Bahrain

The incidence and ossification of sesamoid bones in the hands and feet were studied in 922 radiographs (400 hands and 522 feet) in an Arab population from Bahrain, 5-83 years of age and consisting of 549 adults (393 men and 156 women) and 373 children (286 boys and 97 girls). All radiographs of the hand and foot in the adult population showed two sesamoid bones in the thumb metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint and in the hallucal metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint, respectively. Only 2.3% and 1.5% of hands showed sesamoids at the MCP joints of the middle and ring fingers respectively compared to a reported incidence of 7.1% for each digit in Caucasians. The incidence of sesamoids in the MTP joints of third and fourth toes (0.6% each) and inferior to the hallucal interphalangeal joint (3.1%) is probably the lowest reported so far in the literature. In the hands, ossification commenced first in the thumb sesamoids, at the age of 10 years in females and 11 years in males and was completed by the age of 13 and 14 years, respectively. In the feet, ossification began first in the hallucal sesamoids at the age of 8 years in females and 9 years in males and was completed by the age of 10 years in both sexes. The incidence and ossification of sesamoids in the hands and feet in the Arab population from Bahrain seem to differ considerably from reports in other populations. The clinical significance of our findings is discussed.

Bahrain’s Royal Family, the Al Khalifa, has long pursued a strategy of divide and rule in order to prevent the emergence of cross-opposition coalitions, while exacerbating the country’s sectarian divide has become a critical means of ensuring regime survival. This article examines the country’s twentieth century imperial and post-independence history through the framework of divide and rule theory, providing crucial context for current events in Bahrain. It demonstrates how a divide and rule strategy is structurally embedded within the ruling family’s mode of governance, and reveals how it continues to be employed as an effective means of maintaining absolute monarchy in Bahrain.

Keywords: Bahrain, Arab Spring, Gulf Cooperation Council, divide and rule, sectarianism

On s’est beaucoup interrogé sur le pourquoi du « Printemps arabe » mais aucun ouvrage n’avait encore étudié comment il s’était déroulé. Parce que la plupart des chercheurs ici réunis ont observé les événements en direct, ce livre offre une véritable ethnographie des protestations « en train de se faire ».

Les contributions portent sur les pays qui ont connu un changement de régime (Tunisie, Égypte, Yémen, Libye) mais également sur ceux où la répression a permis aux pouvoirs en place de se maintenir au moins temporairement (Syrie, Bahreïn) et sur ceux où les protestations n’ont pas débouché sur une situation révolutionnaire (Maroc, Algérie, Jordanie). L’approche adoptée par les auteurs permet de rendre pleinement compte de la spécificité de chacun des contextes étudiés, montrant comment l’élan révolutionnaire, qui balaie alors le monde arabe, connaît des traductions locales très diverses. L’étude de ces révolutions montre aussi qu’elles ne sont pas une simple éruption spontanée qui viendrait réveiller une société jusque-là apathique mais qu’elles s’enracinent dans l’histoire des contestations de chacun des pays concernés.

Les « témoignages analytiques » proposés ici constituent une source très précieuse pour ceux qui s’efforcent de mieux comprendre le plus grand bouleversement politique survenu dans le monde arabe depuis l’ère des indépendances.

This work is written by Matthew Gray.
Rentier state theory (RST), which seeks to explain the impacts of external payments—or rents—on state-society relations and governance, has been in wide usage for over two decades, and is still routinely cited by scholars writing on the Gulf or other parts of the world. Its tenets are widely—if by no means unanimously— accepted, and retain a strong validity at the broader level. However, RST has not adapted enough to explain the dramatic changes in the political economies of the Gulf in the past two decades or so, including the responses of Dubai, Bahrain, and more recently Qatar and Abu Dhabi, to globalization, new technologies, freer trade and investments, social changes, and development imperatives. It is argued here that a new phase of RST—“late rentierism”—should be applied to the wealthy Arab Gulf states. The case for late rentierism is made with an emphasis on the shortcomings or oversimplifications of other rentier approaches. This study also describes and explains late rentierism through a discussion and elucidation of its major features and characteristics, including how these vary, or not, from those of other rentier explanations.

