Kish: the island lords of the Gulf

Who rules

Title

Malik (amir) of Kish

Since

Not pinned

Born

Not pinned

Family

The island dynasty, called the Banu Qaysar in modern accounts; Yaqut calls the island Jazirat Qays ibn Umara. Earlier known members: 'the son of al-Amid', who attacked Aden in 1135, and a malik Jamshid who built the Qasr-i Ayvan.

Confidence

low

EIr 'Kish Island' (after Aubin, Goitein, Piacentini, Whitehouse); Bosworth, EIr 'Dinar, Malek'.

Overlord

None in practice.

What the realm holds

• The island of Kish with the town of Harira and the palace (Qasr-i Ayvan)
• The pearl banks round the island
• The neighbouring islands of Hendurabi and Lavan (not pinned)
• The mainland shore opposite (Charak, Kong) (not pinned)
• Influence over Siraf, the Fars ports and the strait; claims on the Omani coast (not pinned)

How it was acquired

Seized by the founder of the line in the mid-eleventh century (al-Idrisi says by a governor from Yemen); hereditary since.

Allies and rivals

Rivals: Hormuz, Aden, the Uyunids of Awal (Bahrain), whose pearl banks Kish covets; uneasy with the masters of Kerman and of Fars.

The realm that morning

Independent, rich, and the strongest naval power in the Gulf.

Wealth

Tolls and transit trade between India, Yemen, Persia and Iraq; pearls; the middleman's share of the India trade.

Military

A fleet; no cavalry or infantry to speak of. No figures.

Threats

• Hormuz
• A Fars or Kerman power with ships
• Revolt among the island's merchant families

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 626-627 AH (1229-30)Hormuz conquers Kish; in November 1230 the island passes to the Salghurid Abu Bakr, ending the dynasty.Depends on: Not applicable (outside 1200) Stopped by: Not applicable

Places of note

• Harira: The medieval town of Kish on the north shore of the island

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The dynasty's names and dates in the 1190s are not known from the sources read.

On the map: Only the island is firm; the other islands and the mainland shore are drawn on the strength of Kish's sea power, not of a dated source.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Oman, from the Kashf al-ghumma, Sirhan ibn Sa'id ibn Sirhan (compiler), from earlier Ibadi chronicles (about 1728, from earlier Ibadi sources). The Ibadi imamate of Oman has no contemporary chronicle for 1200; the later Omani compilations (the Kashf al-ghumma and al-Salimi's Tuhfat al-a'yan) preserve a list of imams and the tradition of the Nabhani maliks who ruled the interior from the 12th century, with Hormuz and Kish pressing on the coast. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online
• History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online