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The Kishk of Sheikh Mubarak

Sheikh Mubarak ruled Kuwait from 1896 to 1915. In her work on him, Souad M. Al-Sabah credits him with, “laying down the principles of sovereignty in the country.” The Danish traveler Barclay Raunkiaer wrote that, “next to the Sheikh you would always find his diamond inlaid cigarette box, which holds his long Baghdad cigarettes, as well as his binoculars with which he likes to watch the ships as they set sail over the Gulf waters, or to keep a lookout for the mail boat.” In the wake of a protection treaty signed with Great Britain in 1899, a British political agent named Lord Curzon visited Kuwait in November of 1903 and described Mubarak as, “by far the most masculine and vigorous personality whom I have encountered in the Gulf.”

Souk al Mubarakiya was officially established during his reign. Souad Al-Sabah tells us that he toured Mubarakiya every afternoon in a black Victorian carriage drawn by two black horses. Mubarak was first to build a kiosk or “kishk” in the market, which still stands today. He built it, “to hold his daily majlis with the townspeople. His office was located on the second floor, from which he observed and monitored all activity in the market below.” In her work Kuwait Transformed, Farah Al-Nakib tells us that this kishk was the only official state building in town prior to 1938, aside from an arsenal in a palace and a customs building. Today the structure still stands in the center of Mubarakiya and has as a small museum.

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