Unknown Unknown | ||
In 1717 the Sultanate of Oman invaded Bahrain bringing an end to a 115-year rulership by the eroding Safavid dynasty. Following the Afghan invasion of Iran at the beginning of the eighteenth century which weakened the stronghold of the Safavids, the Omani forces were able to undermine Bahrain and culminated in victory for the Akhbari.
Bahraini theologian, Sheikh Yusuf Al Bahrani, provides his personal account of the invasion in his biographical dictionary of Shia scholars, Lu’lu’at al-Baḥrayn (The Pearl of Bahrain):
However, when the Omanis relinquished control it did not bring peace to Bahrain; the political weakness of Persia meant that the islands were soon invaded by Huwala, who Al Bahrani says 'ruined' Bahrain. Almost constant warfare between various Sunni naval powers, the Kharajite Omanis and then the Persians under Nadir Shah and Karim Khan Zand laid waste to much of Bahrain, while the high taxes imposed by the Omanis drove out both the ulema-pearl merchants and the pearl divers – German Arabist Carsten Niebuhr found in 1763 that Bahrain's 360 towns and villages had through warfare and economic distress been reduced to only 60.
Later from 1783 Bahrain would be ruled by a succession of sheikhs from the House of Al-Khalifa which rule to this day.