🇧🇭 Bahrain

The archipelago, earlier home to the Dilmun trading civilisation and later ruled by Sumerians and Babylonians, was absorbed into the Persian Achaemenid realm. This established a pattern of Persian suzerainty over the islands that recurred for more than two millennia.

The Greek admiral serving under Alexander found a verdant, cotton-growing land embedded in a wide trading network and a centre of pearl trading. Bahrain subsequently became part of the Hellenised world, with Greek used by the upper classes and Aramaic in everyday life, and local coinage depicting a seated Zeus.

By about 250 BC the Parthians extended their influence as far as Oman and established garrisons along the southern Gulf coast to control trade routes. Bahrain's position on those routes made it a strategic node in long-distance commerce.

The first Sassanid ruler brought Bahrain under Persian imperial control by force. The conquest tied the islands into the Sassanid administrative and religious order of the eastern Arabian littoral.

Lying outside Byzantine control, the islands offered relative safety to a sect often persecuted as heretical. The legacy survives in Muharraq place names such as Al Dair, meaning 'the monastery'.

Oriental Syriac Church synodal records name a bishop of Bahrain excommunicated in that year. It is among the earliest documentary evidence of organised Christian ecclesiastical structures on the islands.

Traditional Muslim accounts record that Al-Ala'a Al-Hadrami was sent as envoy to the Bahrain region and that the local ruler accepted Islam. Bahrain thus became one of the earliest areas influenced by Islam, during Muhammad's own lifetime.

The sect sought to build a utopian society based on reason and the redistribution of property among initiates, and demanded tribute from the caliph in Baghdad. Their rule made eastern Arabia a rival power centre to the Abbasid caliphate.

The stone was taken for ransom to medieval Bahrain and, according to Al-Juwayni, returned 22 years later in 951, thrown wrapped in a sack into the Great Mosque of Kufa. The theft shattered the stone into seven pieces and marked the height of Qarmatian power.

The defeat broke Qarmatian military dominance in eastern Arabia. It opened the way for their eventual overthrow by the Uyunid dynasty a century later.

The Arab dynasty of al-Hasa overthrew the Qarmatians and governed the archipelago and adjoining mainland until 1235. Their rule restored Sunni Arab tribal authority over eastern Arabia.

The occupation interrupted nearly two centuries of Uyunid rule. It illustrated the recurring pull of Persian mainland powers over the islands.

The new Bedouin dynasty gained authority over eastern Arabia including the Bahrain islands. Power on the archipelago remained tied to mainland tribal confederations.

The archipelago paid tribute to the rulers of Hormuz while being administered locally by the Shia Jarwanid dynasty of Qatif. This subordinated Bahrain to the dominant Gulf maritime trading power of the period.

The Jabrid dynasty, based in Al-Ahsa, governed most of eastern Arabia including Bahrain. Their rule ended with the Portuguese conquest of 1521.

The Jabrid ruler was killed during the takeover, beginning some eighty years of Portuguese rule exercised largely through Sunni Persian governors. Bahrain was thereby drawn into the European contest for control of Indian Ocean trade.

The Safavid conquest ended Portuguese rule and restored Persian control of the archipelago. It gave fresh impetus to Shia Islam in Bahrain, shaping the island's enduring confessional composition.

Omani forces invaded in 1717 and again in 1738 during two centuries of nominal Persian dominance. Persian rulers otherwise governed the islands indirectly through Bushehr or immigrant Sunni Arab Huwala clans.

The Huwala clan leader acted on behalf of the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand. Direct Iranian administration lasted three decades until the Bani Utbah conquest.

The two Utub Federation clans moved from Kuwait to Zubarah on the Qatar peninsula. The move set the stage for their later conquest and settlement of Bahrain.

Forces of the Bani Utbah tribal confederation and allied tribes, led by Ahmed al-Fateh, defeated Al-Madhkur following their victory at the 1782 Battle of Zubarah and took Bahrain from its Persian/Iranian-aligned rulers in 1783, establishing the Al Khalifa family that has ruled the islands ever since. Persian attempts to retake Bahrain in 1783 and 1785 both failed, and the conquest founded the Arab tribal order still in place today.

