English, not Arabic. He had also expected that his own head would appear on the stamps, not that of the British monarch, King George V. However, a few days later, the Sheikh had cheered up, and given his Adviser, the British-born Charles Belgrave, instructions that a commemorative set of the stamps should be sent to the best known philatelist in the world - King George V himself.

Copy of letter sent to the India Office on behalf of King George V, 17 October 1933, expressing the King’s gratitude for the gift of stamps from the Sheikh of Bahrain. IOR/R/15/2/139, f 167 

The issue of the stamps produced a predictable response from the Persian Government, which ordered its postal service to treat items bearing the surcharged Bahrain stamps as though no postage had been paid on them whatsoever. The Persian Government had earlier that year made a complaint to the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union at Berne in Switzerland, asserting the Persian claim to Bahrain. The British now followed this up by having a letter published in four philatelic journals, explaining that Bahrain was ‘like Kuwait, an independent Arab State on the Arabian littoral of the Persian Gulf’. Both sides had also made representations to the League of Nations.

Letter from the India Office to the editors of four British philatelic journals, 20 September 1933. IOR/R/15/2/139, f 149. 

The issue, after being passed from pillar to post, eventually faded away, leaving the Sheikh’s stamps securely affixed for the future.

Martin Woodward
Archival Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:
IOR/R/15/2/139 File 1/A/1 I Stamps and Postage; Relations with Persia.

In 1905 a proposal was put forward to appoint a consular assistant to the Consul-General at Bagdad, with the Government of India recommending John Calcott Gaskin for the position. Gaskin had most recently served in the newly created position of Assistant Political Agent at Bahrain and had impressed both the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf and the Foreign Department of the Government of India with his diligence in the role. However Gaskin could not be appointed Consular Assistant as he was not a member of the Diplomatic Service.  After much toing and froing he was named Assistant to the Resident, later amended to Commercial Assistant.

When war broke out in 1914, Gaskin was instructed by the Consul-General (on leave in Europe) to sink all of the Residency’s ammunition in the nearest river to prevent it falling into enemy hands. This action prompted his arrest by Turkish officials  and on 22 November 1914 he was sentenced to three months in jail. On 12 December 1914, however, he was released from prison and instructed to retrieve his belongs and depart Bagdad for Constantinople with other consular officials to be repatriated.

On arriving in Aleppo in March 1915, en route to Constantinople, Mr Gaskin was detained by police for having failed to serve the full three months of his sentence and was again imprisoned. The other consular officials on leaving Aleppo placed his case in the hands of the US Consulate, which promised to try to assist him.

'Prospect of Aleppo' from Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter. A.D. 1697 (London, 1810) BL flickr

On finally being released from prison Gaskin found himself trapped in Aleppo without the means to obtain food, clothing, or residence, as foreigners were no longer permitted to leave the city.  He  approached the US Consulate for assistance. The US Consulate asked the Foreign Office and India Office if Mr Gaskin could be paid his salary through them in order to survive in Aleppo.

This presented an unprecedented situation for both the Foreign Office and India Office. The Foreign Office’s rules stated that consular officials removed from their positions owing to war would receive full pay for six months, provided suitable work was found for them by His Majesty’s Government.  As Mr Gaskin had been interned, and therefore was not in a position to be provided with suitable employment, it seemed unfair to deprive him of a means of livelihood.  Military officers who had been interned received full pay for 61 days and leave pay thereafter.

The case was ultimately brought before the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward Grey, who concluded that as Mr Gaskin was unable to leave Aleppo, and as this situation was likely to continue for the foreseeable future, he should continue to receive full pay until he was released from internment and then suitable employment should be found for him.

John Calcott Gaskin was eventually released from internment following the end of the war in 1918, and reached England in November 1918 where he was placed on furlough to allow him time to recover from his ordeal, before being sent to his new posting in Mesopotamia.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further reading:
IOR/L/PS/10/117 - File 636/1907 'Turkish Arabia: Bagdad Consulate. Mr Gaskin (Commercial Asst). Detention by Turkish authorities (1914-1918). Settlement of accounts'.
Foreign Office Records at The National Archives: FO 383/102 Turkey: Prisoners; FO 383/341 Turkey: Prisoners.

