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Ordering space, politics and community in Manama, 1880s–1919 101

social separation between Sunnis and Shi‘is. The rich present-day popular
traditions concerning Manama during the age of pearling concentrate
almost exclusively on the feats and misfortunes of residents, immigrants
and local merchants. These oral narratives reflect the strong corporate
identities of urban communities in the making. Personal accounts of
immigration and patronage, which are still handed down from one gen-
eration to the other, reflect the process by which individuals carved out
new social, economic and political spaces in the urban arena.
The history of Ja‘far Muhammad Qannati can be taken as representa-
tive of that of thousands of immigrants who arrived in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century. He was born in Brazajan in the district of Fars in
1875 and reached the harbour of Muharraq in 1902 from the Persian port
of Kangun. He had no trade or skill, unlike his travelling companion who
was a sweet maker from the same village. Both had lost all their immediate
families and possessions as a result of a severe drought which had deci-
mated the population of Brazajan a few months earlier. With no money or
contacts in Bahrain they were offered accommodation in a makeshift hut
near the harbour. As Ja‘far and his friend could not pay rent, the same
individual who provided them with sleeping quarters also bought the
ingredients to make sweets. They then rented a stall in the suq of
Muharraq, paid back their creditor and eventually established their own
business. Realising that most Shi‘is lived in Manama, and that no ‘ashura’
was celebrated in Muharraq, they joined jama‘ah al-‘Ajam, the congrega-
tion of the homonymous house of mourning, by then the largest in the
town. Eventually they moved to Manama with the help of the ma’tam and,
eager to contribute to its upkeep, rented one of its properties. 63
Ja‘far Muhammad Qannati ended his journey from Iran as a member of
the vast network of clients who gravitated around Ma’tam al-‘Ajam al-
Kabir, a house of mourning which was established in the al-Mukharaqah
district following the inflow of immigrants from Iran after the 1860s. A
large majority of the congregation came from the district of Dashti, whose
capital Bushehr had suffered from chronic political instability and cyclical
food shortages after the consolidation of direct Qajar rule. After 1880 the
Bushehri and Kazeruni families, both closely associated with the ma’tam,
brought approximately 30 per cent of the Persian population of Dashti
under their protection to Manama. The heads of these two families were
themselves immigrants and representative of rising community leaders
who came to control Manama’s neighbourhoods. ‘Abd al-Nabi Kazeruni,
the contractor of Shaykh ‘Isa’s warehouse in the harbour and one of the

63
Transcript of interview with ‘Abbas Qannati (b. 1913), 8 December 1990, kindly pro-
vided by ‘Ali Akbar Bushehri.