IOR/R/15/2/4

The volume contains correspondence relating to Shaikh Nāṣir bin Mubarak Āl Khalīfah's claim on Bahrain, and his subsequent attempts at reconciliation with the Bahrain ruler Shaikh ‘Īsá bin ‘Alī Āl Khalīfah. The principal correspondents in the file are Captain Francis Prideaux, Political Agent at Bahrain from 1904 to 1909, Major Percy Cox, Political Resident from 1904 to 1909, and Shaikh Nāṣir bin Mubarak Āl Khalīfah.

In letters sent to the Bahrain Political Agent in 1903 and 1904, Shaikh Nāṣir, who was the grandson of the deposed Shaikh ‘Abdullāh of Bahrain, asserted his right to land on the islands formerly owned by his grandfather; a right that he had maintained since the 1890s. In May 1905 he threatened to give up his land rights to the Turkish Government if the British Government continued to ignore his claims (folios 7-7a). A chance meeting between Prideaux and Shaikh Nāṣir, at Shaikh Jāsim bin Thānī’s camp at Bu Hasa in December 1905, prompted a change in tone, as a result of Prideaux recommending to Shaikh Nāṣir that the British would be more prepared to support a reconciliation between himself and Shaikh ‘Īsá (folios 15-16). Numerous letters sent by Shaikh Nāṣir to Shaikh ‘Īsá throughout 1906 were, however, ignored, leading to Shaikh Nāṣir sending numerous letters to Prideaux, asking for his help. However, the official British line, obtained by Cox from the Government of India in May 1906, was that there were insufficient grounds for British intervention in seeking a reconciliation between Shaikh Nāṣir and Shaikh ‘Īsá (folio 19). Subsequent British attempts to settle Shaikh Nāṣir at Fuwairat on the Qatar coast, with the support of his father-in-law Shaikh Jāsim bin Thānī, were likewise unsuccessful (folio 35). In a letter to Cox, dated 26 June 1908, Prideaux suggested that Shaikh Nāṣir should resign himself to never being reconciled to Shaikh ‘Īsá, and that he should live out the rest of his life quietly as a Turkish subject, without recourse to “rebellions or piratical activity”. (folios 51-53).