هذا البحث يحاول تسليط الضوء على أهم وأبرز القواعد التي يقوم عليها الإعلان القضائي التقليدي، ومدى إمكانية تطويعها في استخدامات البريد الإلكتروني كأحد الوسائل الحديثة للإعلان القضائي، من ناحية القواعد الشكلية المقررة في الإعلان، وقواعد العلم اليقيني أو الحكمي بمضمون الإعلان، وقواعد الموطن بطبيعة الحال، وهو ما نتناوله في ثلاثة مباحث، على أن يسبقها مبحث تمهيدي يشكل مدخلاً مفاهيمياً لإعلان الأوراق القضائية عبر البريد الإلكتروني في ظل التطورات التكنولوجية الحديثة.

Principles of judicial notices via e-mail: An analytical study of Bahrain's civil and commercial procedure law

Published in: The Constitutional Court journal - Bahrain
volume(2), issue(4), January 2015

This chapter traces the birth, rise, and evolution of political movements in Bahrain throughout the long twentieth century, taking as its starting point the beginning of direct British presence in the local political scene in 1900, and ending with the aftermath of the mass protests that engulfed the islands in 2011. It highlights four intersecting dichotomies that have characterized these political movements across time: trans-sectarian versus ethnosectarian, national versus transnational, reformist versus revolutionary, and public versus underground. It sheds light on the importance of externally imposed structural factors on local developments on the island, including British colonial absolutist rule, the discovery of oil and the subsequent fluctuation in the commodity's global prices, and the rise of American hegemony. Taking its cue from the work of the autonomistas, the analysis also highlights the central role that political movements have played in shaping the actions and reactions of the state. The state's attempts to contain these movements, and the contestation between the two sides, played a central role in shaping the contours of both state and society across Bahrain's long century.

Burkhard Hofmann (geb. 1954) arbeitet seit 1991 als Facharzt für Psychotherapeutische Medizin in eigener Praxis in Hamburg und besucht seit zehn Jahren mehrfach im Jahr für etwa zehn Tage (15) das Königreich Bahrain zur Behandlung arabischer PatientInnen. Anhand diverser Fallgeschichten skizziert er einfühlsam zentrale Dynamiken der arabischen Seele. Hofmann endet mit pessimistischen Gedanken zur Machbarkeit von Integration von Muslimen in europäische Gesellschaften („schlichte Realitätsverleugnung“, 283) oder der Vorstellung eines Euro-Islams: „Ein bisschen Unterwerfung geht genauso wenig wie ein bisschen schwanger“ (268). Daher sein Fazit (283-285): „Das Verleugnen des Trennenden hilft nicht bei der Wirklichkeitsbewältigung. (…) Und manchmal ist das Getrenntleben nicht nur für Paare die bessere Lösung.“ Die Kernthesen überzeugen und so ist die Studie äußerst hilfreich zur Vertiefung des Verständnisses der seelischen Verfasstheit der einheimischen Araber in den Golfstaaten der Gegenwart. Ärzte und Psychotherapeuten mit muslimischen PatientInnen werden das Buch mit sehr großem Gewinn lesen.

The 2007/2008 global financial crisis has given a significant impact on the performance of banking industry worldwide. The objective of this study is to see the impact of global financial crisis towards the financial performance of Islamic banking industry in Bahrain. Moreover, it also utilizes bank specific factors as predictors for Islamic bank performance in Bahrain. Panel regression is used to analyze the data. The result shows that LTA, LEQ, and LOHE are significant bank specific factors to influence Islamic bank performance in Bahrain. In addition, there is no significant impact of financial crisis upon the financial performance during the crisis period; however, it does affect the financial performance of Bahrain Islamic banking industry after the crisis period.

Keywords: financial crisis, Islamic banking, bank performance, panel regression, Bahrain

Co-edited by Bassam Haddad, Rosie Bsheer, and Ziad Abu-Rish, this volume sheds light on the historical background and initial impact of the mass uprisings which shook the Arab world in late 2010 and early 2011. The authors provide unique understanding and first-hand accounts of events that have received superficial and partial coverage in Western and Arab media alike. While the book focuses on those states that have been most affected by the uprisings it also covers the impact on Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. The book covers the full range of issues involved in these historic events, from political economy and the role of social media, to international politics, gender, labour and the impact on culture, making this the ideal one-stop introduction to the events for the novice and specialist alike.

