Sabah I Bin Jaber - Reign of Sabah Bin Jaber

Reign of Sabah Bin Jaber

In the beginning of the 18th century, an Arabic tribe known as "Bani Anizah" settled in the region that is now Kuwait. Sabah bin Jaber was a member of this tribe after establishing himself and other families under the umbrella of the Bani Anizah (hence al-Sabah dynasty of Kuwait as it became known later). The patriarch of the Al-Sabah family, Sabah bin Jaber migrated from his homeland, with the patriarch of the Al-Khalifa family, Khalifa bin Mohamed, looking for fertile lands to settle on. They headed towards the southern borders of Iraq (under control of the Ottoman Empire during that time). There they first went to Um Qasr, a small Iraqi city in the north. According to a tradition preserved by the Al-Sabah family, the reason why the ancestors of their section and those of the Al-Khalifa section came to Kuwait was that they had been expelled by the Turks from Umm Qasr upon Khor Zubair, an earlier seat from which they had been accustomed to prey as brigands upon the caravans of Basra and as pirates upon the shipping of the Shatt Al Arab. Upon reaching Kuwait, they entered under the umbrella of the Utub, to which the Al Bin Ali tribe belongs, which was inhabiting Kuwait before their arrivals by many years.

The newly settled family quickly sent its leader, Sabah bin Jaber, to the Ottoman governor of Iraq in order to declare his allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan, who was also the Caliph of all Muslims. He did this in order to gain a legitimate status. Thus Kuwait became a virtually independent city with Sabah bin Jaber as its first ruler, in spite of it nominally being under Ottoman control. Upon his death Sabah I was succeeded by his youngest son, Abdullah bin Sabah.