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Introduction Introduction In the vast expanse of land dominated by Muslim countries, it is customary to areas. Further, it is not permanent, because the world is continually changing distinguish between the Arab world, which stretches from the Persian Gulf to and the geographer must be cognizant of these changes. the Atlantic Ocean and encompasses countries bordering the Red Sea and the With regard to today’s importance of the Middle East in the field of energy, Mediterranean, and the Turco-Iranian world, which extends from the Darda- the traditional division of the Arab world is no longer pertinent. It means nelle Straits to the Indus River and the western borders of China. Those who dissociating Iraq, one of the major countries of the Fertile Crescent (a term support this view claim that despite the differences in geographical, linguis- first used at the end of the nineteenth century to describe an area known for tic, and political conditions, the Turco-Iranian world has a unity which stems archaeological riches and achievements in the history of irrigation) from its from the interpenetration of the Iranian and Turkish civilizations in the course other oil-rich neighbors, particularly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia situated in the of history. As for the Arab world, it is characterized by the principle of unity Arabian Peninsula, which serves as a bridge between Africa and Asia. Its physi- in diversity. The perennial or seasonal shortage of water, the use of the Ara- cal demarcation is not difficult, but it presents an internal diversity not to be bic language, and the presence of oil deposits constitute distinctive common underestimated. In addition, however true it may be, the cleavage between the denominators, and, paradoxically also the reason for internal differences. The Arab and Persian worlds must be discussed. Iran is an oil-producing country feeling of unity, strengthened by memories of a glorious shared past, combined like its neighbors on the opposite shore of the Gulf. We have therefore decided with a common religion and later exalted by the ideology of pan-Arabism, to include in the same group Iran and the Arab countries bordering the Arabo- is founded on a common written language. At the same time, the diversity Persian Gulf, i.e., Iraq and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, with the asserted by groups and individuals, who believe that belonging to a particular exception of Yemen. Including the Sultanate of Oman among the Gulf states nation, region or locality takes precedence over a transnational Arab identity, may give rise to debate since it is situated mainly on the Gulf of Oman and the is also visible in the landscape, social conditions, dress, food habits, dialect, Arabian Sea, with some twenty-odd kilometres bordering the Persian Gulf. But etc. The sense of belonging to the umma, or community of believers, competes the country’s centrepiece, situated in its north, resembles the northern part of with the feeling, among Christian minorities, of belonging to the Arab world. the United Arab Emirates. Colonization, followed by independence, led to the emergence of a national The decision to prepare this Atlas of the Gulf States was not based on the sole patriotism so strong that in some countries there are now demands that dia- consideration that these countries are among the world’s major oil exporters. lectal Arabic, which only used to be spoken but is now in the process of also It is also based on an understanding of civilization that does not always stress being written, be recognized as national languages. Ultimately, belonging to a divisive factors at the cost of those that unite. When geography is considered particular tribe or community remains an important reality. from the Orientalist viewpoint, which has few followers today, the Persian Gulf Considering the dialectics between unity in diversity inherent to the geo- appears as a dividing line between two distinct cultural areas, the Semitic and graphical approach, Arab geographers contrast Maghreb (the West) to Mashriq the Indo-European. This interpretation is based on archaeological arguments (the East), while Western geographers divide the Arab world into sub-regions that have been discredited by the excavations conducted over the past thirty with a variable geometry. Beyond multiple variants from one author to the years and ethno-linguistic considerations that need to be moderated in view other, there is a tendency to distinguish between the Maghreb, the countries of the findings of recent studies of dialects spoken in the Gulf region. Further, of Nile Valley, the Horn of Africa, the countries of the Fertile Crescent, and the existence of a khaleeji identity (is it not revealing that we have to resort to the Arabian Peninsula. Like any division, it is not a simple recording of facts a neologism derived from the word khaleej, which means gulf in both Arabic but the result of an intellectual construction; therefore, it cannot be confined and Persian?) is now emphasized. There is no doubt whatsoever that eastern within normative limits because there are peripheral areas and transitional Arabia is very different from central Arabia and that the part of Iran situated 1 N between the Zagros Mountains and the sea has its own peculiar characteristics Black Sea and that these two peripheral areas maintain links that are as complex as they are ancient. In many ways, this narrow stretch of shallow water can be regarded Caspian as a “Mediterranean Sea,” not from a bio-climatic point of view, but in the sense Sea of the French historian Fernand Braudel, i.e., as a space that fosters human movement and exchanges. Consequently, semantic arguments on the choice Mediterranean Sea Iraq of name that excite specialists may be less difficult to resolve. Iran While it is not our task to find a solution to this debate which exploits ono- mastics, we cannot afford to ignore it altogether. There is nothing unusual Kuwait about it, because every riparian State sees things from its own viewpoint. Thus Bahrain Qatar the sea between France and England known as La Manche in France becomes Saudi Arabia the English Channel in England and what the French call Détroit du Pas-de- UAE Calais is called the Strait of Dover by their British neighbors. There is therefore Oman Red nothing unusual in that the Persian Khalij-i Fars should become al-Khalij al- Sea Arabi for the Arabs. But in a confrontational environment, linguistic ethno- centrism becomes an unending source of protest and the struggle to impose Indian Ocean the Persian or the Arabic name on the international community has become extremely virulent. On the grounds of the name’s antecedence and antiquity, 0 500 km some writers outside the region advocate the continued use of the name Per- sian Gulf. They add that medieval Arab geographers spoke of the Persian Sea and used the name Arabian Sea to denote the Red Sea. The same argument has been put forward by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographi- Central Iraq and the Kurdish provinces in the north have also been left out cal Names, which recommends the use of the term Persian Gulf in its Report for the purposes of this book. Only the coastal provinces of Iran bordering No. 61 (Spring 2006). This recommendation, made in a working paper to add the Gulf and the northern part of Oman have been studied, since southern legal weight to the historical argument, does not have the value of a resolution, Oman is considered to be a part of southern Arabia. So, in discussing the Gulf though the United Nations uses the term Persian Gulf in its maps. If history states, we refer to countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab can be mobilized by listing ancient, medieval, and modern geographers and Emirates, as well as parts of some countries like the Governorate of Basra in cartographers who have used the term Persian Gulf, it is also possible to invoke Iraq, the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, North Oman, and the Iranian coast contemporary geographical reasons to take into account the viewpoint of the bordering the Arabo-Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. seven other riparian states. The Gulf cannot be considered Persian forever. At Despite their small area, covering less than one million square kilometres as the same time, it cannot be treated as exclusively Arabian. Calling it the Arabo- compared to the earth’s total land surface of more than 149 billion square kilo- Persian Gulf seems to be a reasonable compromise, but we have opted to use metres and their low population of barely 25 million as compared to the total the simple term “Gulf ” in this atlas. We will follow the local usage where khaleej world population of more than 7 billion, the coastal regions of the Gulf occupy is used without an adjective to designate the Gulf considered in this book. an important place in the international economic and political arena. These The expression “Gulf states,” which figures in the title, is used in the text regions are frequently in the limelight and there are numerous references to to describe not only the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Kuwait, them in the media. Economic columnists and commentators regularly consider Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman), but all the key role played by the Gulf ’s financial institutions, particularly their richly the riparian states, including Iraq and Iran. However, it does not necessarily endowed sovereign and investment funds. Conversely, It was believed that cover the entire territory of the States bordering the Gulf. Hence, we have not Dubai, which receives the most attention from the international media and is taken into account the central desert of Saudi Arabia and its Red Sea coast.
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