Politically, economically, culturally and militarily, the Gulf has never been so much at the centre of the Middle East. Seven years after the beginning of the Arab revolutions, the region is currently embroiled in a new series of crises, from the human tragedy that is the war in Yemen, to the ongoing isolation of Qatar by the quartet of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt. Indeed, Gulf debates, dynamics and bones of contention, within and between its nine states (the six monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Yemen, Iran and Iraq) have been exacerbating and...

Can the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states play a leadership role across the Middle East without major political change? Can Saudi Arabia and a selected number of GCC states become regional arbiters of Arab affairs without serious political transformations of their own? This chapter engages with debates about the recent rise of GCC countries, with the notable exception of Bahrain, as seemingly secure cultural and political islands of tranquillity in the middle of a turbulent Arab sea. I highlight the controversy surrounding the gradual but assertive Gulf interventions in the Middle East in the context of both historical and contemporary...

Scholars contend that heritage industries are a specifically nationalist undertaking or one aimed at an international audience. Using publicly available statements, newspaper reports, and other historical sources, this chapter revises both of these intellectual currents and suggests that while the museums in Qatar and the UAE are aimed at national and international audiences, the decision to fund and display heritage institutions has yet a third audience. These museums work to reinforce the legitimacy of the Gulf States’ own histories vis-à-vis the hegemonic historical narrative that values Iraqi, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, or Levantine history over that of the Gulf.

For the...

The Sultanate of Oman shares land borders with Saudi Arabia and Yemen and is lapped by the waves of both the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Many Omanis today take pride in the nation’s historic trade links with Iran, Africa, South Asia, and even East Asia, highlighting a cosmopolitan past as a nation of sailors, merchants, and explorers. These transnational connections are also manifest in the nation’s ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. My research investigates how marriage networks, spanning both tribal and national borders, shape conceptions of citizenship, national identity, as well as hierarchies of belonging in modern Oman....

The increasing influences of Gulf countries in the wider Middle East – transmitted through foreign aid, military intervention, mass employment of Arabs in the Gulf, manipulation of sectarian identities, and political support to advance hegemonic struggles in the geopolitical sphere – may suggest a possible ‘Gulfization’ of the region. Less visible, however, are underlying struggles within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, especially smaller ones, to protect their local ‘Gulf’ entities from the influences of high expatriate representation in their population and labour force. The economic interdependence resulting from this type of foreign involvement significantly impacts the economic, political, social, intellectual, and...

This chapter contends that there is an overemphasis in the academic literature on the effect the Iranian Revolution had on shifting the dynamics of contentious politics in Bahrain. This has created a discourse in which belligerents are framed according to the contemporary transatlantic antipathy towards Iran, reifying a narrative that can contribute to the perpetuation of anti-Shi‘a and anti-Baharna¹ prejudice. Using a closer reading of historical and modern sources, this paper argues that it was not solely the Islamic Revolution, nor the discovery of the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, that shifted government policy towards Bahrain’s Shi‘a. Instead,...

On the night of 26 September 1962, a column of T-34 tanks trundled through the streets of Sanaa and surrounded the palace of the new Imam of Yemen, Muhammad al-Badr, who had succeeded his father Imam Ahmad (r. 1948-62) only one week earlier. Opening fire shortly before midnight, the Yemeni Free Officers announced the ‘26 September Revolution’ on Radio Sanaa and declared the formation of a new state: the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). The revolution drew on support from a domestic coalition of military officers, Aden-based traders and trade-unionists, reformist Imamate officials, and tribal leaders the Imam had antagonised it...

Kuwait’s position to the north of the Arabian Gulf has made its connection to Iraq an inevitability, as historically Kuwait was the only seaport for both Ottoman and Hashemite Iraq. Yet, geography was not the sole determinant of this connection. Socio-political, economic, and cultural ties have also played an important role in Kuwait’s relationship with Ottoman and Hashemite Iraq. These ties have fluctuated with changes in political conditions, such as the fall of the Ottomans and the rise of Hashemite rule, as well as economic factors, including the discovery of oil in Kuwait and the devaluation of pearls. Despite this,...