Page 126 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

106 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

religious patronage differed. Among the Sunnis, the rich Persian and

Najdi merchants opened their majlises during religious holidays for the

distribution of alms to the poor. Among the Shi‘is, community life centred

upon ma’tam congregations as elsewhere on the islands; by 1913 Manama

had thirteen buildings where congregations gathered, of which eleven

were controlled by the Baharna and two by the Persian community. 77

The houses of mourning and the organisation of sect

As a testimony of the love for Imam Husayn and as the venues for ‘ashura’

celebrations, ma’tam congregations and the specialised buildings which

hosted them translated individual devotion into demonstrations of col-
lective mourning for the shuhada’ al-Karbala’, the ill-fated Imam and his

family slaughtered in southern Iraq in AD 680. Unlike mosques, ma’tams

were not under the scrutiny of qadis or imams but were managed by
households and groups through consensus. Houses of mourning ranked
in popularity and importance in accordance with their ability to organise
religious celebrations and to provide religious instruction by sponsoring
mullas and preachers who acquired fame by their association with impor-
tant ma’tams. A crucial factor in their success was also their performance
as community halls staging funerals, marriages and recreational activities.
The establishment of ‘official’ houses of mourning as independent build-
ings at the end of the nineteenth century (as opposed to the informal
congregations which had gathered in private residences in the early Al
Khalifah period) symbolised the economic and political emancipation of
the Shi‘i community. The profile of Manama’s ma’tams became established
after 1891 when Mirza Muhammad Isma‘il, the local agent for the British
India Steam Navigation Company, used his official position to lead the first
open air celebration of ‘ashura’ in the inner city. This was a momentous
event for Manama’sShi‘is. People flocked behind a heavily armed Mirza
Isma‘il who proudly made his way through Manama’s streets in defiance of
the veto imposed by the rulers on public manifestations of Shi‘idevotion. 78
Ma’tam buildings were also the new architectural manifestation of
mercantile wealth engendered by the pearl boom, and offer an indication
of patterns of investment in real estate throughout the town. At the turn of
the twentieth century Ma’tam al-‘Urayyad, which was built around 1870
in the garden of Ibrahim ibn ‘Ali al-‘Urayyad (a pearl merchant), was
77
Interviews with Tayyebah Hoodi, Khalid al-Bassam and Muhammmad Ishaq ‘Abd al-
Rahman al-Khan, Manama, 21 and 22 March and 8 April 2004; Sayf, al-Ma’tam,vol.I;
al-Nabhani, al-Tuhfah al-Nabhaniyyah,p.22.
78
Interview with ‘Ali Akbar Bushehri, Manama, 20 May 2000.