Every Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday, Sharjah aerodrome became a hive of activity a few hours before the incoming Karachi bound Handley Page 42 aircraft was due to land. The Aerodrome was a stop on the Imperial Airways route between Britain and Australia, the first air route of its kind which was established in December 1934.

The aerodrome ‘station’ supervisor would have had a very peripatetic role because he was responsible for ensuring that all ran smoothly, from organising the employees to the setting up of the fuel tanks through to the management of the passenger hotel. The Marquess of Londonderry commented that the installation was ‘a triumph over many difficulties’ while acknowledging that ‘there are no luxuries’. It is interesting to note the parallels which existed between airline and rail travel, starkly reflected in the interior detailing of the early planes, right down to overhead baggage racks.

The bar at Sharjah Aerodrome courtesy of J.S.Adams (from Clive Adams Photo Archive)

The passengers rose from their Pullman seats and exited the plane where the desert air mixed with the sounds of the engines ticking to a stop. Guards waited outside the plane to escort them to the fort/ hotel attached to the aerodrome. Those guards were provided by the Sheikh as part of the rental agreement with Imperial Airways who rented the airstrip and fort for 1100 Rs every month to protect it from desert marauders.  Once inside, they were handed a slip of card emblazoned with the Imperial Airways logo with their room number and the time of departure, which would have been early morning at sunrise.

The courtyard of the fort was a veritable oasis in the desert, where the airline passenger would have been presented with the chance to play the same games found on the deck of those ships plying the route between Britain and Australia. Whilst the passengers waited for their luggage to be transported to their lodgings, their airliner was rolled into ‘a barbed wire enclosure into which aircraft can be brought in for protection’. After the night sky extinguished the sound of deck games in the courtyard, the ‘homely smells of Brown Windsor soup and roast mutton’ would have washed through the canteen and passengers were treated to ‘giant bowls of oysters, good wines and sickly sweet pastries’.

It was prudent to have an early night owing to the early morning departure and possibly all eighteen passengers would have taken it in turns to use the Sharjah Bath, which was the only one available between India and Iraq where ‘the Sharjah bath became an institution almost as celebrated as the Raffles Long Bar’. The aerodrome also boasted its own bar for the use of those passengers overnighting there.
 
In 2015 the original fort which once welcomed intrepid through travellers by air is now welcoming tourists who travel to glittering Sharjah as a destination in its own right. The original fort is the only surviving element from the 1947 map featured below.

Ellis Meade
Imaging and Quality Assurance Technician
British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading/films:
Alexander Frater, Beyond the Blue Horizon (Penguin, 1986 )
Gordon Pirie, Air Empire ( Manchester University Press, 2009)
Military Report and Route Book, The Arabian States of the Persian Gulf (1939)
Paul Rotha, Air Outpost (Strand Film Company, 1937)
Nicholas Stanley-Price, Imperial Outpost in the Gulf. The airfield at Sharjah (UAE), 1932-1952 (Book Guild, Brighton, 2012)

This month we celebrate the first anniversary of the Qatar Digital Library Portal, launched a year ago as a result  of the Partnership between the British Library, the Qatar Foundation, and the Qatar National Library. The Portal, available in English and Arabic, has been widely accessed from the Persian Gulf, and its Arabic version is extremely popular. 600,000 images have been uploaded to-date and more content will be made available in the coming years.

The Qatar Digital Library hosts a selection of India Office Records and private papers, maps of the Persian Gulf and the wider region, and Arabic Scientific Manuscripts from the British Library’s Manuscripts Collections.

During the first year, the most popular map was IOR/R/15/1/730 f 88  showing air routes, islands in the Persian Gulf;  and the boundaries of Kuwait and Trucial Area.

 
IOR/R/15/1/730, f 88 – Map showing (A) Air Routes, established and projected; (B) Islands in the Persian Gulf; (C) Boundaries of Kuwait and Trucial Area. Map II (accessed in Arabic). 

