Eastern Arabia

Eastern Arabia Bahrain Al-Baḥrayn (ٱلْبَحْرَيْن)
Historical region of Arabia
Eastern Arabia (historical region of Bahrain) on a 1745 Bellin map
Country	Bahrain  Qatar  Saudi Arabia  United Arab Emirates  Kuwait  Iraq  Oman

Eastern Arabia (Bahrain) (

The term "Gulf Arab" or "Khaleeji" refers, geographically, to inhabitants of eastern Arabia. However, today the term is often applied to the inhabitants of the GCC countries in the Arabian Peninsula.^[9] "Khaleeji" has evolved into a socio-political regional identity that distinguished the GCC inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula from the wider Arab world building on the perceived cultural homogeneity within the Gulf states and their shared history.^[10]

Culture

The inhabitants of Eastern Arabia's Gulf coast share similar cultures and music styles, such as fijiri, sawt and liwa. The most noticeable cultural trait of Eastern Arabia's Gulf Arabs is their orientation and focus towards the sea.^[11] Maritime-focused life in the small Gulf Arab states has resulted in a sea-oriented society where livelihoods have traditionally been earned in marine industries.^[11]

The Arabs of Eastern Arabia speak a dialect known as Gulf Arabic. Approximately 2 million Saudis (out of a population of 34 million) speak Gulf Arabic.^[12][13]

Mass media and entertainment

Khaleeji entertainment is popular throughout the

Islam is dominant in Eastern Arabia. The main sects are Sunni Islam, Ibadi Islam (dominant in Oman); and Shia Islam.^[18]

History

The Kingdom of Dilmun first appears in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the end of fourth millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna, in the city of Uruk. The demonym "Dilmun" is used to describe a type of axe and the ethnicity of an official in these tablets.^[25]

Dilmun was also mentioned in two letters, recovered from Nippur, which were dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II (c. 1370 BC), a king of the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. These letters were from a provincial official located in Dilmun, Ilī-ippašra, to his friend Enlil-kidinni in Mesopotamia. The names referred to are Akkadian. These letters hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon.^[26] Following the collapse of the Kassite dynasty, Mesopotamian documents make no mention of Dilmun, with the exception of Assyrian inscriptions dated to 1250 BC which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be "King of Dilmun and Meluhha". Assyrian inscriptions at this time also recorded tribute from Dilmun. There are other Assyrian inscriptions during the first millennium BC indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun; one of the sites discovered in Bahrain indicates that Sennacherib, king of Assyria (707–681 BC), attacked the northeastern Persian Gulf and captured Bahrain.^{[27][page needed]}

The most recent reference to Dilmun came during the

The “Arabian Gulf” types of circular, stamped (rather than rolled) seals known from Dilmun appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, as well as in Mesopotamia. These seals support the other evidence of Dilmun being an influential trading center. What the commerce consisted of is less known; timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from the Persian Gulf, and shell and bone inlays were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, olive oil and grains. Copper ingots from Oman and bitumen, which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia, may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and domestic fowl, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia. Instances of all of these trade goods have been found. The importance of this trade is shown by the fact that the weights and measures used at Dilmun were in fact identical to those used by the Indus, and were not used in Southern Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamian trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to trade with Meluhha date from the Akkadian period (c. 2300 BC), but the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2600 BC). Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin-Larsa Period (c. 1900 BC), Dilmun monopolized the trade. The Bahrain National Museum assesses that its "Golden Age" lasted from c. 2200 BC to 1600 BC.

Mythology

In the

Dilmun, sometimes described as “the place where the sun rises” and “the Land of the Living”, is the scene of some versions of the Sumerian creation myth, and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim (Ziusudra), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun" and a “faraway, half-mythical place”.^[31]

Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. Enki says to Ninhursag:

For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives.^[32]

Ninlil, the Sumerian goddess of air and southerly winds, had her home in Dilmun.

However, in the early epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, the main events, which center on Enmerkar's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu, are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled".

Gerrha

R E Cheesman in 1924.^{[citation needed}

]

Gerrha and Uqair are archaeological sites on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, only 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the ancient burial grounds of Dilmun on the island of Bahrain.^[33][34]

Prior to Gerrha, the area belonged to the Dilmuni civilization. Gerrha itself was the center of an Arab kingdom from approximately 650 BC to circa 300 AD. The kingdom was attacked by

Sassanid

Persian control after 300 AD.

Gerrha was described by Strabo^[35] as inhabited by Chaldean exiles from Babylon, who built their houses of salt and repaired them by the application of salt water. Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 6.32) says it was 8 kilometres (5 mi) in circumference with towers built of square blocks of salt.^[36]

Gerrha was destroyed by the Qarmatians at the end of the 9th century, and all 300,000 inhabitants were killed.^[37] It was 3 kilometres (2 mi) from the Persian Gulf near current day Hofuf. The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi argued in his book^[38] that Gerrha was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. Al Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars, although there are some difficulties with this argument given that Al Ahsa is 60 km (37 mi) inland and thus less likely to be the starting point for a trader's route, making the location within the archipelago of islands comprising the modern Kingdom of Bahrain, particularly the main island of Bahrain itself, another possibility.^[39]

Various other identifications of the site have been attempted, with

Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville choosing Qatif and Carsten Niebuhr preferring Kuwait.^{[citation needed}

]

Tylos

The island of Bahrain was referred to by the ancient Greeks as "Tylos" (

Ancient Greek: Τύλος) and was known for its pearls.^[40] From the 6th to 3rd century BC Bahrain was part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.^[27]: 119 The Greek admiral Nearchus is believed to have been the first of Alexander's commanders to visit the island, and he found a verdant land that was part of a wide trading network. He recorded: “In the island of Tylos, situated in the Persian Gulf, are large plantations of cotton trees, from which are manufactured clothes called sindones, of different degrees of value, some being costly, others less expensive. The use of these is mostly confined to India, but extends also to Arabia.”^[41] The Greek historian, Theophrastus, states that much of the archipelago was covered in these cotton trees and noted that textiles were a major industry. According to him, Tylos was also famous for exporting engraved walking canes popular in Babylon.^[42]

