Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899 Following their successful 1871 Najd expedition, the Ottomans solidified their influence over Kuwait. In 1892, Muhammad Al-Sabah ascended to the Kuwaiti throne. Mohammad's ineptitude as a ruler led to a gradual emergence of his brother in law Yusuf bin Abdullah Al–Ibrahim as an éminence grise. Al–Ibrahim went on to pursue Turkophile policies, which alienated the nationalist circles of Kuwait's society. In May 1896, Mohammad was assassinated by his half brother Mubarak Al-Sabah who then seized power. The Ottomans believed that the revolt was a part of a larger British plot to create a Pan-Arab anti-Ottoman alliance. The Ottomans cited Mubarak's
Transformation of the Ottoman Empire in particular suffered from heavy competition, and its commercial presence declined significantly, particularly after 1645, when the Ottomans and Venetians went to war over Crete. The English were by far the most successful European merchants in the empire during the seventeenth century, and they benefited from friendly relations between the two states. The Ottomans exported raw silk and imported cheap woolen cloth, as well as tin necessary for the production of military armaments. While in 1550 the Ottoman Empire was a patrimonial state in which all power was held exclusively by the sultan, by 1700 it had experienced a political