The most popular manuscript was IO Islamic 1249 - Arabic versions of seven Greek treatises on mathematics edited by Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī  طوسي، نصير الدين محمد بن محمد, (detail below, f 1v).

 IO Islamic 1249 f.1v

The most popular India Office Records file was IOR/R/15/2/31 File E/8 I Ibn Sa‘ud.  The second most popular file was IOR/R/15/1/480 - 'File 53/7 X (D 54) Kuwait Affairs, Bin Saud (Captain Shakespeare's Deputation)' (detail from f ‎26r below, on the Death of Captain Shakespear).

IOR/R/15/1/480

The Qatar Digital Library also contains contextualised explanatory notes and links, in both English and Arabic. The most popular of these pieces is Robots, Musicians and Monsters: The World’s Most Fantastic Clocks, accessed both in English and Arabic. This was closely followed by The British in the Gulf, mostly accessed in Arabic, and The Death of Captain Shakespear, in English.

Keep following us on Twitter @BLQatar to see what the curators are working on, and what is being uploaded every week to the Qatar Digital Library.

Valentina Mirabella
Archive Specialist British Library / Qatar Foundation Partnership

On 4 June 1902 Captain Edward Boxer’s miserable five-month tenure as British Vice-Consul at the Persian port of Bandar Abbas, was brought to an end by an abrupt and fatal attack of bilious fever.

Boxer was the third Vice Consul to be sent to Bandar Abbas – a strategically important yet barren and inhospitable port – in the space of just two years. The first was invalided after less than a year. The second lasted just six months, but at least got away in one piece. What was it about Bandar Abbas that made a Government posting there such a disconsolate and precarious existence?

View towards the customs house at Bandar Abbas, 1917. From ‘Album of tour of the Persian Gulf. Photographer: Rev. Edwin Aubrey Storrs-Fox’ Shelfmark: Photo 496/6

A report on a visit to the Vice-Consulate at Bandar Abbas published in The Times of India on 1 April 1902 casts light on a sorry state of affairs. The anonymous reporter felt compelled by ‘pure patriotism’ to expose the British Government’s ‘incredible apathy’ towards a port widely regarded as of paramount strategic importance to British interests. He described a ‘half-finished building [with] not even a consular flagstaff’, in lieu of which, the Vice-Consul (Boxer) had contrived a ‘bamboo pole stuck in a baked mud base on the [building’s] roof’.

 
Extract from newspaper report in The Times of India, 1 April 1902, in Political and Secret Letters and enclosures received from India, Vol. 149 (1902). (IOR/L/PS/10/149) 

Conditions inside the Vice-Consulate were no better: ‘The consular office furniture consisted of an old desk, a tin box and three chairs. There was not even a stool for a clerk, who sits on the floor.’ The consulate’s records, the writer reported, had been looted while en route to Bandar Abbas and had probably ‘found their way to St Petersburg.’ The damning report finished by asserting that Boxer had been ‘dumped down’ in Bandar Abbas ‘with as little ceremony as that attending to the landing of a bag of dates’.

Responding to the report in a letter to the Secretary to the Government of India, Boxer expressed ‘a great deal of annoyance’ about the allegations. While insisting that many of the statements made were ‘entirely untrue’, he did concede that the consulate’s landlord had not been paid rent for a year, leading to the abandonment of building work, and that his interpreter was to take four months’ sick leave, ‘caused entirely by this wretched house in which he has to live’.

Extract of a letter from Captain E H Boxer, Vice-Consul at Bandar Abbas, to H S Barnes, Secretary to the Government of India, 12 May 1902. From Political and Secret Letters and enclosures received from India, Vol. 149 (1902) (IOR/L/PS/10/149)  

Boxer, a married man with children, ended his letter – written less than three weeks before his death – in a tone that smacked of desperation. ‘My position here is most trying’ he began. ‘It would be most kind of you if you would give me some idea of how long I am to be here, and whether I have any prospects of this leading to anything.’ In a follow-up article published on 1 August 1902, The Times of India commented that, in the wake of Boxer’s death, it hoped ‘Government will now recognise more fully […] the peculiarly trying character of life at Bandar Abbas [and] do something to ameliorate the conditions under which the Vice Consul has to perform his duties’.

