Page 86 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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This simple statement carries a great meaning for our understanding of Bahrain and
the gulf in general. By the eighteenth century, there was an Arab zone largely
circumscribing the entire gulf. Niebuhr went on to describe the centers of trade,
Arab ports, that maintained themselves through maritime trade, fishing, and
pearling. He emphasized that these Arab groups did not cultivate their land. This
task was left to the indigenous Persian inhabitants of the coasts, whom Niebuhr
described as Shiites. Fuad Khuri (1980) points out that modern Bahrain shows a
similar differentiation of villages and occupations by religion and economic
factors. TTie modern coastal villages of Budaiya, Zellaq, Jao, and Askar are the
centers of Sunni tribal groups that have traditionally maintained themselves
through pearling, coastal trade, and offshore fishing. The Shia villages of Bahrain
are often located away from the coast. While the Shia have major control of such
subsistence food gathering networks as fish traps, they have little say in the use of
the land on which they are the cultivators. Market control, either in pearls,
produce, or land, is vested in the hands of the Sunni coastal groups. Khuri
considers these relationships to be a direct manifestation of earlier economic
patterns in the gulf and intimately tied to Arab seafaring.
Though we may not be able to mark precisely the founding of Arab
maritime trading ports in the gulf, the history of the Islamic era can provide a
greater understanding than is available at this time. This period marks the
beginning of a more complete written history. In fact, much of the knowledge of
still earlier periods is preserved only through the writings of Arab and Persian
historians and geographers. When used with proper respect for the completeness
and complexity of these sources, a great deal of valuable information may be
derived. This record is fragmentary, but it gives the first impression of detail,
I where earlier accounts have been largely broad interpretations.

The Early Islamic Period (A.D. 630-1055)

The name Bahrain came into active use during the Islamic era and referred to the
entire eastern Arabian coast from Qatif to the Trucial States. Tlie present island
of Bahrain was known by the name Awal. It was not until the