Page 110 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

90 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

Even a trader of modest means such as Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman
al-Sahhaf, who died around 1915, owned his own shop and was related
to the most powerful Hawala families of Manama (including Kanu, al-
Mutawwa‘ and al-Mahmid) through numerous marriages. 38
The Sunni court presided over by the qadi Qasim al-Mahzah was also
a key player in the politics of real estate of early twentieth-century
Manama. During his long tenure of office the judge, who supervised
awqaf properties and acted as the official muhtasib (market regulator
according to Islamic law), was instrumental in protecting the land regime
and the interests of the Al Khalifah. As the milk brother of the ruler, he
also came to enjoy the rights and privileges of the royal household and
became the largest owner of property in central Manama after Shaykh ‘Isa.
Examples of real estate turned to public use also suggest that Sunnis
continued to have privileged access to the markets. Unlike in the residen-
tial districts of Manama, Shi‘i merchants were unable to establish reli-
gious or community institutions. The mosques, for instance, were strictly
supported by endowments under awqaf al-sunnah the largest was built by
‘Abd al-‘Aziz Lutf ‘Ali Khunji, a rich Persian merchant from Lingah,
between 1910 and 1912. 39

Urban quarters
Multiple traditions of settlement supported the unregulated and often
random growth of Manama, whose harbour economy sustained the
expansion of its population from an estimated 8,000 inhabitants in the
early 1860s to approximately 25,000 in 1904. Earlier accounts concen-
trate on the harbour and the central markets, and make only occasional
references to the residential districts. In 1862, Palgrave reported an
impoverished town whose landscape was dominated by barastiswith
only a few dilapidated stone buildings. 40 At the turn of the century
Lorimer described Manama as ‘damp, squalid and depressing … the
habitations in the outskirts are for the most part huts with sloping roofs
standing in courtyards surrounded by hurdles of upright date fronds.’ The

38
File n. 49, IT; Bushehri, ‘al-Manamah al-qadimah’.
39
Tasjil Idarah al-Tabu (land registration document) n. 288/367 of 1345 (1926–7), BA.
I‘lanat Tabu al-Bahrayn,I‘lan n. 303 of 1360, April 1941, Da’irah al-Shu’un al-
Qanuniyyah (Directorate of Legal Affairs, hereafter DSQ). al-Nabhani, al-Tuhfah al-
Nabhaniyyah, p. 46. After 1883 the oldest mosque on record, Muhammad ibn Jum‘an,
was partly supported by the properties of the Bashmi family, the largest rice importers of
Manama. Wasiyyah waqf ahli (family waqf will), Safar 1293/February–March 1876;
waqfiyyah (certificate of endowment), Rabi‘ al-Awwali 1300/January–February 1883,
BA; interview with Ibrahim Bashmi, Manama, 18 March 2004.
40
Palgrave, Narrative of a Year’s Journey, vol. II, pp. 208–9.