Page 105 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Ordering space, politics and community in Manama, 1880s–1919 85

directly from the pearl banks. Unlike in Muharraq, where the trade was
exclusively in the hands of Sunnis of tribal origin, Manama’s al-tawawish
included members of Baharna families such as the al-Mudayfa‘, al-
‘Urayyad and Ibn Rajab which specialised exclusively in this trade, and
the Hawala al-Wazzans and the al-Qusaybis from Najd, who were also
import–export general merchants. The Baharna tawawish embodied the
indigenous seafaring tradition of Manama, and were able to establish
27
highly successful family businesses.
Patterns of exchange and distribution of commodities to the population
supported the formation of the two market blocs which dominated the
town in the late nineteenth century. The first and the largest commercial
complex gravitated around the import economy and local crafts. The
second, which grew alongside it, specialised in agricultural produce and
developed as an appendix of the rural estates controlled by the Al
Khalifah.
Suqs trading in imported goods were sustained by immigrants, and
their development is an indication of the consolidation of commercial
links between the wealthy import merchants who owned the large al-‘amarat
on the seafront and regional and international ports. The mention of Suq
al-‘Ajam and Suq al-Garashi (the Persian and Garashi markets, the latter a
village in the hinterland of Lingah) in local records dating between 1860
and 1872 suggests the consolidation of a group of influential Persian food
dealers who displaced their Indian counterparts, the community which
had monopolised much of the trade in foodstuffs in previous decades. 28
The small Jewish suq (Suq al-Yahud), mentioned for the first time around
1890, emerged as an integral part of Manama’sexpanding financial sector,
facilitating money transfers for export merchants to India or Europe and
supporting a lucrative pilgrimage business in the form of loans granted to
29
Muslim pilgrims en route to Mecca, Karbala and Najaf.
As was the case in many pre-modern port settlements, the marketplace
fostered the social unity of immigrants from particular villages, towns and
regions. Traditional skills, crafts and family connections were activated to
suit the needs of the population and harmonised with the requirements of
the harbour economy. Social advancement and professional mobility
among the rank-and-file of the labour force employed in the markets

27
Interview with Ibrahim Uthman, Manama, 14 June 1998; Rashid al-Zayyani, al-Ghaws
wa al-tawwashah (Manama: Nashr al-Ayyam, 1998), p. 121; Sayf, al-Ma’tam, vol. I,
pp. 103 ff.
28
‘Ali Akbar Bushehri, ‘al-Manamah al-qadimah: dhakaraha al-Burtughaliyyun wa al-
‘Uthmaniyyun’, Banurama al-Khalij, July 1991.
29
‘al-Yahud bayna al-Bahrayn’, al-Mar’at al-Yawm, 9 July 2002; ‘Ali A. Bushehri, ‘The
Jews of Bahrain’, typescript, 5 pages, December 2003.