Page 58 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

38 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

the territory and to bind the agricultural population to submission. 56 After

Shaykh ‘Isa’s accession in 1869, the al-qusur of Muharraq, which housed

the Al Khalifah and the leaders of the pearling tribes, became the centres

of the new Dar al-Hukumah which emerged under British protection.

Modelled on the Bayt Shaykh ‘Isa (the residence of the ruler built in the

late 1820s) they became the powerful symbols of tribal authority. 57 In this

period, the consolidation of dynastic rule led to the emergence of a new

type of public architecture which affirmed the tribal pedigree of the ruling

family and celebrated the Bedouin arts of generosity, hospitality and

physical prowess. The palatial complex built in 1900–1 by Shaykh

Hamad (the son of Shaykh ‘Isa and heir apparent) in al-Sakhir followed

the tradition of the early Al Khalifah rulers who had established their

strongholds far from populated areas. Yet it embodied the more elaborate

protocol of the twentieth-century court with separate quarters for guests,

breeding areas for animals, and grounds for camel and horse races.

Younger members of the family followed suit and sponsored their own

public residences in the vicinity of al-Sakhir: relatively small buildings to

entertain guests with central chambers surrounded by arched galleries. 58

The residences of merchants, tribal leaders and members of the ruling
family were the venues where the majority of the urban and rural popula-
tion constructed their views of self and community. Shi‘i merchants
sponsored ‘ashura’ and hosted in their houses the congregations, known

as ma’tams, which celebrated the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. They also

subsidised communal gatherings in open spaces (barahih, sing. barahah)
which were established social institutions across pre-oil Eastern Arabia,
usually named after their benefactors. 59 Among the Sunnis community
life evolved around the houses of merchants, ‘ulama’ and tribal leaders
who organised assemblies in their majlises, reception rooms located in
their mansions.
Ma’tams and majlises constituted the setting for the political social-
isation of large segments of the urban population in the pre-oil era. As
social institutions, they illustrate the different political organisation and
religious worldviews of Shi‘is and Sunnis. Ma’tams nurtured the link
56
Brucks, ‘Memoir Descriptive of the Navigation of the Gulf’ in Arabian Gulf Intelligence,
p. 566, 568; Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. II, p. 1589. For the sketches of Bahrain’s forts see
Onley, ‘The Politics of Protection’, 62.
57
C. Hardy-Guilbert and C. Lalande, La Maison de Shaikh ‘Isa à Bahrayn (Paris: ADPF,
1981).
58
al-Nabhani, al-Tuhfah al-Nabhaniyyah, pp. 48–9; Tajir, ‘Aqd al-lal, p. 42; Lorimer,
Gazetteer, vol. II, p. 227; C. Hardy-Guilbert, ‘A Bahraini Architect in Qatar at the
Beginning of our Century: Houses and Palaces in the Arabian Gulf Countries’, confer-
ence abstract, [n.d], Typescripts, 1990–2006 Bushehri Archive, hereafter BA.
59
‘Abdallah, Samahij fi al-tarikh, p. 211.