الملخص الإنجليزي
This dissertation is concerned with the history of the town of Kuwait during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The approach to the history of the town in this period is based mainly on a group of primary historical sources with both documentary and narrative types. These sources form an interconnected historical chain of narrative knowledge about the town’s past during the abovementioned time, which is subject to a critical and analytical comparison between its elements. This series revolves around a specific documentary axis that serves as the main element of comparison between these other primary sources. This element is represented in John Gordon Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Gulf, and specifically in its “Historical” volume; the latter is seen as an essential connection with the history of Kuwait’s town. The Gazetteer was issued in two volumes by the British Government in India -also known as the British Raj- in 1908 and 1915. This dissertation raises questions related to the background history of the Gazetteer’s project in various aspects, along with examining its three Arabic translations to decide which one of them is more authentic than the others. Moreover, the dissertation places numerous questions relevant to the “History of Kuwait” chapter which is observed in the “Historical” volume of the dissertation. These issues are related to discovering and studying identities of those primary sources -or Mother Sources- on which J. Lorimer relied for the chapter’s accounts; and concerned on the accuracy of J. Lorimer’s work with his interventions in re-editing the chapter’s texts from their original materials; besidesfour different mattersin the chapter that are selected for a study based on two criteria: Approaching them critically and discovering a new MS then translating it into Arabic, explaining and analyzing it. There are attempts to answer the previous questions as well as providing explanations for issues starting by approaching the nature of the Gazetteer’s project in several aspects. The Approach is made by following some rules of codicology; where an external description and historical criticism are applied for Gazetteer’s materiality in its five books and a slipcase, besides tracing J. Lorimer’s background in four aspects. In addition to the external editing the dissertation is concerned with describing the essence of the Gazetteer and criticizing some chosen narratives belong to the chapter of “History of Kuwait”. During the editing criticizing processes, the qualitative literary review approach is applied to a body of secondary studies. This review relied on a few rules of ز the logic’s dialectical method, or rather the dialectical manner, where its various intellectual patterns are bridged with terms of informal fallacies. The dissertation draws several results and recommendations. Perhaps the most important of the former are, firstly, the revelation of J. Lorimer’s biography in four dimensions that influenced and shaped his early life and functional future. Secondly, Editing the external and internal sides of the Gazetteer leaded to understanding it and knowing most prominent incidents and figures during the Gazetteer’s historical formation. Additionally, the reasons for the dissertation in being based on one of the three Arabic translations of the Gazetteer are explained. Fourthly, an interpretation is provided for the Mother Sources’ concept in different aspects to which some extracted examples from the Gazetteer are also set up. Last but not least, there are four varied conclusions connected with the four Kuwaiti themes which are studied and selected in the chapter of the "History of Kuwait". Furthermore, few recommendations are indicated to which are dealing with possible outcomes of applying multidisciplinary studies’ method on History’s discipline as it was done here by bridging latter with the logic.
