Half iranian Half English who try to be an arab
On the other hands all Kuwaitis are either iraqi or saudi and iranian descents there are no real Kuwaitis they are mixture of basrawi iraqis and saudi tribes with iranian immgrants
As you can see the farmers and fishers who lived in the cities are iraqis and Iranians while the bedeuans like al sabah they are originally from Najd they are from bani wael like al saud
According to the Kuwaiti clown al dewela al sabah lived on the iranian coast for period if time before returning to the Arabian coast I think they and al Thani any the UAE rulers lived on the iranian coast that's explain why their relations with iran is strong
Half Baloch and half English to be precise, lol.
Actually Kuwait has a rich and quite complex history although it should have been divided between KSA and Iraq.
The original people of modern-day Kuwait were Neolithic populations with ties to Mesopotamia and Eastern Arabia. Basically the predecessors of the Semites in that region of the Arab world. Sumerians also lived there as they did in Northeastern KSA. Many theories talk about Sumerians migrating from neighboring Eastern Arabia (Arabian bifacial culture) to Southern Iraq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer
Before that Kuwait was home to people from the ancient Dilmun civilization (4000-600 BC). Later Babylonians. Afterwards Alexander the Great. Afterwards Arab kingdoms and Sassanids.
If we can talk about native people, it is probably the Bani Khalid. Afterwards the Bani Utbah came to dominate.
In between the Portuguese came and Ottomans.
Very interesting history in fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kuwait
"Iraqis" here means merely Arab tribes from neighboring Southern Iraq. As for "Saudi Arabian", mainly Najdi tribes.
Both those dominated all the settlements, were nomadic pastoralists (Bedouins) and also engaged in fishing industry and trade. They were also rulers (naturally).
Later the Ajam came (Iranian Arabs, Baloch, Persians, Lurs) and joined the existing small Afro-Arab community which was much larger in Basra and nearby area. Many of them were merchants engaged in trade (sea trade mostly).
Actually many branches of Arab clans and tribes, some of them migrated to Southern Iran but none of the direct ancestors of the ruling families but other branches. So migrations occurred both ways. Many returned (people from Iran too) while many stayed as well.
In Kuwait for the settled people, non-tribal, it is not too rare for there to have been intermarriages between local Arabs and Ajam. Besides most of the Ajam are Arabized ages ago and have intermarried with locals.
I like to poke Kuwaitis and Kuwait but the truth is that their history is interesting.
Oh, I forgot about the discriminated Bidun which have a quite complex story. Most people say that they are Iraqi and Saudi Arabian (mainly) refugees who entered Kuwait during their oil boom and economic boom and never became naturalized. Other say that some of them are Kawlis (LOL) or people who did never register themselves after Kuwaits independence from the UK and afterwards the government did not recognize them as citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidoon_(social_class)
BTW Eastern Arabia (this includes Southern parts of Southern Iraq) is a very interesting and rich region that has spanned from Sumer until to this very day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabia
@SALMAN F
Very long lecture
Also I forgot the Greek presence on Failaka Island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failaka_Island
There were Greek temples on the island and an old Christian community before Islam. Local Arabs influenced heavily by Greek culture ruled there.
Byzantine and Nestorian churches were also discovered. I love Byzantine art myself and like the Christian (Orthodox) icons.
This is the Patron Saint of Tiflis (Tbilisi - capital of Georgia) Abo of Tiflis who was an ethnic Christian Arab.
From Baghdad (Muslim originally) but converted to Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abo_of_Tiflis
Failaka Island is very interesting.
Sadly destroyed (much of it) during the senseless First Gulf War.
Nice beach.
Look at those ancient coins found on Failaka Island dating back to Sumerian and Dilmun times.
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/80-1303/features/kuwait
@SALMAN F
Archaeology Island
Economic Might
By ANDREW LAWLER
Monday, February 11, 2013
Team: Moesgård Museum, Denmark
Era: 1800 B.C.
Culture: Dilmunite
(Courtesy Flemming Højlund, Kuwaiti-Danish Mission)
In the mythology of ancient Sumeria (modern Iraq), Dilmun is described as an Eden-like place of milk and honey. But by 2000 B.C., Dilmunites were leaving their homeland to become seagoing merchants and establish a powerful trading network that eventually stretched from India to Syria. Mesopotamian clay tablets refer to ships from Dilmun bringing wood, copper, and other goods from distant lands. By the nineteenth century B.C., Failaka had become a linchpin in the Dilmunites’ operations. At this point, after the Dilmunites had either ousted the Mesopotamians or merely succeeded them, there are no further signs of a Mesopotamian presence. The Dilmunites constructed a large temple and palace complex almost on top of the houses built by the earlier Mesopotamian residents. A French team that excavated the temple in the 1980s suggested that it was an oddity, possibly related to Syrian temple towers. But recent work by a team from the Moesgård Museum in Denmark points to a building remarkably similar to the Barbar sanctuary in Bahrain, considered the grandest Dilmun structure.
