KATÍF, or El Katif, a town of Arabia, in the maritime region which skirts the northern part of the Persian Gulf on the low muddy shore of the northmost of the secondary bays that break the outline of the Bay of Bahrein, in 26° 29' N. lat. and 50° E. long. Town and district are sometimes considered as part of El Hasa, sometimes as an independent province. The town lies embosomed amid luxuriant palm groves and gardens, but, according to Palgrave, is “crowded, damp, and dirty.” As the seaport of Nejd, it has a considerable trade. The principal building is the fortress or palace,—a strong and spacious structure, whose erection is popularly assigned to Abu Sa ’ id el Jannâby el Karmaty, the founder of the Karmathians. Katif was the chief seat of the Karmathian power. About the middle of the 18th century we find it, along with El Hasa, in the hands of Ibn Muflik, whose influence was paramount throughout Nejd. In 1791 it was captured by Sa'ùd, the leader of the Wahhâby revolution. In 1871 it was attacked, and according to their own account subjugated, by the Turks from Baghdad. The population of the town and district is given as from 90,000 to 100,000. Katif is not far from the probable site of the ancient Gerrha, which was inhabited by Chaldaean exiles from Babylon (Strabo, xvi. 766); in more modern times the population has been recruited from Persia.

See Captain G. F. Sadlier, in Trαηs. Lit. Sοc. Bombay, 1823; Pelly, in Joum. Roy. Geogr. Soc., 1865; Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia, 1873; Zehme, Arabien und die Araber, Halle, 1875.