Jump to content

Baharna

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Bahrainis.
Bahārna
البحارنة
Regions with significant populations
Bahrain, Qatif, Al-Hasa
Languages
Arabic (Bahrani Arabic, Gulf Arabic)
Religion
Shia Islam

The Bahārna (Arabic: بحارنة) are an ethnoreligious group of Shia Muslim Arabs indigenous to the historical region of Bahrain. They are generally regarded to be the original inhabitants of Eastern Arabia.[1] They inhabited the area even before the arrival of the Banu Utbah in the 18th century which the Bahraini royal family descends from.[2] Most Bahraini citizens are Baharna. Regions with most of the population are in Eastern Arabia (Bahrain, Qatif, al-Ahsa), with significant populations in Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Iraq, and Hormozgan province of Iran.[3][4]

Origin

[edit]

The Baharna are of the descendants of the tribes that inhabited Bahrain. The tribes are Abd Al-Qays, bani Bakr, Bani Wael, Bani Tamim and Bani Ammar. According to one historian, Arab settlements in Bahrain may have begun around 300 B.C. and control of the island was maintained by the Rabyah tribe, who converted to Islam in 630 A.D.[5]

Local anecdotal evidence suggests that the Baharna's ancestry is diverse as some word variants spoken in the dialects of the native people of the villages of Bani Jamra and A'ali are only used in places as far as Yemen and Oman, indicating southern Arabian ancestry.[6] Many Baharna families descended from members of the Banu Abdul Qays, who were mostly Nestorian Christians before the seventh century,[7] as-well as the Anizah tribe which is a cousin tribe the Abd Al-Qays and are both part of the greater Rab’ia tribe. Many are also from the Bani Tamim tribe, such as the ruler of Bahrain during the early islamic era, and Al-Azd.[8]

The Bahrani Arabic dialect exhibits Akkadian, Aramaic and Syriac features.[9][10] The sedentary people of pre-Islamic Bahrain were Aramaic speakers and to some degree Persian speakers, while Syriac functioned as a liturgical language.[11] The Bahrani dialect might have borrowed the Akkadian, Aramaic and Syriac features from Mesopotamian Arabic.[12]

Etymology

[edit]

The term Bahrani serves to distinguish the Bahrana from other Bahraini ethnic groups, such as the ethnic Persian Bahrainis who fall under the term Ajam, as well as from the Sunni Arabs in Bahrain who are known as Al Arab ("Arabs"), such as Bani Utbah.[13] In the United Arab Emirates, the Baharna make up 5% of Emiratis and are generally descended from Baharna coming around 100–200 years ago.[citation needed]

In Arabic, bahrayn is the dual form of bahr ("sea"), so al-Bahrayn means "the Two Seas". However, which two seas were originally intended remains in dispute.[14] The term appears five times in the Qur'an, but does not refer to the modern island—originally known to the Arabs as "Awal".

Today, Bahrain's "two seas" are instead generally taken to be the bay east and west of the island,[15] the seas north and south of the island,[citation needed] or the salt and fresh water present above and below the ground.[16] In addition to wells, there are places in the sea north of Bahrain where fresh water bubbles up in the middle of the salt water, noted by visitors since antiquity.[17]

An alternate theory offered by al-Ahsa was that the two seas were the Persian Gulf and a peaceful lake on the mainland Near Al-Ahsa, known as Al-Asfar Lake; still another provided by Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari is that the more formal name Bahri (lit. "belonging to the sea") would have been misunderstood and so was opted against.[16]

See also

[edit]

Language and culture

Geography

Bahrani People

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Al-Rumaihi, Mohammed Ghanim (1973). "Social and political change in Bahrain since the First World War" (PDF). Durham University. pp. 46–47. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 Aug 2022.
  2. ^ Krieg, Andreas (2017-03-27). Socio-Political Order and Security in the Arab World: From Regime Security to Public Security. Springer. p. 62. ISBN 978-3-319-52243-2.
  3. ^ Holes, Clive (2001). Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia: Glossary. BRILL. ISBN 978-9004107632.
  4. ^ الجزيري, الوسط-محمود. "البحرينيون في بندر لنجة: نزحوا بعاداتهم... فشيَّدوا المنامة في كل زقاق". صحيفة الوسط البحرينية (in Arabic). Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  5. ^ "Bahrain - History Background". education.stateuniversity.com. Archived from the original on October 11, 2015.
  6. ^ Language Variation And Change In A Modernising Arab State: The Case Of Bahrain Google Books
  7. ^ Peter Hellyer. Nestorian Christianity in the Pre-Islamic UAE and Southeastern Arabia, Journal of Social Affairs, volume 18, number 72, winter 2011
  8. ^ "من هم البحارنة؟ – ســنــوات الــجــريــش" (in Arabic). 2009-06-06. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
  9. ^ Jastrow, Otto (2002). Non-Arabic Semitic elements in the Arabic dialects of Eastern Arabia. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 270–279. ISBN 9783447044912. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  10. ^ Holes, Clive (2001). Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia: Glossary. BRILL. pp. XXIX–XXX. ISBN 978-9004107632. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  11. ^ Smart, J. R. (2013). Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language And Literature. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780700704118. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  12. ^ Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia: Glossary By Clive Holes. Page XXIX
  13. ^ Lorimer, John Gordon, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, republished by Gregg International Publishers Limited Westemead. Farnborough, Hants., England and Irish University Press, Shannon, Irelend. Printed in Holland, 1970, Vol. II A, entries on "Bahrain" and "Baharna"
  14. ^ Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. I. "Bahrayn", p. 941. E.J. Brill (Leiden), 1960.
  15. ^ Room, Adrian. Origins and Meanings of the Names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features and Historic Sites. 2006. ISBN 978-0-7864-2248-7.
  16. ^ a b Faroughy, Abbas. The Bahrein Islands (750–1951): A Contribution to the Study of Power Politics in the Persian Gulf. Verry, Fisher & Co. (New York), 1951.
  17. ^ Rice, Michael. The Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf, c. 5000-323 BC. Routledge, 1994. ISBN 0415032687.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baharna&oldid=1238727664"