Bilad al-Qadeem (, ''The old country'') is a suburb of

Manama Manama ( ', Bahrani Arabic, Bahrani pronunciation: ) is the capital and List of cities in Bahrain, largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 297,502 as of 2012. Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is ...

, the capital city of

Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

. Bilad al-Qadeem used to be a separate town situated next to the village of Zinj until it was incorporated into Manama in the 20th century. The town was the historical and Islamic capital of Bahrain during much of the country's history.

History

The town is believed to have been one of the earliest settlements on the island of Bahrain. The area was a traditional area of rich agriculture and learning, with multiple date farms, orchards and gardens in the town's vicinity. In the 1600s, the visiting Portuguese explorer

Pedro Teixeira Pedro Teixeira (b.1570-1585 - d.4 July 1641), occasionally referred to as the Conqueror of the Amazon, was a Portuguese conquistador and military officer, who became, in 1637, the first European to travel up and down the entire length of the Am ...

noted that the town cultivated an extensive amount of

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

Safavid era

Prior to the Portuguese invasion in 1519, Bilad al-Qadeem served as the provincial capital of Bahrain and did so again later when

Safavid The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the begi ...

rule was restored in 1602. The town was traditionally a centre for Twelver Shi`ism, particularly in the

Usuli Usulism () is the majority school of Twelver Shia Islam in opposition to the minority Akhbarism. The Usulis favor the use of (reasoning) in the creation of new rules of jurisprudence; in assessing hadith to exclude traditions they believe u ...

theological thought, and was the seat of the chief

mujtahid ''Ijtihad'' ( ; ' , ) is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. It is contrasted with '' taqlid'' (i ...

of the islands, who was the second most influential political figure after the Persian governor. The cleric, locally known as Shaikh al-Ra'is (), was carefully chosen from the Safavid capital,

Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...

19th century

The

Durand Stone The Durand Stone is an artifact in Bahrain dating back to the Kassite period (1600 BC — 1155 BC). Named after Captain Edward Law Durand who had first identified it, the stone is a 25–30 cm wide and 70–80 cm long black ba ...

, an artifact that provided the first archaeological evidence of the existence of the

Dilmun Dilmun, or Telmun, ( Sumerian: ,Transliteration: Similar text: later 𒉌𒌇(𒆠), NI.TUKki = dilmunki; ) was an ancient East Semitic–speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on contextual ...

civilisation in Bahrain, was first discovered here by Captain Edward Law Durand.

20th century

In J. G. Lorimer's

Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The ''Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia'' (nicknamed ''Lorimer'') is a two-volume encyclopedia compiled by John Gordon Lorimer. The ''Gazetteer'' was published in secret by the British government in India in 1908 and 1915 a ...

, the town was described as a large scattered village with some 350 mud houses and ruins in 1908. The village had several quarters including Bilad-ar-Rafi () to the west, and the Khamis souq () to the northwest where a weekly market was held year long. The ruins of the Madrasah Abu Zaidan (likely the

Khamis Mosque The Khamis Mosque (; transliterated: ''Masǧid al-ḫamīs'') is believed to be the first mosque in Bahrain, built during the era of the Umayyad caliph Umar II. According to '' Al Wasat'' journalist Kassim Hussain, other sources mention that it ...

) are situated 0.5 mile west of the village. The Abu Zaidan spring was also reported to be located amongst the ruins of the village. The population of Bilad al Qadeem in 1908 consisted of the

Baharna The Bahārna (, or ), 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. They inhabited the area even before the arrival ...

, many of whom worked as

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle (mollusc), mantle) of a living Exoskeleton, shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pear ...

merchants, tailors and farmers. Amongst crops grown were

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...

s (estimated number of 11,500),

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, together with western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and i ...

pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punica, Punicoideae, that grows between tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it is thought to have o ...

rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

jasmine Jasmine (botanical name: ''Jasminum'', pronounced ) is a genus of shrubs and vines in the olive family of Oleaceae. It contains around 200 species native to tropical and warm temperate regions of Eurasia, Africa, and Oceania. Jasmines are wid ...

s, and

almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...

s.'Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf. Vol. II. Geographical and Statistical. J G Lorimer. 1908' 99(332/2084), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/C91/4, in Qatar Digital Library ccessed 17 July 2018/ref>

Notable sites

Bilad al-Qadeem is a well known site for ancient monuments such as the

, Saboor Mosque, Holy Alawyyah school and Abu-Anbarah cemetery.

References

{{Neighborhoods of Manama Populated places in the Capital Governorate, Bahrain Neighborhoods of Manama