This chapter examines the cycle of contention that began with Bahrain’s decade of political liberalisation prior to the 2011 Arab Spring uprising and ended with measures to dissolve the country’s last remaining legal political societies in 2017. In seeking to explain why Bahrain has abandoned its ‘National Action Charter’ reform process in favour of a return to full authoritarianism, this chapter analyses the fate of the al-Wefaq Society, Bahrain’s largest opposition group and the most popular political organisation within the country’s Shi’a community. In examining the government's post-2011 crackdown on moderate, ‘tolerated’ opposition groups such as al-Wefaq, this chapter asserts that Bahrain’s liberalising reforms were never intended to situate the country on a path to democratisation and rather should be viewed as an attempt to secure the Al Khalifa’s grip on power. This chapter argues that the National Action Charter’s failure to inoculate the regime against Arab Spring-inspired unrest led to its abandonment in favour of tried-and-tested authoritarian strategies such as repression and military intervention.

Time and again the Middle East has become the center of global attention. The long awaited and much celebrated Arab Spring uprisings promised to evince a major shift in the Arab World. Notably, some Arab states witnessed an institutional and constitutional shift that put Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen on the path of transition to liberalization and democracy. Transitions to democracy suggested that the democracy phenomenon is not limited to Europe or North America. In the meantime, however, the Arab Spring movement has had a virulent history. Arab Spring revolutionary outcomes are meek according to both qualitative and quantitative measurements. Most transitions towards democracy failed; authoritarianism is still persistent, with an even stronger nature. The chapter argues that the Arab Spring movement marked a break in the continuity of authoritarian dominance but not a turning point in the development towards democracy. The Arab Spring movement was a set of uprisings, would-be revolutions – not great revolutions. These would-be revolutions largely failed, with the exception of Tunisia. This chapter examines the factors behind the rise and failure of the Arab Spring uprisings and the conformity of the Arab Spring to the concept of revolution.

Shi'a Muslim populations constitute a majority sectarian community in a number of nations.. Although exact population figures are difficult to ascertain, they are a majority or significant plurality in the following nations: Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon. In addition, Shi’a Muslims are a significant minority in  several states, including such surprising areas as Albania, Senegal and Nigeria. For the purpose of this
discussion I include all branches of Shi’ism. It is noteworthy that Shi’a Muslims constitute a similar percentage of the Muslim populations of many states (10-15%) as diverse as Afghanistan, Germany, Great Britain,
India, Turkey and the United States

(English follows)

Mariage et famille dans le Golfe arabe : vers un bouleversement politique ?

Depuis la fin des années 1970, la nuptialité a connu des transformations importantes dans tous les pays arabes, dont les plus significatives sont l’augmentation de l’âge moyen au premier mariage et l’émergence du célibat féminin. Les États du Golfe, étudiés dans cet article, n’échappent pas à cette évolution. Or, le mariage dans le monde arabe, rite de passage à l’âge adulte, est aussi le lieu de la reproduction des institutions : le mariage est donc une question politique. Après une présentation des évolutions récentes de la nuptialité dans les six pays du Golfe, l’article analyse l’impact de ces mutations sur les dynamiques sociales caractérisant cette région (les contraintes socio-économiques posées au choix du conjoint, les relations entre sexes et entre générations, l’évolution des structures familiales). Les données montrent que sont partout défiés l’idéal arabe du mariage précoce et universel, la domination masculine et celle des aînés. En conséquence, cette évolution des comportements sociodémographiques pourrait également menacer les pouvoirs autoritaires et « néopatriarcaux » de la région. Une analyse des débats populaires et politiques menés sur la question du mariage en Arabie saoudite montre en effet que celle-ci est instrumentalisée dans le processus de réforme sociopolitique en cours dans le royaume, afin de contrer l’emprise de certains acteurs sur le champ social.

