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Chapter 4. New Trade Centres after 1000

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The Medieval Persian Gulf
This chapter is in the book The Medieval Persian Gulf
Chapter 4New Trade Centres after 1000Today the preeminent Gulf emporium is Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. A hub for air transit, corporate operations, and retail tourism, it has an impressive number of five-star hotels as well as the world’s tallest building. Elsewhere in the region, Doha, Qatar’s capital, hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup as part of its bid for prominence, while Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi, and Manama are among the other cities with multicultural populations and a good deal of interna-tional commerce passing through. However, none of them existed before the 1700s, and even then most existed only as small fishing villages or centres of significance mainly for their own local areas.Their rise fits a pattern of Gulf trade centres appearing and thriving, only to later be eclipsed by newcomers. Often, the fate of Gulf ports was determined by political fortunes and competition. Today’s most important entrepots owe their significance mainly to the backing of an oil economy, but also to an independence enabled by their rulers’ alliance with the British during a period in which neighbours sought to absorb them. The tenth century and later saw a fracturing of political authority which led to economic and even military competi-tion over trade routes and revenues. This competition weighs against assertions that conflicts over trade in the Indian Ocean basin only became violent with the coming of the Por-tuguese and other Western Europeans. While it is true that, because of the scale of the Indian Ocean, no power sought to
© 2023 Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

Chapter 4New Trade Centres after 1000Today the preeminent Gulf emporium is Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. A hub for air transit, corporate operations, and retail tourism, it has an impressive number of five-star hotels as well as the world’s tallest building. Elsewhere in the region, Doha, Qatar’s capital, hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup as part of its bid for prominence, while Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi, and Manama are among the other cities with multicultural populations and a good deal of interna-tional commerce passing through. However, none of them existed before the 1700s, and even then most existed only as small fishing villages or centres of significance mainly for their own local areas.Their rise fits a pattern of Gulf trade centres appearing and thriving, only to later be eclipsed by newcomers. Often, the fate of Gulf ports was determined by political fortunes and competition. Today’s most important entrepots owe their significance mainly to the backing of an oil economy, but also to an independence enabled by their rulers’ alliance with the British during a period in which neighbours sought to absorb them. The tenth century and later saw a fracturing of political authority which led to economic and even military competi-tion over trade routes and revenues. This competition weighs against assertions that conflicts over trade in the Indian Ocean basin only became violent with the coming of the Por-tuguese and other Western Europeans. While it is true that, because of the scale of the Indian Ocean, no power sought to
© 2023 Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam
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