After the fall of Nasr Al-Madhkur of Bushehr, the Al Khalifa relocated to the islands, joined by other Qatari family clans and tribes. Their settlement established the ruling dynasty that has governed Bahrain ever since.

In order to secure its holdings, the ruling family entered into a series of treaties with the United Kingdom during the 19th century that made Bahrain a British protectorate.

Bahrain was invaded by both the Omanis and the Al Sauds in the early nineteenth century. The brief Omani governorship illustrated the archipelago's vulnerability to competing regional powers before British protection.

The British political resident sailed to Bahrain to reassure the Sheikh that Britain would not support an attack by the Imam of Muscat. It was the first formal contact in what became a century of British involvement.

Bahrain's Al Khalifa rulers signed the General Maritime Treaty with Britain in 1820, the first in a series of agreements that recognised the family's rule and drew Bahrain into Britain's system of Gulf protection. Further treaties followed in 1861, 1892 and 1951.

The Al Khalifa had tried to place Bahrain under Ottoman protection in March of that year, but Persia refused to intervene and the Government of British India prevailed. The treaty subordinated Bahrain's external affairs to Britain.

Signed after the Qatari–Bahraini War, the agreement forbade the ruler from disposing of territory except to Britain or dealing with foreign governments without consent. In return Britain promised protection from attack and support for Al Khalifa rule, securing the dynasty's unstable position.

Agreements in 1880 and 1892 completed the legal framework of British control over Bahrain's external relations. Britain officially established complete dominance over the territory by 1892.

Unrest followed Britain's establishment of complete dominance over the territory in 1892, and some protesters were killed by British forces. Sheikh Issa was the first Al Khalifa ruler to govern without Persian relations.

The German explorer's photographs, including of the old Qasr es-Sheikh, are now held at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. They form an important visual record of pre-oil Bahrain.

A group of merchants pressed for limits on British power in the country; their leaders were arrested and exiled to India. The episode marked early organised nationalist sentiment among the commercial class.

The boys' school in Muharraq began the modern government school system, replacing Qur'anic kuttab as the only form of education. A second boys' school opened in Manama in 1926 and the first girls' school in Muharraq in 1928.

The intervention deposed the ruling sheikh in favour of his son and reorganised the administration; some clerical opponents and families were exiled to Saudi Arabia. It marked the deepening of direct British management of Bahrain's internal affairs.

Belgrave served as adviser to the ruler until 1957, effectively directing the state. His tenure brought modernising reforms alongside authoritarian management of sectarian tensions.

The Iranian claim prompted Belgrave to take harsh measures, including encouraging Shia–Sunni conflict to suppress unrest and limit Iranian influence. Britain's interest in Bahrain's development was driven by such Saudi and Iranian ambitions.

Imperial Airways flew to the new airport, including Handley Page HP42 aircraft, and a maritime airport for flying boats and seaplanes followed later in the decade. Air links integrated Bahrain into imperial communications routes across the Gulf.

The Bahrain Petroleum Company struck oil at Jabal al-Dukhan on 1 June 1932, making Bahrain the first place in the Persian Gulf to find commercially viable reserves. The discovery ended the island's reliance on pearling and fishing and began decades of oil-funded development.

Abolition came as part of the reform programme pursued under the British adviser. It stood alongside the founding of modern schools as a landmark social change of the era.

Bahrain entered the war on 10 September 1939. Its oil refineries made it a strategic asset for Allied fuel supply in the Gulf.

Four aircraft attacked Allied-operated oil refineries on 19 October 1940, causing minimal damage. The raid nonetheless forced the Allies to upgrade Bahrain's defences, stretching military resources further.

Amid post-war anti-British sentiment, protests turned against the Jewish community, and after hostilities and looting most members left for Bombay, later settling in Israel and the United Kingdom. Only 37 Jews remained in Bahrain as of 2008.

An American naval presence has existed continuously since that year. It laid the foundation for Bahrain's later role as headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.

Formed by reformists after sectarian clashes, the committee organised protests and general strikes. It was the first mass political movement pressing for representative government in Bahrain.

State-provided health coverage dates from that year, building on earlier institutions such as the American Mission Hospital of 1893 and the Salmaniya Medical Complex opened in 1957. Universal provision became a durable feature of the Bahraini state.

Hundreds of workers at the Bahrain Petroleum Company were laid off, triggering sustained protest. The unrest showed the political weight of the oil workforce in the late protectorate period.

