Nasr Al-Madhkur

[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”.

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] After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Sheikh Nasr was able to use this power vacuum to imprison the shahbandar of Bushehr and establish control over the city by the end of 1748.

[8] At first, he stayed out of the battles between the various Afsharid contenders, but by January 1751 he declared independence and imprisoned tax collectors sent by Ismail III, as well as forming ties with the tribes of Dashtestan.

[8] The prosperity and emerging position of Zubarah as a flourishing pearling centre and trading port, now in modern Qatar, had brought it to the attention of the two main regional powers at that time, Persia and Oman,[10] which were presumably sympathetic to Sheikh Nasr's ambitions.

Zubarah natives traveled to Bahrain to buy some wood, but an altercation broke out and in the chaos an Utub sheikh's slave was killed.

On 1 October, Ali Murad Khan ordered the sheikh of Bahrain to prepare a counter-attack against Zubarah and sent him reinforcements from the Persian mainland.