History of Bahrain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may be too long to comfortably read and navigate. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles and using this article for a summary of the key points of the subject.

This article is part of the series on:

History of Bahrain

Ancient Bahrain
Dilmun
Tylos and Mishmahig
Awal
Historical region
Islam in Bahrain
Al-Ala'a Al-Hadrami
Qarmatians
Portuguese occupation
Muqrin ibn Zamil
Antonio Correia
Safavid hegemony (1602-1717)
1717 Oman invasion of Bahrain
Al Khalifa and
the British Protectorate
1783 Al Khalifa invasion of Bahrain
Perpetual Truce of Peace
and Friendship (1861)
First Oil Well (1932)
20th Century Bahrain
National Union Committee
March 1965 Intifada
1981 coup d'état attempt
Uprising 1994-2000
2000s in Bahrain
Topical
Military history of Bahrain
Timeline of Bahrain history

Bahrain is a borderless island country in the Persian Gulf. Although Bahrain became an independent country in 1971, the history of these islands starts from ancient times. Bahrain strategic location in the Persian Gulf has brought rule and influence from the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Portuguese, and finally the Arabs, under whom the island became Muslim.

Ancient history

Bahrain has been proposed to be at list part of Dilmun, a land mentioned by Mesopotamian Civilizations as a trade partner, source of raw material, copper, and entrepot of the Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization trade route. However, the exact location of Dilmun is unclear, it might be associated with the islands of Bahrain, Eastern Province, Qatar and nearby Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf.[1] One of the early settles discovered in Bahrain suggests that Sennacherib, king of Assyria (707-681 B.C.) attacked northeast Arabia and captured Bahrain islands.[2]

From the 6th to 3rd century B.C. Bahrain was included in Persian Empire by Achaemenians, an Iranian dynasty.[2] Bahrain was referred to by the Greeks as "Tylos", the centre of pearl trading, when Nearchus came to discover it serving under Alexander the Great.[3] From the third century B.C. to arrival of Islam in the seventh A.D., Bahrain was controlled by two other Iranian dynasties of Parthians and Sassanids. By about 250 B.C., Parthian dynasty brought the Persian Gulf under their control and extended their influence as far as Oman. Because they needed to control the Persian Gulf trade route, the Parthians established garrisons in the southern coast of Persian Gulf.[4]

In the third century A.D., the Sasanids succeeded the Parthians and held area until the rise of Islam four centuries later.[5] Ardashir, the first ruler of Iranian Sassanians dynasty marched forward Oman and Bahrain and defeat Sanatruq[6] (or Satiran[2]), probably the Parthian governor of Bahrain.[7] He appointed his son Shapur I as governor of Bahrain. Shapur constructed a new city there and named it Batan Ardashir after his father.[2] At this time, Bahrain incorporated in the southern Sassanid province covering over the Persian Gulfs southern shore plus the archipelago of Bahrain.[7] The southern province of Sasanids was subdivided into three districts of Haggar (Now al-Hafuf province, Saudi Arabia), Batan Ardashir(Now al-Qatif province, Saudi Arabia), and Mishmahig (Now Bahrain Island)[2] (In Middle-Persian/Pahlavi means "ewe-fish"[8]).

Islam

From the time when Islam emerged in the seventh century until the early sixteenth century, the name Bahrain referred to the wider historical region of Bahrain stretching from Basrah to the Strait of Hormuz along the Persian Gulf coast. This was Iqlīm al-Baḥrayn, i.e. the Province of Bahrain, and the Arab inhabitants of the province were descendants of the Arab tribe Bani Abd al-Qais. This larger Bahrain comprised three regions: Hajar (present day Al-Hasa in Saudi Arabia), Al-Khatt (present day Al-Qatif in Saudi Arabia) and Awal (present day Bahrain). The name Awal remained in use, probably, for eight centuries. Awal was derived from the name of an idol that used to be worshipped before Islam by the inhabitants of the islands. The center of the Awal cult was Muharraq.

Bahrainis were amongst the first to embrace Islam. Mohammed ruled Bahrain through one of his representatives, Al-Ala'a Al-Hadhrami. Bahraini embraced Islam in 629 (the seventh year of hijra). During the time of Umar I the famous companion of the Prophet Abu Hurayrah was the governor of Bahrain. Umar I also appointed Uthman bin Abi Al Aas as governor of the area as well. Al Khamis Mosque, founded in 692, was one of the earliest mosques built in Bahrain, in the era of Umayyad caliph Umar II.