It is not known whether Bahrain was part of the

Qalat Al Bahrain has been proposed as a Seleucid base in the Persian Gulf.^[43] Alexander had planned to settle the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf with Greek colonists, and although it is not clear that this happened on the scale he envisaged, Tylos was very much part of the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek (although Aramaic was in everyday use), while Zeus was worshipped in the form of the Arabian sun-god Shams.^[44] Tylos even became the site of Greek athletic contests.^[45]

The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the

Geographia when the inhabitants are referred to as "Thilouanoi" ("inhabitants of Tylos").^[47] Some place names in Bahrain go back to the Tylos era; for instance, the residential suburb of Arad, located in Muharraq, is believed to originate from "Arados", the ancient Greek name for the island of Muharraq.^[48]

The Greek historians Herodotus and Strabo both believed the Phoenicians originated from Bahrain.^[49][50][51] This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In the Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or Tylos, and Arad, Bahrain, which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples."^[52] The people of Tyre in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon.^[53][54]

Herodotus's account (written c. 430 BC) refers to Phoenicians inhabiting the shores of the Persian Gulf:

According to the

Assyria...

— Herodotus, Histories

With the waning of

Seleucid Greek power, Tylos was incorporated into Characene, the state founded by Hyspaosines in 127 BC in modern-day Kuwait . A building inscription found in Bahrain indicates that Hyspoasines occupied the islands.^{[citation needed}

]

Parthian and Sassanid

From the 3rd century BC to arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Eastern Arabia was controlled by two other Iranian dynasties: the

Sassanids.^{[citation needed}

]

By about 250 BC, the Seleucids lost their territories to the Parthians, an Iranian tribe from Central Asia. The Parthian Empire 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 on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf.^[55]

In the 3rd century AD, the

Mishmahig (Muharraq, Bahrain),^{[27][page needed]} which included the Bahrain archipelago.^{[27][page needed][56]}

Beth Qatraye

The Christian name used for the region encompassing north-eastern Arabia was Beth Qatraye, which translates to "region of the Qataris" in Syriac. It included Bahrain, Tarout, Al-Khatt, Al-Aḥsā, and Qatar.^[57]

By the 5th century, Beth Qatraye was a major center for

Isaac of Nineveh, Dadisho Qatraya, Gabriel of Qatar and Ahob of Qatar.^[58][60] Christianity declined with the arrival of Islam in Eastern Arabia in 628.^[61] By 676, the bishops of Beth Qatraye had stopped attending synods; although Christianity persisted in the region until the late 9th century.^[58]

The dioceses of Beth Qatraye did not form an ecclesiastical province, except for a short period during the mid-to-late 7th century.^[58] They were instead subject to the Metropolitanate of Fars.

Post-6th century

Munzir ibn-Sawa al-Tamimi

, governor of Bahrain in AD 628

Julfar, both in the direction of the Hajar, are close to the sea ... Tuwwam has been dominated by a branch of the Quraysh ...

— Al-Muqaddasi, 985 CE^[62]

, The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions

From the time when Islam emerged in the 7th century until the early 16th century, the term Bahrain referred to the wider historical region of eastern Arabia stretching from

Umar II, was one of the earliest mosques

built in eastern Arabia.

The expansion of Islam did not affect eastern Arabia's reliance on trade, and its prosperity continued to be dependent on markets in India and Mesopotamia. After

caliph in 750 following the Abbasid Revolution

, eastern Arabia greatly benefited from the city's increased demand for foreign goods, especially from China and South Asia.

Eastern Arabia, and Bahrain more specifically, became a principal centre of knowledge for hundreds of years stretching from the early days of Islam in the 6th century to the 18th century. Philosophers of eastern Arabia were highly esteemed, such as the 13th-century mystic, Sheikh

Maitham Al Bahrani (d. 1299). The mosque of Sheikh Maitham and his tomb can be visited in the outskirts of Manama, near the district of Mahooz

.

Qarmatian Kingdom

Main article:

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

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.^{[citation needed]}

The main branches of the Bani Khalid are the Humaid, the Jubur, the Du'um, the Janah, the Grusha, the Musallam, the 'Amayer, the Subaih and the Mahashir.[79] The chieftainship of the Bani Khalid has traditionally been held by the Humaid clan. The Bani Khalid dominated the deserts surrounding Al-Aḥsā and Al-Qatif oases during the 16th and 17th centuries.^[80] Under Barrak ibn Ghurayr of the Humaid, the Bani Khalid were able to expel Ottoman forces from the cities and towns in 1670 and proclaim their rule over the region.^[81][82] Ibn Ghurayr made his capital in Al-Mubarraz, where remnants of his castle stand today. According to Arabian folklore, one chief of the Bani Khalid attempted to protect the prized desert bustard (habari) from extinction by prohibiting the bedouin in his realm from poaching the bird's eggs, earning the tribe the appellation of "protectors of the eggs of the habari", an allusion to the chief's absolute supremacy over his realm.^[83] The first chieftain of the “Khawalid” was Haddori.^{[clarification needed]}

Like a vast majority of their subject people, in time the Khalidis adopted Shi'ite Islam (if they were not already so at the time of their ascendency). This led to a lasting animosity between them and the staunchly anti-Shi'ite

• Falaj
• Musandam Peninsula
• Ras Al Hadd
  • Ras al-Jinz
• Achaemenid Arabia

References