Extract from the Administration report for the district of Bandar Abbas (1908), written by Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear. From Administration Reports 1905-1910 (IOR/R/15/1/710)

In 1908 work was completed on a new complex of consular buildings at Bandar Abbas. Costing some 65,000 rupees, the two-storey building and adjoining compound comprised offices, accommodation, telegraph office and hospital, all enclosed within six-foot high defensive walls. ‘The new buildings have produced an excellent effect on the public mind’ announced the new consul, Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear, ‘the political predominance of the British flag at this port being well typified by their superiority and extent’.

Mark Hobbs
Content Specialist, Gulf History, British Library/ Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:

Political and Secret Letters and enclosures received from India, Vol 149 (1902) (IOR/L/PS/10/149)

Administration Reports 1905-1910 (IOR/R/15/1/710)

Précis of the Affairs of the Persian Coast and Islands, 1854-1905 By J A Saldanha(IOR/L/PS/20/C248)

Willem Floor. The Persian Gulf: Bandar Abbas: The Natural Trade Gateway of Southeast Iran (Washington DC: Mage, 2011)

Collectively, the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council now form one of the largest and most lucrative markets in the world for the global arms industry.

However, eighty years ago, in 1934, the situation was dramatically different.  For example, Kuwait did not possess a formal military force at all at that time and the oil deposits which have since given the country enormous wealth had not been discovered, let alone exploited. Politically meanwhile, the British Empire was still very much in the ascendancy in the Persian Gulf. The US, in common with all other foreign powers, was barred by Britain from establishing any formal diplomatic presence or representation in Kuwait. Nevertheless, files in the India Office Records held at the British Library, reveal that even then – in a pre-cursor to the US’ later hegemonic position –American arms companies had begun to target Kuwait as a potential market for the sale of their goods.

Kafka’s first letter - IOR/R/15/1/505, f 175.  The copyright status is unknown. Please contact [email protected] with any information you have regarding this item.

In January 1934, Otto Kafka, President of Otto Kafka Incorporated, New York wrote two letters addressed to the Minister of War in Kuwait. Since Kuwait did not actually have a Minister of War (or equivalent), the letters were instead delivered to its ruler, Shaikh Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah.

The first letter – written in “a spirit of cooperation” – extolls the virtues of ‘Disston Impenetra’ steel and underlines the role it can play in protecting “invaluable life in combat” not only with the “potential enemy across the border” but also the “just as dangerous and more sinister, domestic enemy who threatens established institutions, law and order”. The letter remarks that “[i]t takes twenty-one years and more to produce and develop an efficient combatant and only the fraction of a second to extinguish his life”.

In the second letter, Kafka describes in detail the specifications of the Disston Six Ton Tractor-Tank; “a combination of war and peace machine” that had reportedly “created a sensation in military and police circles”. Kafka stresses the tank’s small size and suitability for use in city streets and “difficult war terrain”.

Kafka’s second letter - IOR/R/15/1/505, f 176. The copyright status is unknown. Please contact [email protected] with any information you have regarding this item.

Accompanying Kafka’s letters was a glossy promotional pamphlet in which it is  proudly stated that the ‘tractor-tank’ possesses chemical warfare capabilities and could be be equipped ‘with a giant military candle filled with smoke, tear or vomiting gas’. Notwithstanding Kafka’s polished sales pitch it appears that his attempt to interest Kuwait in his company’s products failed and no purchases were made.

The “Disston Six Ton Tractor-Tank” – IOR/R/15/1/505, f 178. The copyright status is unknown. Please contact [email protected] with any information you have regarding this item.

When reporting the incident to his seniors, Harold Dickson, the British Political Agent in Kuwait, remarked sardonically that Otto Kafka’s attempt was “not a very edifying procedure when their Government (the U.S.A) is supposed to be taking the leading part in the world today to try and stop war etc”.

Dickson’s letter –  IOR/R/15/1/505, f 174

Louis Allday, Gulf History Specialist      
British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

@Louis_Allday