During the 1970s and 1980s Bahrain, enriched by the oil boom and facing declining reserves, diversified into petroleum processing and refining and developed into an international banking centre, replacing Beirut as the Middle East's financial hub as the Lebanese Civil War drove Lebanon's banking sector out of the city. Early diversification into finance cushioned Bahrain against the later oil downturn, while its small size and central Gulf location require a delicate balancing act among larger neighbours.

Bahrain declared independence from Britain on 15 August 1971 and signed a new treaty of friendship with London, after a UN-supervised survey found most Bahrainis favoured full sovereignty over union with Iran or continued British protection; the Shah accepted the result despite Iran's sovereignty claim. Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa became the country's first emir, and Bahrain joined the United Nations and the Arab League later that year.

Bahrain adopted its first constitution and elected its first National Assembly in 1973, though the electoral law excluded women from voting. Disputes with the ruling emir over a state security law led to the assembly's dissolution two years later, in August 1975.

Parliament's rejection of the State Security Law prompted its dissolution. The move opened the 'State Security Law Era' of 1975–1999, marked by arbitrary arrests, detention without trial, torture and forced exile.

Consensual same-sex relations between adults over 21 became legal, making Bahrain the only Muslim Gulf country where this is so. Arrests have nonetheless continued under broad public indecency laws.

Bahrain joined Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in founding the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1981, months after an alleged Iranian-backed plot to overthrow its government was uncovered. The council became the main framework for Gulf political and security cooperation.

Inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution, the front sought to install the exiled Shia cleric Hādī al-Mudarrisī as supreme leader of a theocratic government. Bahrain blames Iran for the plot, and relations between the two states have been tense ever since.

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa travelled to Cairo on 7 August 2026, where President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hosted a banquet in his honour. The visit continued regular high-level contact between the two governments on regional security and economic cooperation.

In retaliation for Iranian strikes on its territory, Bahrain conducted offensive air operations against Iran for the first time. The action marked an unprecedented direct military role for the kingdom in a regional war.

The UK prime minister spoke by phone with Bahrain's crown prince on 30 July 2026 about the conflict in the Middle East. He condemned the Iranian strikes on Bahrain and offered continued British support to the kingdom.

A Bahraini court sentenced a National Security Agency officer to life imprisonment on 2 June 2026 over the death of a detainee arrested for expressing support for Iran during the war. The case drew scrutiny of detention practices amid the wider crackdown.

Authorities arrested 41 people on 9 May 2026 accused of belonging to a network linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, including several prominent Shia religious figures. Rights groups called the operation unprecedented in scale.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard struck Amazon Web Services data infrastructure in Bahrain on 2 April 2026, widening the range of targets beyond military and industrial sites. The attack raised concern over the exposure of regional digital infrastructure hosted in the Gulf.

Russia and China vetoed a Bahraini-drafted UN Security Council resolution on safeguarding shipping through the Strait of Hormuz on 7 April 2026. Bahrain, then holding the council presidency, proposed the text jointly with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.

Formula One and the FIA relocated the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix to the Sepang circuit in Malaysia, citing the safety of teams and fans amid the regional conflict. Bahrain retained ticket-pricing rights and race proceeds under the agreement with the Malaysian government.

Iranian strikes through March 2026 hit the Aluminium Bahrain smelter, fuel storage tanks and residential buildings, injuring dozens. Bahrain's defence force said it intercepted 74 missiles and 117 drones over the period, and authorities imposed a nighttime curfew on maritime traffic.

After joint American and Israeli airstrikes on 28 February 2026 killed Iran's supreme leader and other officials, Iran retaliated against US bases and allies in the region. Bahrain suffered material damage and civilian casualties.

Iran launched ballistic missiles and drones at the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama on 28 February 2026, in retaliation for joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Drones also hit a residential tower block in the capital, opening months of intermittent attacks on the kingdom.

The IMF concluded its 2025 Article IV consultation with Bahrain on 23 January 2026, warning that the fiscal deficit had risen to 11 per cent of GDP and government debt to 134 per cent. It projected growth of 3.3 per cent for 2026.

Heavy rain across the Gulf region caused extensive flooding in April 2024. The event highlighted the vulnerability of a low-lying, heavily reclaimed archipelago to climate extremes.

