▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21284/britains-interest-in-bahrain_legal-fictions-and-th
In 1783, the Al Khalifa family—originally from the Najd region of what is now Saudi Arabia—captured the islands of Bahrain from Shaykh Nasr Al Madhkur, who had ruled them on behalf of the Qajar dynasty of Persia. In 1926, over one hundred and fifty years later, the status of Bahrain’s sovereignty remained a contentious issue. In December of that year, G. R. Warner, a British diplomat in London, wrote to a colleague in India stating that “on political grounds it is of great importance to avoid any action which would result in the re-awakening of the controversy as to the sovereignty of Bahrein.”