Manama Travel Guide - History

The islanders were soon, however, disturbed by a series of invaders that arrived here by sea, beginning with the Assyrians during the BC period and ending with the Arabs.

During these many centuries Dilmun, as it was at first known before its name was changed many times by each new invading power, was a trading post whose importance fluctuated depending on which empire dominated.

The Qarmartians, as this group was known, ransacked Mecca in 930 during the sacred Hajj, killing hundreds before escaping with the much revered Black Stone. A feud with the Baghdad-based Abbasids less than 50 years later saw the Qarmartians run out of town.

The next major foreign intervention in Bahrain came at the beginning of the 1500s when the Portuguese naval fleets arrived, quickly crushing the small local population in Manama and the surrounding areas.

Once the Persians eventually triumphed, it wasn’t long before the Al Khalifa family appeared from nowhere, or at least from nearby Qatar, to take control of the whole of the island at the end of the 18th century.

The new rulers, whose dynasty continues to this day, sought protection against the Persians from the now dominant, empire-building British as Manama entered a period of colonialism that increased over time, not least when oil was discovered 30kms south in the centre of the island and first extracted in 1931.