History of Bahrain - Safavid Hegemony and The Beglarbegi of Kuhgilu

Safavid Hegemony and The Beglarbegi of Kuhgilu

Under Persian Safavid rule (1602–1717), Bahrain fell under the administrative jurisdiction of the Beglarbegi of Kuhgilu centered at Behbahan in southern Iran. In fact, the Safavids ruled Bahrain from a distance, seeking to control the islands not by force, but through ideology and the manipulation of local rivalries. Safavid rule was a period of intellectual flowering among the Shia theological elite, with Bahrain's seminaries producing such theorists as Sheikh Yusuf Al Bahrani. The Safavid's used the clergy to buttress their rule, hoping that by firmly implanting Imami Shiaism they could secure the islands of Bahrain, with their centrality to trade routes and pearl wealth.

However, the Safavids' strategy was in many ways too successful: the power and influence of the religious class meant that they had a great deal of autonomy, and it was the subsequent tension between Safavid state and the clergy that drove Bahrain's theological vitality. Part of this flourishing was borne of the Bahraini clerics' adherence to conservative Akhbari Shiaism, while the Safavids encouraged the more state-centric, Usulism. Attempts by the Persians to reign in the Bahraini ulema were often counterproductive, and ended up strengthening the clerics against their local land-owning Bahraini rivals who challenged the clerics' control over the lucrative pearl trade. Cleric-landowner conflict was usually contained within very limited parameters given that the senior ulema were usually the sons of the land-owning class.