Session Abstract

The historiography of the Arabian Peninsula in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries encompasses a range of disparate thematic and geographical concerns, from the history of the Ottoman-ruled Hijaz, to the rising influence of the Al Saud in central Arabia, to the British-dominated Indian Ocean region. By drawing together diverse accounts of social, economic, and political life on or around Arabia’s coasts, this session considers the viability of plotting a unified narrative of Arabian history. What common historical dynamics are observable in the pre-oil histories of places like Muscat, Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina? What was the nature of interaction between these polyglot and genealogically heterogeneous urban centers and the Arab tribal hinterlands? Is the very notion of a unified Arabian history viable, or are the divergences of texture and substance in Arabia’s distinctive cultural zones too substantial to permit such a view?

By examining evidence from Saudi management of pilgrimage rites in Mecca and Medina, and from the commercial and political interactions of South Asian traders in Muscat with the Omani interior, this panel seeks to contribute new perspectives on global history, modern capitalism, and the history of the Middle East. Its aim is to shed light on the modern history of an understudied but important region, the Arabian Peninsula. It will be of interest to economic and business historians, those studying transnational networks, and certainly historians of the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean.