Arab, Bahraini

The Baharna (singular Bahrani) are the Shia Arabs of historic Bahrain, the region that once took in the islands of modern Bahrain and the oases of Qatif and al-Ahsa on the Arabian mainland. They regard themselves, and are widely regarded, as the islands' original inhabitants, descended from the partly Christianised Arab tribes of Abd al-Qays, Bakr ibn Wa'il and Tamim and the Aramaic-speaking farmers, Persians and Jews who lived there before Islam. The region accepted Islam in 628 and became a centre of Twelver Shia scholarship under later local dynasties and Safavid rule (1602-1717). In 1783 the Sunni Al Khalifa and allied Utub tribes from Zubarah took the islands; the Baharna farmers were reduced to tenants on tribal estates, paid special taxes and owed forced labour until British-backed reforms in the 1920s. Persecution and Omani raids drove waves of Baharna to Qatif, al-Ahsa, Kuwait, southern Iraq, the Iranian coast and later Dubai from the 18th century. Within Bahrain they are distinguished from the Ajam (Shia of Persian origin) and from Sunni Bahrainis; Hasawis and Qatifis, Shia families from the mainland oases, speak varieties of the same dialect and are counted with them. Their speech, Baharna Arabic (abv), is a sedentary dialect with Aramaic, Akkadian and Persian loanwords in farming and craft vocabulary, quite distinct from the Gulf Arabic of the ruling tribes.

Baharna life grew from the date gardens, freshwater springs and fish traps of the north and west of Bahrain Island and from the sea. Villages kept hereditary crafts: palm-frond baskets, mats (sufra) and fans in Karbabad and Jasra, cloth weaving in Bani Jamra, pottery in A'ali, boat-building and metalwork in Manama and Muharraq. Food centres on rice, fish and dates: machboos, mahyawa fish sauce, dried salted fish (lehleh) and sweet rice with safi fish. Women's festive dress is the gold-embroidered thob al-nashal. Social life revolves around the ma'tam (husayniya), the community hall of each village or quarter, where men and women gather for religious recitation, weddings, funerals and charity, and around large extended families who marry within the community. Most Baharna now live in dense villages that have merged into the Manama suburbs, and work in government, industry and services; landholding, unemployment and housing remain points of grievance.

Baharna are Twelver Shia Muslims of the Ja'fari school. Religious life is organised around hundreds of ma'tams and mosques endowed through the Ja'fari Endowments Directorate, and around clerics trained in Najaf and Qom. The Muharram season is the high point: nightly majlis recitations of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, processions through Manama and the villages on Ashura with chest-beating and passion lamentations, and the distribution of food (nadhr). Other practices include vows and visits to local shrines, and the Arbaeen pilgrimage to Karbala. Bahrain was historically a stronghold of the Akhbari school (Yusuf al-Bahrani, d. 1772); the Usuli school now dominates, with followers of Ayatollah Sistani and of Ayatollah Khamenei, whose local representative Isa Qassim led the community until he was stripped of citizenship in 2016. Since 2011 the state has closed the Ulema Council, banned the Friday prayer at Diraz, summoned preachers and restricted Ashura processions; in 2026 dozens of clerics were arrested. Religion is therefore also a marker of political identity, and secularisation among the young is little documented.

The Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church in America worked in Manama from 1893, and its hospital and the National Evangelical Church remain; nearly all its converts came from other communities. The full Standard Arabic Bible, the JESUS film and Arabic Christian satellite and online media are available, but there is no Scripture or audio in Baharna Arabic. No Baharna church is known; converts are few and hidden, and leaving Islam brings loss of family, marriage and inheritance rights under Ja'fari family law and strong community pressure.

The Pearl Roundabout protests of February-March 2011 drew mostly Baharna demonstrators demanding a constitutional monarchy and an end to discrimination. They were crushed with Saudi and Emirati troops under the Gulf Cooperation Council; dozens were killed, thousands dismissed from jobs, and about 30 Shia mosques demolished. Al-Wefaq, the largest Shia political society, was dissolved in 2016, Ayatollah Isa Qassim was stripped of citizenship in 2016, and police killed five people at the sit-in around his house in Diraz in May 2017. In 2026, during the war between the United States and Iran, about 350 people were detained, 69 lost their citizenship and leading clerics were arrested on charges of links with Iran's Revolutionary Guard.