Amir Shaikh Issa Bin Salman Al Khalifa of Bahrain (1934-1999)

By Andrew I. Killgore

Much has been written about the warm human qualities of Shaikh Issa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the ruler of Bahrain, who died of a heart attack March 6 in his palace in his country’s capital city of Manama shortly after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

I personally experienced those positive qualities on May 14, 1974 when I called on Shaikh Issa, the amir; his brother, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the prime minister; and the amir’s cousin, Shaikh Muhammad bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa, the minister of foreign affairs, to say goodbye to them and to Bahrain.

The occasion was a most unhappy one for me. I had been in Bahrain as chargé d’affaires only four months. But this was long enough to learn about Bahrain’s paucity of oil resources, its efforts to make up for this lack by becoming a Middle Eastern service center for international banking and business, its deep political gulf between the majority Shi’i population and the ruling Sunni minority—which includes the Al Khalifa family—and Bahrain’s importance to the United States as the principal base of the U.S. Navy’s Middle East Force, as it was then called.

In summary, although Bahrain was only a small archipelago country in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, it was important to the United States. Its people were warm and friendly, its relaxed atmosphere was altogether charming, and the amir was always personally accessible to me and well-disposed to the growing community of international bankers, businessmen and technical consultants who had chosen his country as their Middle Eastern headquarters.

When I had been transferred from Tehran to Manama, I was told in Washington that I might become the first resident U.S. ambassador in Bahrain. The longer I stayed, the more I hoped this would be the case.

But it was not to be. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was looking for younger envoys, particularly in places like the Middle East and Latin America where “entrenched” American regional specialists were increasingly skeptical about the long-term consequences of his short-term crisis-oriented improvisations. Soon I received the name of a much younger ambassadorial candidate to submit to the amir for his agreement before the nomination was forwarded to the Senate for a formal hearing.

Only a short time after receiving the ruler’s okay for my successor, it was time for me to make my farewell call. Feigning enthusiasm, I told Shaikh Issa (Jesus in Arabic) that the incoming ambassador, though young, was a very good and competent man.

With ineffable grace, Shaikh Issa replied, “Yes, I’m sure. But we prefer someone with some gray in his hair.”

My hair was very gray at the time and, obviously sensing my deep personal disappointment, the amir prolonged our parting handshake, a personal gesture which touched me deeply. Unfortunately, it only increased my intense disappointment at leaving his charming country after such a short time.

Shaikh Issa took over as amir of Bahrain in 1961 upon the death of his father, Shaikh Salman. At that time Britain ruled the 260-square-mile group of islands, by far the largest of which is the island of Bahrain itself.

In Arabic Bahr means “sea” and Bahrain means “two seas,” presumably referring to the two bodies of water that separate the island from nearby Arabia on one side and somewhat more distant Iran on the other.

Another theory is that since fresh water springs are found both on Bahrain and in the sea bottom around it, the name “two seas” refers to the salt water sea and the underlying freshwater aquifer.

Archeologists also believe that present-day Bahrain was Dilmun, the land of immortality of the Sumerians of southern Iraq, who invented the world’s first writing system

Our word “admiral” derives from amir (prince) al-Bahr (of the sea), but our European ancestors dropped the final word in their Westernized haste.

Manama, the port city on the northern tip of Bahrain island, was the center from which Britain oversaw its Arabian Gulf dependencies until 1971, when Bahrain gained its independence. Shaikh Issa got along well with the British, both before and after independence. He was also very popular with the Americans whose navy has quietly used Bahrain, first as the base for its three-ship Middle East force, and now as a frequent port of call for ships of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, almost since World War II.

Shaikh Issa was buried on the day he died, in accordance with Muslim practice. His son and designated successor, Shaikh Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa, who is fluent in English and a 49-year-old graduate of Sandhurst, Britain’s West Point, is the new amir of Bahrain. Since he has served as commander of Bahrain’s defense forces, the transition has been a smooth one.

During Sheikh Issa’s 40-year-reign, once picturesque Manama has been transformed into a prosperous, modern banking, business and financial center. But Bahrain remains a country with little oil in a region where all of its neighbors have a lot of it. And it is a society split between a prosperous Sunni Muslim ruling minority and a poor, Shi’i majority, some of whom look toward co-religionists in nearby Iran.

Whatever the future holds for his country, Shaikh Issa will be remembered as the ruler who guided it from dependence to independence and from primitive poverty to modern affluence by making good use of whatever resources were available. He was a wise ruler and a warm and endearing man, who was regarded as a true friend by all of us who were fortunate enough to know him.

Andrew I. Killgore is the publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.