Nasr Al-Madhkur

rdf:langString Nasr Al-Madhkur

rdf:langString Sheikh Nasr Al-Madhkur (Arabic: الشيخ نصر آل مذكور) was the 18th-century Arab governor from a Huwala clan under Karim Khan Zand of the Zand dynasty of what was described by a contemporary account as an "independent state" in Bushehr and Bahrain. The account by German geographer Carsten Niebuhr who visited the region at the time describes Sheikh Nasr as "the sole Monarch of the Isle of Bahrain”. He lost Bahrain in 1783 after his defeat by the Bani Utbah tribal alliance at Zubarah in 1782. The Al-Madhkur family was regarded as an Omani Arab clan and led the Bushehr province on the Persian Gulf littoral. According to Carsten Niebuhr, the 18th-century German geographer, the Abu Shahr Arabs under the Al Madhkurs were one of three major Arab forces ruling parts of southern Persia in the 1760s. Although the Abu Shahr Arabs lived on the Persian Gulf littoral they should not be confused with Huwalas, and did not share their sense of identity, at least according to Niebuhr. Niebuhr visited Bushire in 1765, and when he wrote of independent Arab states, he included Bushire. However, it seems likely that under the system of suzerainty, the Al-Madhkurs held at least nominal allegiance to governors in southern Persia.