Mots clés : nuptialité ; mariage ; divorce ; famille ; structures familiales, démographie politique ; politique démographique ; politique sociale ; pays du Golfe ; Arabie Saoudite ; Koweït ; Émirats arabes unis ; Oman ; Qatar ; Bahreïn.

Marriage and Family in the Arab Gulf States: Towards a Political Transition?

Since the end of the 1970’s, marriage patterns have undergone tremendous changes in every Arab country. Most significant among them are the increase in the age at first marriage and the emergence of female celibacy, as experienced in the Arab Gulf. Yet, marriage in the Arab world is a rite of passage to adulthood, as well as an essential element in the process of reproducing sociopolitical institutions. This gives the marriage issue a political outreach which is the topic of the paper. After describing recent changes in the marriage patterns experienced in the six Arab Gulf States over the last four decades, the paper analyses the impact of such changes on the social dynamics characterizing the region (socioeconomic constraints put to marrying and spouse’ choice; male-female and intergenerational relationships; the evolution of family structures). Data emphasize that everywhere in the region, the ideal of early and universal marriages, as well as males’ and elders’ domination are fading. Therefore, the evolution of socio-demographic behaviors may challenge authoritarian and “neopatriarcal” powers in the region. As the matter of facts, the analysis of popular and political debates tackling the marriage issue in Saudi Arabia shows that the topic is instrumentalised within the reform process ongoing in the Kingdom, in order to counter the influence of some political forces.

Keywords: marriage; divorce; family; family structures; political demography; demographic policy; social policy; Gulf States; Saudi Arabia; Kuwait; United Arab Emirates; Oman; Qatar; Bahrain.

Toby Matthiesen, "Sectarianization as Securitization: Identity Politics and Counter-Revolution in Bahrain", in: Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel (eds.), Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (London: Hurst & Co, 2017), 199-214.


The small island nation of Bahrain provides one of the most salient case studies of the sectarianization process. Bahrain has a long history of organized political opposition that has taken the form of street protests, strikes, trade unions, and underground political parties, as well as in a parliament with limited powers (1973–1975 and since 2001). Anti-colonial nationalist and leftist movements of
various ideological persuasions that mobilized many Bahrainis since the
1950s were cross-sectarian. The parliament of 1973–1975, under the
influence of communists and Ba‘athists, started to challenge the authoritarian system of government of the minority Sunni Al Khalifa family and the pervasive powers of the security services. As a result, parliament was disbanded in the summer of 1975, elections were postponed indefinitely, and political opposition was driven underground. The decline of these cross-sectarian and secular political movements and theThereafter, Sunni Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood as well as Shi’i Islamist movements, such as the Da‘wa Party, Hizbullah (the Line of Imam (Khomeini), or Khat al-Imam), and the so-called Shirazi movement (named after its spiritual guide, Muhammad Mahdi al-Shirazi), gained a foothold in Bahrain. The state built up Sunni Islamic movements as a counter-weight to the Shi’i Islamic movements that emerged after Iran’s 1979 revolution. Sunni Islamic groups, therefore, by and large did not mobilize in opposition to the monarchy. And
while the uprising in 2011 started as a cross-sectarian mobilization, and
the opposition tried to use national and not sectarian slogans, many
Sunnis were frightened by it, and more or less supported the crackdown.
Particularly as repression started to target the Shi’a as a group, many
Shi’a, including some elite Shi’a families, started to see the state as an
adversary. The regime used all means at its disposal, including the media, the security forces, and even vigilante groups, to scare the Sunnis with the specter of a Shi’a takeover, and to portray the uprising as led by Shi’a radicals who wanted to establish an Iranian-style Islamic republic.
Sectarianization in Bahrain is thus a deliberate and long-term strategy
by the regime to undermine the possibility of a broad-based coalition
demanding democratic change. But sectarianization and disproportionate policing of Shi’a residential areas has also sustained and strengthened opposition to the state amongst Shi’a Bahrainis, thereby undermining security and perpetuating a sectarian dynamic.

