Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Bahrain

Discussions of the Arab world, particularly the Gulf States, increasingly focus on sectarianism and autocratic rule. These features are often attributed to the dominance of monarchs, Islamists, oil, and ‘ancient hatreds’. To understand their rise, however, one has to turn to a largely forgotten but decisive episode with far-reaching repercussions – Bahrain under British colonial rule in the early twentieth century.

Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined Arabic literature as well as Br...