its long history as a trading entrepot (96). Like Egypt, Bahrain encountered many alien rulers, but most of them came before the 15th century A.D. from the Middle East, Babylonians, Persians, and in 940 A.D. Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula who converted Bahrain to Islam. The current ruling al-Khalifa family in Bahrain was of Mesopotamian Arab background. When they arrived in Bahrain in the mid-18th century they brought with them elements of Mesopotamian and Persian culture. One reason for their continuation in power for more than 200 years has been their ability to preserve (except for brief periods) Bahrain's independence from would-be outside conquerors, such as the Portuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Persians and the expanding al-Saud tribe in the Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century. The al-Khalifa amirs also were a unifying force, avoiding the internecine warfare among petty Bahraini sheikhdoms which had so characterized many earlier periods (such as from the 9th to 11th centuries A.D.) (Robison & Greenway 12). The al-Khalifa family proved adept at playing off more powerful foreign powers against each other.
Egypt was less successful after the decline of the pharaohs in withstanding foreign conquerors who were attracted to Egypt because of its strategic importance as the crossroads between the Middle East and Africa, among whom were Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Tulinids, Ikhshidids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks and from 1517 to 1882 the Ottoman Turks. These foreign invaders adapted Egyptian governing institutions to their own authoritarian or despotic political ends. Egypt proved, until the arrival of the British in 1882, accomplished at absorbing their conquerors and 'Egyptianizing' them. Egypt gradually gained relative political autonomy within the far-flung Ottoman Empire and in the late 18th century Mamluk Beys gained effective control of the military and political structures.
The Arabs thoroughly Islamized Ba...