Qatar

Arabic textual sources

The Gulf was one of the most important trade routes to South Arabia, East Africa, India and China, alongside the Red Sea route, even before the arrival of Islam. During the 1st century of Islam, the flow of trade was dependent on rivalries to control the sea territories. When the coastal city of Basra (then called Bassorah) was founded in 638, followed by the city of Kufa, the northern end of the Gulf became not just an important staging centre but also a military base for conquering Persia. During this period, the two banks of the Gulf were under the control of the Umayyad Dynasty. Interest in the Gulf and its bordering countries grew when the capital was transferred from Damascus to Baghdad under the Abbasids (mid-8th century). Maps and technical maritime literature appear in the Islamic world from the 9th century, but we do not know who produced them and the works are now lost. The accounts of travellers (merchants, sailors and ship owners) such as An account of China and India, written in 851, and the Supplement to the account of China and India, written in the 10th century, only concern actual expeditions and do not describe navigation around Arabia. Literary sources such as the Thousand and One Nights and Sinbad’s voyages are known, but it is still essential to look to the Arab Geographers.

We know very little about the Qatar peninsula from the Arab Geographers. Sources mention a very wide region in the Gulf called Bahrain which covers a geographical area including what are today: Qatif, ‘Uqair (towns on the west coast of Saudi Arabia), the island of Bahrain itself and Qatar. It is therefore difficult to set apart information that only involves the existing Emirate of Qatar. The concept of administrative territory with geographical boundaries is one of “movement” because, at this time, it was closely linked to the established nomadic population and tribal territories which fluctuated depending on tribal routes and rivalries. When tribes from Arabia were converted to Islam (632 AD), the Prophet Mohamed received several delegations from Bahrain. This region is also mentioned in texts at this time because the Sassanid Christian community, along with its leader Al-Mundhir al-Sawa, converted to Islam. The Arab governor who represented Mohamed, Al-‘Ala’ b. al-Hadrami, was responsible for collecting taxes from a section of the community that had not converted to this new religion.

Umayyad poetry acknowledges Qatar, and Yaqut is cited in a verse by Djarir who comments on the tribal conflict at the very start of the Islamic period (mid-7th century - early 8th century).

At the start of the 8th century, two subdivisions of the ’Abd al-Qays tribe, the Djahima b. Awfs and the Muharibs, who held the port of Uqayr, occupied this region. They shared the province of Bahrain with a subdivision of the Tamin tribe, called the Sa’ads. It was a period of sedentarisation during which the townships of Qatif and al-Hasa were founded. After the Qarmatis revolution (899-1076), a new dynasty of ’Abd al-Qays, the ’Uyunids, reigned over this provincial territory until 1245. The Book of Roads and Kingdoms by Ibn Khurdadhbih is the first Arabic source in prose to mention Qatar, briefly indicating that it was one of the stopping places along the route between Bassorah and the province of Oman (mid-9th century). The port of the province of Bahrain was considered the principle port for Oman, India and China. When taxes were collected in this region, the areas around Bahrain, Rumaila and Al-Khatt were listed as districts, but no information is given about the geographical boundaries in this fiscal information. At the same time, al-Hamdani cited the peninsula in a list of Arabian localities and referred to it as a stopping place along the road running along the coast of the Arabic peninsula. Al-Hamdani was the only Arab Geographer to mention that there was “a sea called Qatar in the district of Bahrain”. Ibn Hawkal (end-10th century) briefly mentioned pirates in the province of Bahrain and his contemporary, al-Mas’udi, indicated that the waters surrounding the peninsula contained pearls.