Articles From Our Experts

When Pelly undertook making a trip to Riyadh in 1864–65, he wished to gain intelligence on the Nejd, but also to prove that an Englishman could travel through the territory unmolested.

In a corner of Baghdad’s British cemetery lies Gertrude Bell – archaeologist, explorer, political officer, and more. Who was she and how did she come to wield so much power?

Thanks to the recording sessions at the first Arabic Music Congress in 1932 in Cairo, we can still listen to a selection of early Arabic music recordings. Additionally, several documents and reports are available, allowing us to learn about the formation of ‘Arabic music’ and musicological discussions in the first part of the twentieth century.

Following the formation of Saudi Arabia in 1932, Britain continued to maintain close relations with the new state’s founder and ruler, King Ibn Sa‘ūd, although it would eventually be supplanted by the United States in its role as Saudi Arabia’s key western sponsor and protector.

The reign of Said bin Taimur was marked by financial troubles from the outset, but despite his more active role in the 1930s, a rebellion in the province of Dhofar ultimately cost him the Sultanate.

In a pre-internet age of slow-travelling news, just how could a message be sent from London to Basra in 22 days?

Faced with the rise of a new power on land and an increase in attacks at sea, the British response at the start of the nineteenth century would lead to a new era of political and military intervention.

An overview of the key moments from the history of interaction between the British and Saudi Arabia, as illustrated through the India Office Records.

An overview of India Office Military Department records relating to Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and the Arabian Peninsula.

From its foundation at the end of the eighteenth century, the British Residency in Baghdad occupied a strategically important position, linking together various strands of British imperial engagement in the region.

The British Empire used new technologies to counter the problem of cross-border raiding in the newly formed Kingdom of Iraq.

In recognising the importance of the trade, British colonial records cast light on the state of the ancient trade in Frankincense in the Dhofar region at the end of the 19th century, as well as some conflicts that emerged as a result.

Only by mapping and surveying Aden fully were the British able to plan for its reconstruction and fortification, thereby facilitating trade and other shipping to and from India and beyond.

Simone Corbiau (1900-74) was a Belgian archaeologist who reinvented herself as a portrait painter and may also have been involved in espionage in the Middle East.

Known variously as the Iraqi Revolt, the 1920 Rebellion, or the Great Iraqi Revolution, this uprising swept across Mesopotamia, threatening Britain’s wartime gains and challenging its imperialist authority.

Archival records on the Qatar Digital Library can help to challenge traditional assumptions and paint a fuller picture regarding the role of women in nineteenth-century Oman.

Bertram Thomas completed his historic crossing of the Empty Quarter in 1931, then the largest territory in the world outside Antarctica still unexplored by Europeans. But why is he still a minor figure in the history of exploration and Empire?

A little known first-hand account, that the British Agents in Bahrain garnered by chance, sheds light on William Henry Irvine Shakespear’s death.

The British military constructed miles of railway in Mesopotamia during their war against the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. In doing so, they also laid the foundations for a post-war colonial regime.

Pesta and Rifi Songs, which developed in the twentieth century from Iraqi maqam, became more popular because they were recorded on shellac and broadcast throughout Iraq in the mid-century.

Prior to the construction of the Suez Canal, nineteenth-century British officials explored an alternative route between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

The uneasy union between British and Kurdish allies during the First World War gave way to hostilities in the war’s aftermath, as Britain failed to deliver on Kurdish hopes for independence.

How the anti-British sentiments of a British adviser assisted the foundation of Saudi Arabia.

The subject of railways appears time and again in the India Office Records. What was Britain’s obsession with them and how did they transform how Britain thought about, protected, and ran its empire?

Against a backdrop of bold manoeuvres by different states in the nineteenth century, the British Agent at the Court of the Imam of Muscat wrote numerous letters focused on small matters of prestige.

How do you reduce communication times between the Gulf and India, from months, to a matter of weeks?

The environment has greatly influenced life in the Gulf and Indian Ocean over the centuries. Before the era of steamships, a hugely significant factor affecting life and trade in this region were the winds of the Indian Ocean monsoon.

There is still so much we do not know about the history of independent Arab recording companies in the ‘shellac era’ (1897-1960s). A handful of record sleeves, that would have once been thrown away, tell us about how some of them were connected.

The struggle for power in Muscat 1866–68 following the death, in suspicious circumstances, of Sayyid Thuwaynī bin Sa‘īd Āl Bū Sa‘īd, Sultan of Muscat.