The Failaka temple sat on a large platform nearly 90 feet wide and 120 feet long and the temple itself once measured 60 feet square, only slightly smaller than the Barbar temple. The most impressive remains of the Failaka structure are the shattered, mammoth limestone columns that once supported the temple. Such stone is not found on the island. Dilmunites quarried the massive blocks on the mainland, then ferried them to the island, an impressive feat requiring not only extensive planning and coordination efforts, but also large, seaworthy craft. The columns were also highly valued in later eras, and much of their stone was plundered and taken back to the mainland in antiquity. The Moesgård team is now focusing on the so-called palace, originally excavated in the 1960s, that lies about 30 feet from the temple. Work is still under way, but there are signs that it may have served not as a royal residence but rather as an important series of large storerooms to house the goods that made the Dilmunites a formidable economic power.
Hidden Christian Community
By ANDREW LAWLER
Monday, February 11, 2013
Team: Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Poland
Era: 8th and 9th Centuries A.D.
Culture: Christian
(Courtesy Madalena Zurek)
The center of Failaka is a low-lying swampy area that is now the province of mosquitoes and wandering white camels that belong to the Kuwaiti emir. But a millennium ago, this was a three-square-mile pocket of fertile and well-watered plain cultivated by a small community of isolated Christians in a region populated by Muslims. Previous French excavations revealed several villages and two churches, including a possible monastic chapel. A Polish team led by Warsaw-based archaeologist Magdalena Zurek is now busy excavating nearby sites to understand the extent of the settlements that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., several hundred years after the faith inspired by Muhammad swept through the region. “We know nothing about Christians on Failaka,” says Zurek, who suspects that a third church lies near her current excavation of a modest farmstead.
(Courtesy Magdalena Zurek)
Although an old island tradition is that a community grew up around a Christian mystic and hermit, Zurek believes that Christians may have settled in the island’s interior in order to keep a low profile long after others in the region had converted to Islam. The small farms and villages, which were eventually abandoned, may mark the last refuge of Christianity in the region. Yet the larger of the two churches appears to have boasted a lofty bell tower that would have been visible far out to sea, hardly the sign of a community fearful of announcing its faith. There are few written documents of Christian life around the Persian Gulf in late antiquity and the early medieval period, and Zurek hopes that the work at Failaka, together with other excavations of ancient Christian settlements along the Gulf coast, may reveal their hidden history.
Pirate Hideout
By ANDREW LAWLER
Monday, February 11, 2013
Team: University of Perugia
Era: 17th to 19th Centuries A.D.
Culture: Arab/Islamic
(Courtesy Kuwaiti-Italian Mission)
The story of Failaka after the abandonment of the Christian villages remains shadowy. Currently archaeologists are turning their attention to several sites that sit along the northern shore of the island to probe the medieval and early modern periods. The most interesting is located on a high spot overlooking the gulf, facing Iraq. Nearly 30 years ago, a team from the University of Venice surveyed the site, pinpointing a village, called Al-Quraniya, that dates to at least as early as the seventeenth century A.D., and possibly several centuries earlier. In 2010, an Italian team led by Gian Luca Grassigli of the University of Perugia began intensive fieldwork there. The excavators have since uncovered an array of pottery, porcelain, glass bangles, and bronze objects, including nails and coins, dating to between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries A.D. The mound seems to have two large concentrations of building materials, and the archaeologists hope to make a detailed plan of the settlement in future campaigns. Deeper trenches may reveal evidence of earlier settlement, filling in the long gap between the abandonment of Christian villages and more recent times.
(Courtesy Kuwaiti-Italian Mission)
What is clear is that Failaka was still a notable outpost two millennia after Alexander. Just to the southeast of the village is a small square rock fort dating to about the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Some researchers believe that this structure was constructed by Portuguese soldier-merchants who did frequent business in the region. others suspect that Arab pirates built the base to attack the lucrative shipping lanes that led to wealthy Iraqi cities such as Basra or to ports along the Iranian coast to the east. In this era, European, Arab, Iranian, and Chinese elites had a growing appetite for the gulf pearls that dominated the region’s economy. Pirates were a constant threat until the nineteenth century; British guns and diplomacy put an end to their raids.
Ikaros of the Gulf
By ANDREW LAWLER
Monday, February 11, 2013
Team: French Institute of the Near East, Syria
Era: 3rd Century B.C.
