Tiny Bahrain has a rich and varied history punctuated by serial conquests, grand emperors, lucrative trade, an oil boom, fabulous wealth, and well-meaning kings. It is a microcosm of the Arab world.
Tiny Bahrain has a rich and varied history punctuated by serial conquests, grand emperors, lucrative trade, an oil boom, fabulous wealth, and well-meaning kings. It is a microcosm of the Arab world.
The first archaeological evidence of human activity in Bahrain dates back over 50 000 years. Flint tools found on the island reveal that agriculture was already well advanced over 8 000 years ago.
Since then Bahrain has been visited, occupied and sometimes conquered by a potpourri of Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Portuguese and the British.
From 3200 to 330 BC Bahrain was the centre of the legendary empire of Dilmun. The name, given by the Sumerians around 2500 BC, meant ‘noble’, and is described as ‘paradise’ in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world’s oldest poetic saga.
Dilmun developed as a major centre for trade and commerce, especially of copper, dates and pearls, due its strategic location along the trade route between Mesopotamia (southern Iraq) and the Indus Valley (India and Pakistan). At this time the ancient city of Dilmun at the Bahrain Fort had a population of over 7 000 people, a very large number for that time.
In 332 BC the Emperor of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, sent two ships to the island and forged a link with the Greek Empire that lasted for about 1 000 years.
At this time the island was renamed Tylos, and Hellenistic ruins from this era can still be seen today at Bahrain Fort. In the first century AD the Greek philosopher Pliny mentioned that Tylos was famous for its high quality pearls.
The island kept its Greek name until 622 AD when, still during the pre-Islamic era, it became known as ‘Awal’, after a pagan idol worshipped by the Wael tribe.
The name ‘Bahrain’, which means ‘two waters’ (due to the fresh water bubbling up from the sea bed), was first given to the Awal Islands in the 13th century and eventually to the whole island complex.
The Portuguese invaded Bahrain in the early 1500s and built a massive fort that is today a major UNESCO World Heritage Site. They left in 1602 following the arrival of the Persians.
The Al Khalifa family first settled in the islands in the mid-18th century and has ruled Bahrain since the time of Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa.
His sons, Salman and Abdulla, signed treaties with the British East India Company in 1820 and 1861, and Bahrain became a British Protectorate in 1882. The accession of Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa in 1869 marked the beginning of a period of stability and prosperity that lasted for over a century.
Bahrain also made rapid progress during the reign of Shaikh Isa’s successor, Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, especially during the tumultuous events of the 1930s.
Japanese artificial pearls caused the natural pearl market to crash in 1932 and, almost simultaneously, the first oil strike in the Arab world took place in Bahrain. Soon afterwards Bahrain had its first electric power station, telephone system and airport.
In 1961 Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa ascended to the throne and diversified the island’s economy into the banking and investment sectors, as he realised Bahrain would also be the first Arab country to reach ‘peak oil’ (1972), i.e. maximum oil production, after which oil revenues would tail off.
The Declaration of Independence in August 1971 launched a dramatic new chapter in the island’s history.
Shaikh Isa died in 1999 and was succeeded by his son, Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the present King, who has introduced an ambitious range of social and political reforms since 2001.
Although not all Bahrainis believe that these reforms have gone far enough, and the Arab Spring is still alive in Bahrain today, this does not detract from its colourful history of multiculturalism and reconciliation.