Overview of media laws, penal codes, and other regulations and their applications in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. Includes comparisons to international approaches. Research supported by Doha Centre for Media Education. Research finds several areas in which GCC laws differ from international standards that allow for a vibrant press. These factors incude: criminal defamation charges instead of civil lawsuits, licensing of journalists, broad prohibitions on types of coverage, banning of "false news," and truth as an absolute defense for libel.

Ahmad al-Ahsaʾi (1753–1826), the spiritual father of the mystical strand of Twelver Shiism, known as the Shaykhiyya, became an important religious figure in Iraq and Iran. But the Shaykhiyya also spread in his birthplace in Eastern Arabia and among migrants from al-Ahsa in Kuwait and Basra. The quietist and apolitical teachings of al-Ahsaʾi suited the Shia in Eastern Arabia, who periodically suffered from political insecurity and religious persecution. Several scholars from al-Ahsa studied with al-Ahsaʾi and with his successor as leader of the Shaykhiyya, Kazim al-Rashti. Thereafter, they returned to al-Ahsa or moved to Kuwait and Basra and set up hawzas to spread Shaykhi teachings. In the early twentieth century, the Shaykhis of al-Ahsa developed closer ties with the al-Uskuʾi, a family of marajiʿ of the Tabrizi School of the Shaykhiyya. The al-Uskuʾi also resided in al-Ahsa and Kuwait throughout the twentieth century. The Shaykhis of Basra, on the other hand, became followers of the rival Kermani School. In both Basra and Kuwait, migrants from al-Ahsa retained strong group identities because their common geographical origin was coupled with the Shaykhiyya.

The Baharna people, at the hands of Al Khalifa, have had their lands taken, their title as to Bahrain erased, and their jobs limited. This paper explores the hidden history of the slavery (sukhra) of the Baharna, the discriminatory taxes enforced against them, and how security apparatus then and now monitor and never hesitate to use physical force to enforce the law. The women’s movement is also crucial to the understanding of the status of the Baharna, as Bahraini women are also lower-class citizens, especially in terms of inheritance, divorce and marriage laws and practices.

This Chapter aims to comprehensively describe the system of heritage protection in Bahrain. The reader may find a descriptive information about various legal sources and critical analysis of the de facto heritage protection. The Chapter begins with a short introduction to the cultural patrimony in the Kingdom. The following part describes the domestic
and international legal sources that contain provisions regulating the protection of heritage. The second part informs about the practice and regular work in the field of heritage preservation in Bahrain. The third part highlights the main challenges to cultural heritage including the regulatory framework shortcomings and development pressure. In the concluding section, the author suggests certain measures that should be applied in order to improve the heritage protection system.

For many decades the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have served as primary migratory destinations for tens of millions of individuals from South Asia, West Asia, and other points in the Indian Ocean world.  While both historic and substantial in scale, these migration flows remain some of the most understudied movements in the contemporary world.  This paper begins with an overview of the current state of scholarship concerned with Gulf migration.  The remainder of the paper frames Gulf migration through the lens of family.  The paper first considers the impact of Gulf migration upon the families and households that remain in the sending countries.  Next, the paper explores the particular dilemmas faced by those migrants whose families accompany them to the Gulf States.  Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of the impact of these migration flows upon local families in the Gulf States.

This study traces the modern origins of the Kafala migrant labour sponsorship system in the Gulf Arab States. The sponsorship system was a product of the British colonial era, particularly the period from the 1920s until independence in the 1970s. Colonial administrators introduced sponsorship requirements in order to control labour migration in the pearl industry shortly before the discovery of oil in the region, and its use was further regularized and widely applied with the increasing migrant labour working in the oil companies. British officials viewed migrant labour as both a necessity and a problem that needed to be regulated and controlled, both from the viewpoint of economic growth and security. As jurisdiction over foreigners was retroceded back to the newly created states in the independence era, sponsorship of foreign labour was ultimately restricted and delegated to citizens or companies owned by citizens. As a particular example, the case of the "bachelor" worker is detailed as a legal-bureaucratic complex of sponsorship practices. Such practices are placed within a wider ensemble of British colonial policies for controlling labour and policing empire "on the cheap" across the Indian Ocean in the 19 th and 20 th centuries.