The expansion of Islam did not affect Bahrain's reliance on trade, and its prosperity continued to be dependent on markets in Mesopotamia. After Baghdad emerged as the seat of the caliph in 750 and the main centre of Islamic civilization, Bahrain greatly benefited from the city's increased demand for foreign goods especially from China and South Asia.

Bahrain became a principal centre of knowledge for hundreds of years stretching from the early days of Islam in the sixth century to the eighteenth century. Philosophers of Bahrain were highly esteemed, such as the 13th Century mystic, Sheikh Maitham Al Bahrani (died in 1299). (The mosque of Sheikh Maitham together with his tomb can be visited in the outskirts of the capital, Manama, near the district of Mahooz).

The Qarmatian Republic

In the end of the third Hijri century, Abu Sa'id al-Hasan al-Janaby led the Revolution of al-Qaramita, a rebellion by a messianic Ismaili sect originating in Kufa in present day Iraq. Al-Janaby took over the city of Hajr, Bahrain's capital at that time, in addition to al-Hasa, which he made the capital of his republic and once in control of the state he sought to create a utopian society.

The Qarmatians' goal was to build a society based on reason and equality. The state was governed by a council of six with a chief who was a first among equals.[9] All property within the community was distributed evenly among all initiates. The Qarmatians were organized as an esoteric society but not as a secret one; their activities were public and openly propagated, but new members had to undergo an initiation ceremony involving seven stages. The Qarmatian world view was one where every phenomenon repeated itself in cycles, where every incident was replayed over and over again.

Even before taking over Bahrain, the Qarmatians had instigated what some scholars have termed a ‘century of terrorism’ in Kufa.[10] From Bahrain they launched raids along the pilgrim routes crossing Arabia: in 906 they ambushed the pilgrim caravan returning from Mecca and massacred 20,000 pilgrims.[11] Under Abu Tahir Al-Jannabi they came close to capturing Baghdad in 923 and sacked Mecca in 930. The assault on Islam's holiest sites saw the Qarmatians desecrate the Well of Zamzam with corpses of Hajj pilgrims and take the Black Stone from Mecca to Bahrain.[12] The sack of Mecca followed millenarian excitement among the Qarmatians (as well as in Persia) over the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in 928. Bahrain became the seat of the Qarmatian Mahdi-Caliph from Isfahan who abolished Sharīa law. The new Mahdi also changed the qibla of prayer from Mecca to that of fire, a specifically Zoroastrian practice. Some scholars take the view that “they may not have been Isamailis at all at the outset, and their conduct and customs gave plausibility to the belief that they were not merely heretics but bitter enemies of Islam.”.[13]

For much of the tenth century the Qarmatians were the most powerful force in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, controlling the coast of Oman and collected tribute from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad as well as from the rival Ismaili Fatimid caliph in Cairo, whom they did not recognize. The land they ruled over was extremely wealthy with a huge slave based economy according to academic Yitzhak Nakash:

“ The Qarmatian state had vast fruit and grain estates both on the islands and in Hasa and Qatif. Nasiri Khusru, who visited Hasa in 1051, recounted that these estates were cultivated by some thirty thousand Ethiopian slaves. He mentions that the people of Hasa were exempt from taxes. Those impoverished or in debt could obtain a loan until they put their affairs in order. No interest was taken on loans, and token lead money was used for all local transactions. The Qarmathian state had a powerful and long-lasting legacy. This is evidenced by a coin known as Tawila, minted around 920 by one of the Qarmathian rulers, and which was still in circulation in Hasa early in the twentieth century[14] ”

10th-16th Centuries

The Qarmatians were defeated in battle in 976 by the Abbasids, which encouraged them to look inward to build their utilitarian society, but around 1058, a revolt on the island of Bahrain led by two Shi'a members of the Abd al-Qays tribe, Abul-Bahlul al-‘Awwam and Abu’l-Walid Muslim,[15] precipitated the waning of Qarmatian power and eventually the ascendancy to power of the Uyunids, an Arab dynasty belonging to the Abdul Qays tribe.[16] The Uyunids ruled from 1076 to 1235, when the islands were briefly occupied by the Turkic Salgharid Atabeg of Fars. Supported by the Seljuk rulers of Iraq, the Uyunids relied on the power of the Banu 'Amir tribes such as the Banu Uqayl.