Page 51 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Indigenous state traditions and the dialectics of urbanisation 31

Distinctions between the urban and rural spheres were also enshrined
in the spatial and socio-economic organisation of settlements. The neigh-
bourhoods of al-Hidd and al-Budayya‘ constituted close networks of
solidarity which reflected the organisation of pearl production. Clients,
slaves and divers concentrated around tribal leaders cum pearling entre-
preneurs. In contrast, Shi‘i villages were organised around agricultural
allotments (mazra‘ah) which included huts, canals and water wells.
Customary water rights played a crucial role in the organisation of neigh-
bourhoods. Described from a distance by foreign travellers as clusters of
poor dwellings hidden by greenery and date clumps, the history of the
development of these villages is mainly preserved in local tradition. 43 The
oldest nucleus of al-Samahij on the Muharraq Island, for instance, main-
tained a predominantly agricultural landscape until the mid-1950s with
agricultural allotments, gardens and springs. 44
The contrasting spatial order of Muharraq and Manama was testimony
to the different patterns of social organisation which underlined the
evolution of the two largest settlements of Bahrain. In Muharraq, eco-
nomic specialisation and sectarian affiliation played a part in the organ-
isation of residential districts at the turn of the twentieth century. While
the oldest and largest quarters of the town housed the tribal aristocracy of
the town, subordinate tribes, Shi‘i artisans and Hawala merchant com-
munities (the only non-tribal commercial elites of the town) formed their
own enclaves. 45 Muharraq’s traditional urban layout was still apparent in
the oil era. Although by the 1960s the government had reorganised urban
districts following a numbering system (allegedly in order to avoid dis-
putes over the names of localities), inner-city neighbourhoods were
still known by the names of members of the Al Khalifah family and of
leading tribes (see Map 3). In contrast, the residential areas of Manama
had a fairly mixed population and developed primarily as immigration
units, as will be explained in Chapter 4. It is in these neighbourhoods that

1875, R/15/2/192 IOR. According to oral tradition the Shi‘i population of Muharraq did
not belong to the indigenous population of Bahrain but arrived from the mainland with
the Al Khalifah.
43
General information on Shi‘i villages are included in Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. II, pp. 217–
29; Tajir, ‘Aqd al-lal, pp. 27–48; Muhammad Ibrahim Kazeruni, Tarikh banadir va jaza’ir
Khalij-i Fars (Teheran: Mu’assasah-i Farhangi-i Jahangiri, 1367 [1988–9]), pp. 86–101.
The few accounts of rural Bahrain by the missionaries of the American Dutch Reformed
Church based in Manama focussed primarily on pearling settlements. H. G. Van Vlack,
‘A Tour of the Bahrein Villages’ in The Arabian Mission: Field Reports, Quarterly Letters,
Neglected Arabia, Arabia Calling, 8 vols. (Gerrards Cross: Archive Editions, 1993), vol. III,
94 (July–September 1915), pp. 8–11; G. J. Pennings ‘A Trip to Zellag’ in The Arabian
Mission, vol. III, 82 (July–September 1912), pp. 11–13.
44
‘Abdallah, Samahij fi al-tarikh, pp. 60, 101–4, 150.
45
The pre-oil town and its neighbourhoods are described by Lorimer in Gazetteer, vol. II,
pp. 1269–71.