The use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) is increasing on a daily basis. They provide a virtual platform for the users to disclose their personal information such as their names, pictures, status etc., a phenomena called Self-Disclosure. However, before the user decides to put their information online, there are some factors that come into play and affect the amount of information that will be shared by the user. Even though there is a lot of Self-Disclosure occurring on SNS, the factors behind remain little understood. This research aimed to find out the factors that can affect a user’s Self-Disclosure in the Kingdom of Bahrain. In addition to that, the research also aimed at finding out the usage of SNS by the users residing in the Kingdom before investigating the factors. 
In the study, we developed a model and identified some factors that affect Self-Disclosure. This model was tested with 607 SNS users and it was revealed that risks, benefits and social influence have a significant relationship with Self-Disclosure whereas that trust does not have a strong impact on Self-Disclosure. We confirm that risk is determined by the perception of privacy and security and that enjoyment and relationship building opportunities determine perceived benefits. Our results also showed that citizens of Bahrain use SNS a lot, on a daily basis and Facebook is the most widely used SNS. 
Based on these findings, we formulate important implications that can provide further researchers, Social Media Marketers and OSN policy makers with the insight of the SelfDisclosure behavior in the Kingdom of Bahrain. 
Keywords: Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Self-Disclosure.

This is a study of how the Bahraini regime and its supporters utilized
Facebook, Twitter and other social media as a tool of surveillance
and social control during the Bahrain uprising. Using a virtual ethnography conducted between February 2011 and December 2011, it establishes a typology of methods that describe how hegemonic forces and institutions employed social media to suppress both online and offline dissent. These methods are trolling,
naming and shaming, offline factors, intelligence gathering and passive observation. It also discusses how these methods of control limit the ability of activists to use online places as spaces of representation and anti-hegemonic identity formation.
While there is considerable research on the positive role social media plays in activism, this article addresses the relative paucity of literature on how hegemonic forces use social media to resist political change

In the 21st century, the monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE – the group of countries constituting the GCC – have emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-changing regions of the world. At the same time, however, these profound transformations in the Gulf, and the fact that the Gulf States were “put on the map”, could not overshadow the evidence that the GCC states were located in a highly volatile region, that subnational identities competed with national identities and that the political systems of the GCC were undemocratic and authoritarian.

La périodisation de l’histoire par l’Europe chrétienne comme par le monde musulman voit dans l’avènement de l’islam une rupture majeure. Cette notion de rupture se retrouve, dans une moindre mesure, dans la définition de nos champs disciplinaires : ne distingue-t-on pas l’archéologie islamique de l’archéologie de l’Orient hellénisé et romain ? L’histoire de l’Antiquité tardive de celle de l’islam ? Si cette distinction trouve sa justification dans l’usage d’une documentation spécifique et d’outils méthodologiques propres, elle contribue néanmoins à tracer une barrière entre deux périodes de l’histoire. Au regard de la documentation historique toutefois, cette barrière perd toute réalité. Si un déclin du peuplement de l’Arabie à la veille de l’islam a pu conditionner l’émergence et l’expansion d’une nouvelle civilisation, celle-ci est largement héritière des civilisations préislamiques de la péninsule. Dans les régions voisines, ce n’est pas un changement brutal des modes de vie qui s’observe, ni même une conversion massive à la nouvelle foi, mais nous constatons au contraire la poursuite d’évolutions engagées de longue date.
La réunion d’archéologues et d’historiens spécialistes de l’Antiquité tardive en péninsule Arabique, au Proche-Orient, dans la Corne de l’Afrique, en Perse et en Inde a permis d’interroger les sources documentaires lors d’une table ronde tenue à Paris en 2008. Cet ouvrage en publie les actes en s’interrogeant sur la réalité ou non d’un déclin des civilisations du Moyen-Orient et des régions voisines à la veille de l’islam et sur les ruptures et continuités qui se font jour.

How might interpretations of the past be informing the culture of tomorrow? Sarina Wakefield, a specialist in heritage and museum development in the Middle East, provides an overview of the form and function of contemporary museums in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In so doing, she explores how institutions are drawing on locally specific heritage and cultural objects to develop distinctive identities for an international audience.