Modern Age Piracy in the Arabian Gulf: Rereading Narrative of Hegemony

A spur for this text was the rereading of a seminal work, written by ruler of the emirate of Sharjah, on the British accusations of piracy by the Qawasim during the modern period. The book represents an important advance in historiography, challenging a narrative according to which the East India Company had needed assistance against the aggression of supposed pirates in the Gulf area, during the transition from the 18th to the 19th century. This also recalls a number of similar allegations that were used since Antiquity, in many previous occurrences, expressing standard forms of propaganda, usually in order to argue for the swift deployment of military assets. It might be useful to provide an overview of comparable historical situations, in which claims of piracy functioned as a political spin in larger attempts for hegemony.