Nasr Al-Madhkur

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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^[1] of what was described by a contemporary account as an "independent state"^[2] in Bushehr and Bahrain.^[3] 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”.^[4] A “mutashayi’” (convert to Shi’ism, as described by Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi),^[5] Sheikh Nasr lost Bahrain - which was inhabited by his Shi’a compatriots - 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^[3] and led the Bushehr province on the Persian Gulf littoral.^[6] 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.^[7] Niebuhr visited Bushire in 1765, and when he wrote of independent Arab states, he included Bushire.^[7]