Jannusan () is a village in the

Northern Governorate The Northern Governorate () is one of the four governorates of Bahrain. It includes parts of the former municipalities of Al Mintaqah al Gharbiyah, Al Mintaqah al Wusta, Al Mintaqah al Shamaliyah, Jidd Haffs and Madinat Hamad. Settlemen ...

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 ...

. It is known for its gardens and orchards, which are frequented by tourists. The area's historical catering to tourists has caused grievances between the Bahraini government and the local populace, with residents complaining of inadequate housing and cramped living spaces. In response, the government has built and subsidized social housing in the village in conjunction with the country's major banks.

Etymology

There are a number of explanations for how the name Jannusan came to be. According to Bahraini historian Sheikh Muhammad Ali Al-Tajer, Jannusan is a warped

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the Arabic words for ''

jinn Jinn or djinn (), alternatively genies, are supernatural beings in pre-Islamic Arabian religion and Islam. Their existence is generally defined as parallel to humans, as they have free will, are accountable for their deeds, and can be either ...

'' (a supernatural being in Arab and Islamic mythology) and human. Meanwhile, the philologist Al-Nasiri wrote that Jannusan is a corruption 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 ...

name Jun San. Locals meanwhile insist the name is of

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

origin, a distortion of the words "paradise of man" in the

Persian language Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...

, a reference to the picturesque landscape surrounding the village.

Social issues

Adequate housing has historically been a point of contention between locals and the Bahraini government. In 2004, residents claimed that less than ten percent of the land in the village was inhabited by locals, while the rest consisted of gardens and orchards meant to attract foreign tourists. The Bahrain-based Ithmaar Bank announced in May 2021 that it had begun offering financing for villas at the Danaat Al Baraka complex in Jannusan, as part of the government's social housing scheme to help Bahraini nationals purchase their first homes. The following month, the Al Baraka Islamic Bank announced that the complex's first residents had moved in. Pro-democracy protests took place in Jannusan in 2013, and again in 2023, amid

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fasting, fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are ...

s by imprisoned democracy activists.

Tourism

As part of its 2021 national revitalization campaign, the government-run Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA) installed signs at the Jannusan Tylos Necropolis, with QR

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

s directing visitors to a website and video with further information in Arabic and English.

Accidents

The collapse of an under-construction building in Jannusan at 8 a.m. on 22 July 2018 seriously injured five people. It was the first such accident in the village and prompted an investigation by the interior ministry.

References

{{Northern Governorate of Bahrain Populated places in the Northern Governorate, Bahrain