Culture: Seleucid
(Courtesy Mathilde Gelin)
Failaka’s name is derived from the Greek word for outpost. But Alexander the Great, according to later classical authors such as Strabo and Arrian, gave Failaka the name Ikaros, since it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. French archaeologists working on the island in recent years have found several stone inscriptions dating to the fourth and third centuries b.c. mentioning the name Ikaros, as well as architecture and artifacts that reveal a bustling community with international ties during that period. The island’s accessible fresh water, easily defended coastline, and strategic location also attracted the attention of Alexander’s successors, who vied among themselves for control of regional trade routes. Antiochus I, who ruled the Seleucid Empire in the third century B.C., built a 60-foot-square fort around a well on Failaka. Inside the fortress compound, one small, elegant temple has Ionic columns and a plan that is quintessentially Greek, including an east-facing altar. This was no simple import, however, but a fascinating amalgamation of designs. The column bases, for example, are of the Persian Achaemenid style, similar to those in the capital, Persepolis, burned by Alexander’s troops in the fourth century B.C.
According to Mathilde Gelin from the French Institute of the Near East in Damascus, who is currently working at the site, this unusual pairing reflects a rare fusion of Greek and Eastern cultures—much like Antiochus himself, who was the son of a Macedonian general and a Bactrian princess, likely from today’s Afghanistan. The sturdy fort eventually grew into a bustling port town, with other temples, houses, and larger fortifications, until its eventual abandonment by the first century b.c. Gelin hopes the current excavations will reveal what role the fort and settlement played in both island life and that of the wider region during a time of remarkable cultural mixing.
The Battle of Failaka
By ANDREW LAWLER
Monday, February 11, 2013
Team: Awaiting Future Study
Era: 20th and 21st Centuries
Culture: Modern
(Courtesy Mahan Kalpa Khalsa)
By the twentieth century, the advent of air travel and the discovery of oil on the Kuwaiti mainland put Failaka on the margins of the Persian Gulf’s rush toward modernization. For most of the last 100 years, the island was home to a handful of fishermen and villagers, and the only new inhabitants were those Kuwaitis who built beach homes to escape the mainland’s blistering summer heat. In 1990, there were a modest 2,000 full-time residents. But on August 2 of that year, Failaka’s location once again came into play when Iraqi forces attacked the island as part of their invasion of Kuwait. The island’s defenses consisted only of a small contingent of troops, which the Iraqis quickly overwhelmed, and the population was expelled. American forces retook the island in 1991, in turn expelling the 1,400 Iraqi soldiers who had made it their base. After the Iraqis were driven back across the border into Iraq, the Kuwaiti military used what remained of Failaka’s modern town for target practice.
(Courtesy Mahan Kalpa Khalsa)
Today, the houses are riddled with shell holes. And just outside the settlement, protected by a high fence, is the latest evidence that the advantages of Failaka’s strategic position didn’t end in ancient times. Rusted and battered tanks, armored vehicles, and other army equipment damaged and destroyed during the First Gulf War litter the ground. As clearly as the Mesopotamian seals and Greek temples, these burnt and twisted metal shells speak to the island’s continuing role in Middle Eastern history.
Traders from Ur?
By ANDREW LAWLER
Monday, February 11, 2013
Team: Moesgård Museum, Denmark
Era: Ca. 2000 B.C.
Culture: Mesopotamian
(Courtesy Hilary McDonald & Flemming Højlund, Kuwaiti-Danish Mission)
The oldest settlement on Failaka was long thought to have been founded in about 1800 B.C. by the Dilmunites, a maritime people who hailed from what are today’s Bahraini and Saudi Arabian coasts, and who controlled Persian Gulf trade. But on Failaka’s southwest corner, a team from Denmark’s Moesgård Museum has uncovered evidence that Mesopotamians arrived at least a century before the Dilmunites. The finds are centered on a recently unearthed Mesopotamian-style building typical of those found on the nearby Iraqi mainland dating from around 2000 B.C. The structure was later partially covered by a Dilmunite temple.
Courtesy Hilary McDonald & Flemming Højlund, Kuwaiti-Danish Mission)
There the Danish team excavated an ostrich egg, a shell ladle of Indian manufacture, and pottery similar to that found in what is today Pakistan. These discoveries attest to a vibrant mercantile business run by Mesopotamians themselves, rather than Dilmunite middlemen. The most telling artifacts were four cylinder seals of the type used by scribes to identify Mesopotamian traders and their goods during the end of the third millennium b.c. These seals, found within the building, demonstrate the port’s importance during this first era of global trade. “This is not just a fishing village,” says team director Flemming Hojlund. Instead, the team’s work suggests that Mesopotamians, far from being passive consumers of foreign goods brought by distant seafarers, were active participants in the sea trade.
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/80-1303/features/kuwait?limitstart=0
Very interesting.
@SALMAN F
Nevertheless I believe that Kuwait should be divided anyway. Make Kuwaiti Girl cry is added bonus.
@OutOfAmmo
