The Persian Claim to Bahrain

Abstract

D URING the past year reports from Tehran have indicated that the Persian Government is contemplating raising once again the question of Persia's claim to ownership of the Bahrain Islands. These reports have followed closely upon the publication by a Persian scholar, Dr Fereydoun Adamiyat, of a book entitled Bahrein Islands, A Legal and DiplomaticStudyof the Brilish-IranianControversy (New York, I955), which is a detailed exposition of the legal and historical grounds upon which the Persian claim to sovereignty over Bahrain is based. Twice before in this century, in I906 and in I927, this claim has been put forward in earnest by Persia, and in both cases it has been made in the form of a protest against some action of the British Government which has allegedly violated Persia's sovereign rights in Bahrain: in I906 it was the protection of Bahrain subjects in Persia by the British Government; in I927 it was the designation of Bahrain in the treaty signed at Jidda in May of that year between the British Government and King Abdul Aziz as a State'in special treaty relations with His Britannic Majesty's Government'. The result of such protests and of others before them in the nineteenth century-has been to make the Persian claim a matter for dispute between Persia and Britain (for that reason notice of the I927 protest was given to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations), for Bahrain's independence has in the past been the subject of engagements between the British Government and the island's rulers. The substance of the Persian case, as set forth in the documents presented to the League in I927 and I928, and recently in an expanded form by Dr Adamiyat, is that Persia has never recognized the independent status of Bahrain, that the bulk of historical evidence points to the continued sovereignty of Persia over the island and to the acknowledgement of that sovereignty by successive rulers of Bahrain, and that the British Government has on former occasions admitted the validity of the Persian claim. On Persia's own admission the claim must stand or fall on its historical merits.