Mamana, Bahrain City Tour

Check the price... 3 digits to the right of the decimal.

The Bahrain World Trade Towers and the three wind turbines that provided some of the buildings power.

The Grand Mosque...

its interior...

and chandelier.

We had a lesson on the difference between 'prayer' and 'salat'.

The mosque filled to capacity on a religious day.

A beautiful bridge connecting the islands of Bahrain.

One of the sweet shops the city is famous for.

And a delicious treat to sample.

Old men solving the problems of the world...

Street scenes

Part of the skyline

The cartographer put North at the bottom....

The same map with North at the top, suddenly makes sense.

Pearl divers back in the day.

Recreations of tradesmen plying their trades.

The Grand Mosque at night.

Thursday, February 12th.

At breakfast today there was grapefruit! There were many junior tennis prodigies in the hotel this morning from many of the Arab States including  Saudi, Oman, Yemen… I talked to a 13 year old boy from Yemen in the elevator, with his father and coach, who was excited to be playing in the semi-finals.

This morning on the coach going to our first destination our local seemingly cynical guide Abdullah, who wore a robe but also a baseball cap, gave us a few facts and insights into Bahrain: the main island is only 700 sq km; he told us there are 250 oil and gas wells in the south that fill their needs and allow some exports, but nothing compared to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates; they have an elected government but an ineffectual parliament (according to him); there is some resentment towards the expats who are thought to take jobs and clog up the health care system; there is an aluminium smelter here owned by the government; the Grand Mosque was built between 1995-98 and is the only mosque open to non-muslims in the country and holds 7000 worshippers. When we got to the Grand Mosque we had another guide provided by the mosque who told us that the word ‘sabbath’ comes from the numbering system and that there are no names for the days of the week, just numbers. Sabba happens to be the seventh day of the week which happens to be Friday, according to our calendar, and has been called the sabbath ever since (I was a bit confused by the chicken or the egg if you know what I mean). According to him most of the countries in the African and Asian world as well as the Hebrews all call their days of the week by numbers not names. On the 6th day God created man and because of that the seventh day (the seventh number is sabba hence sabbath) is celebrated as the sabbath. He also explained how the ‘call to prayer’ is a misnomer perpetrated by the arrogant occupier (Britain) who had little regard for local culture or language and named it thus, instead of the word they didn’t understand ‘salat’. That word apparently means to reflect and remember where people came from: they were created from clay. Therefore they get down on their hands and knees and place their forehead and hands on the earth in reverence. Be down to earth, life is short. Everyone is equal in the Mosque and wears similar clothing. He says people can pray wherever, whenever and however they want but the salat is different. Salat is practised five times a day. He also said that if you are a good person, devotee and always strive to do your best you are a good Muslim. I said that Christians and Jews do that. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to pursue that line as we were then on our way.

The Quran was delivered from God to the Prophet through the Angel Gabriel over a period of 32 years. The Quran is recited in rhythm. The Yemenis speak the classic language of the Quran unlike most other Arabic countries that have had words borrowed from different languages, especially English and Persian. Bahrain is a very flat country with an average elevation of 2 metres which doesn’t bode well with rising sea levels. They have 3 desalination plants and they pay a lot for water. We stopped to see the Bahrain World Towers of which the twin towers are connected by three large wind turbines that resemble propellers that might fly the building away, if they were rotating which they were not.

We had a lunch break in an upscale mall where I found  a Tim Horton’s and had a halloumi wrap and a Boston cream donut which was disappointing.

We went to the National Museum, which is apparently the second largest in the Middle East, after the one in Cairo. In the museum I learned about an ancient civilization in the area called the Dilmun who fished and traded with a number of other cultures in the Persian Gulf and beyond. I also learned that Muslims circumcise their boys between 3 and 5 years of age. I always thought that that was a marked difference between the Arabs and the Jews. The museum housed a number of displays showing life in olden days, demonstrating shop keepers, tradesmen and of interest to me, the pearl divers. It certainly didn’t look to me to be the good old days. There was also a map of the known world drawn by an ancient cartographer which I could not make heads or tails of until I read the caption that he had placed north at the bottom of the map and south at the top. When I took a photo and turned it around suddenly I could make out Spain, the Mediterranean, the Arab Peninsula and the like. I also saw an exhibit showing young children learning their religion from the Quran which they would study every day and strive to commit it to memory by reciting it in a rhythmic and singsong manner. It seemed to me to be another demonstration of the Catholic adage ‘give me a child at 5 and I’ll have him for life’, and resembles my understanding of a brainwashing cult. But as with all religions they provide comfort, community and solidarity for the people and are only really dangerous when radicals in any faith become extreme and believe their faith is better than yours. 

We went to the very nice Monsoon Thai Restaurant, which is owned by someone from the royal family, for dinner and I had a delicious shrimp dinner.