Al-Hasa

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This article refers to the traditional region of Al-Hasa. For the current Saudi Arabian administrative unit sometimes called Al-Hasa, see: Al-Ahsa.

Al-Hasa or Hasa (Arabic: الأحساء‎ al-Aḥsāʾ, locally al-Ḥasāʾ; Turkish: Lahsa) is a traditional region in eastern Saudi Arabia. It is a region of oases that comprises much of that country's Eastern Province and gives its name to the al-Ahsa governorate.

Al-Hasa contains one of the largest concentrations of Bahrani Shi'ites in predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia. Until 1521, al-Ahsa belonged to the political entity known as Bahrain, along with Qatif and the present-day island state of Bahrain.

[edit] History

Al-Hasa has been inhabited since prehistoric times, due to its abundance of water in an otherwise arid region. Natural fresh-water springs have surfaced at oases in the region for millennia, encouraging human habitation and agricultural efforts (date palm cultivation especially) since prehistoric times.

Its early history is similar to that of eastern Arabian historical region of Bahrain. In AD 899, the region came under control of the Qarmatian leader, al-Jannabi, and was declared independent from the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad. Its capital was at al-Mu'miniya near modern Hofuf. In 1077, the Qarmatian state of al-Hasa was overthrown but the Qarmantians retained control of the Awal islands (now Bahrain).

In 1521, the Portuguese Empire conquered the Awal islands. In 1550, coastal portions of al-Hasa and nearby Qatif came under suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire of Suleiman I. Al-Hasa was nominally the eyalet of Lahsa in the Ottoman administrative system but in reality was usually only a vassal of the Porte and Qatif was later lost to the Portuguese.

The Ottomans were expelled from al-Hasa in 1663, and the region came under the rule of the House of Banu Khalid.

Al-Hasa, along with Qatif, was incorporated into the Wahhabist First Saudi State in 1795 but returned to nominal Ottoman control in 1818 with an invasion ordered by Muhammad Ali of Egypt. The Banu Khalid were again installed as rulers of the region but, in 1830, the Second Saudi State took the region.

Direct Ottoman rule was restored in 1871 and al-Hasa was placed first under Baghdad Vilayet and, with Baghdad's subdivision in 1875, Basra Vilayet.

On December 2, 1922, Percy Zachariah Cox officially notified Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Ahmad Al Sabah that Kuwait's borders have been modified. Earlier that year Major John More [the British representative in Kuwait) had met with Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia to settle the border issue between Kuwait and Najd. The meeting result was Uqair Protocol of 1922, which gave away lands of Kuwait to Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

In the 1930s, huge petroleum deposits were discovered near Dammam, resulting in rapid modernization of the region. By the early 1960s, production levels reached one million barrels per day.

Today, al-Hasa forms the core of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.