In the 17th century, the Bani Khalid were the overlords of eastern Arabia and their domain stretched from Kuwait to Qatar. In about 1672 Barrak Bin Ghuraif, the Amir of the Bani Khalid, built his kout (a small house in the shape of a fortress situated near water) in Qurain, a small fishing community. This may have been in the area in Kuwait City known today as Wattiya.

The Utub, a federation of Arab families, were driven out of Al-Aflaj in central Arabia by the drought in the 17th century. They learned sea-faring and then scattered into various Arabian Gulf ports before coming to Kuwait in the early 18th century. They settled here under the suzerainty of the Bani Khalid.

Family disputes within the ruling Bani Khalid in 1722 gave the Utub in Kuwait a chance to practice some independence. After 1752 further internal disputes among the Bani Khalid and the rise of the Wahhabis, their bitter enemies in central Arabia, gave the Utub of Kuwait de facto independence. In about 1756 they elected Sabah Bin Jaber as the Amir of Kuwait to administer justice and the affairs of the town.

As the regional influence of the Bani Khalid waned, Kuwait’s lack of protection made the rise of a strong local power necessary. The Utub had changed from nomads to settlers since their move from Al-Aflaj and the first Al-Sabah was chosen by the other families as their leader.

HH the Amir’s fifth son, HH Sheikh Abdullah-Al-Sabah was selected to succeed his father. Under his stable rule, Kuwait transformed into a prosperous and influential independency. In the later part of the 18th and early 19th centuries Kuwait became a major port of call on several international trading routes.

Pearls were Kuwait’s only natural resource and each year hundreds of pearling ships such as sambuks made for the lucrative pearl banks to return at the end of summer. Shipbuilding and using imported materials, became an important industry. In winter, large trading dhows set out for India to return with merchandise (and mail) which was loaded onto desert caravans bound for the Mediterranean. Caravans from southern and eastern Arabia also passed through Kuwait on their way to Syria. Kuwait’s markets were crowded with Bedouins selling their products and services or buying imports for resale in the interior.

HH the Amir, Sheikh Jaber I Al-Sabah (1812-1859) ruled in consultation with the merchants of Kuwait, and managed to maintain good relations with all the major powers of the day. However, as Kuwait prospered throughout the 19th century its independence came under threat from regional and European powers.To counter growing Turkish ambitions, HH the Amir, Sheikh Mubarak (1896-1915) signed treaties with the global powers of that time. The country prospered greatly under HH Sheikh Mubarak’s rule. Hundreds arrived to settle in Kuwait, attracted by its orderly administration and increasing commercial activity.

But trade declined sharply in Kuwait from the 1920s onwards due to the worldwide recession, Kuwait’s reduced importance as a major link in 20th century international trade routes, and because of hostilities from the Ikhwan, tribesmen from the interior of Arabia, who were only finally defeated in 1930. Kuwait’s pearling industry, which once boasted 800 pearling ships, almost disappeared with the introduction of Japanese cultured pearls and the worldwide fall in demand for luxury goods following the Wall Street Crash of 1929. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, Kuwait underwent a transition from a small Emirate to an internationally influential modern state because of the oil boom.