Bahraini nationals numbered 739,736, or 46.6%, against 848,934 expatriates at 53.4%. The population had crossed the one million mark only in 2007, making the demographic shift towards a non-national majority rapid and politically salient.

The terminal opened on 28 January 2021, serving an airport that had handled almost 100,000 flights and more than 9.5 million passengers in 2019. It formed part of the infrastructure drive supporting tourism and diversification.

The British vessel was handed to Bahrain in August 2020. A second Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate followed from the United States in January 2024.

The two states formalised diplomatic ties for the first time. The agreement realigned Bahrain's regional posture and deepened its bloc with the United States and Gulf partners against Iran.

VAT took effect on 1 January 2019 at a maximum rate of 5%, raised to 10% from 1 January 2022. The tax marked a significant shift towards non-oil revenue amid rising public debt.

The facility gave Britain its first permanent naval base east of Suez in decades. It sits alongside the American Fifth Fleet headquarters and roughly 6,000 US military personnel in Bahrain.

The packages included F-16 jets, upgrades, missiles and patrol boats, and came weeks after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson criticised discrimination against Bahrain's Shia community. The sales underlined the primacy of the security relationship over human rights concerns.

The resolution of 7 July 2016 passed by a large majority and called for an end to repression of human rights defenders, political opposition and civil society. It reflected sustained international criticism of Bahrain's post-2011 record.

The rupture followed the storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran, with Bahrain acting alongside Saudi Arabia. It confirmed Bahrain's alignment with Riyadh in the regional confrontation with Tehran.

The agency was created to build national capability in space science. It followed the 2013 launch of the Bahrain Science Centre, an interactive educational facility for 6- to 18-year-olds.

The combination of the Great Recession and the Bahraini uprising choked off expansion. Public debt later reached $44.5 billion, or 130% of GDP, in 2020.

The opposition bloc's members resigned in protest at the government crackdown, and their seats were refilled by by-election. The number of women MPs rose to four as a result.

Ongoing dissatisfaction with the political status quo led to a broader discussion termed the Bahrain National Dialogue, a process convening members of the executive, parliament and political societies in an attempt to reach a political settlement.

Mass Arab Spring protests, drawn largely from Bahrain's Shia population, began in early 2011 against the Sunni-led government and were met by a pre-dawn raid on the protest camp at Manama's Pearl Roundabout. On 14 March 2011, at the government's request, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent troops under the Gulf Cooperation Council's Peninsula Shield Force and a three-month state of emergency was declared. The ensuing crackdown suppressed the uprising and involved thousands of arrests, systematic torture and dozens of deaths, with more than 80 civilians and 13 policemen killed as of March 2014.

The agreement created a regional hub under UNESCO auspices, which hosted high-level workshops on ICTs and education in March 2012. It reflected Bahrain's attempt to position itself as a knowledge-economy leader in the Gulf.

The plan aims to transform Bahrain into a diversified and sustainable economy less dependent on oil wealth. Critics note it does not specify how the shift to a globally competitive productive economy is to be achieved, and research and development investment remained very low.

She was appointed Bahrain's ambassador to the United States. Alice Samaan, a Christian woman, was later appointed ambassador to Britain in 2011.

The scheme formed part of labour reforms instigated under Minister of Labour Majeed Al Alawi. Joblessness stood at about 4% in 2008, with women making up 85% of the unemployed.

Bahrain was elected to head the General Assembly and named the lawyer and women's rights activist to the post. She was only the third woman in history to lead the world body.

The fort and archaeological complex received international recognition. It anchors Bahrain's heritage tourism alongside the Bahrain National Museum and the Tree of Life.

More than 100,000 Shia took to the streets against the proposed codification. The retreat illustrated the political constraints on legal reform in a sectarian-divided society.

The inaugural Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix was held on 4 April 2004 at the Sakhir circuit. The annual race became a pillar of Bahrain's tourism and international profile, cancelled only in 2011 amid protests.

She was appointed Minister of Health. Her appointment followed the extension of political rights to women in 2002.

Negotiated after political liberalisation, the agreement reduces trade barriers between the two nations. It deepened the economic dimension of an already close security relationship.

The prohibition applies within Bahrain's territorial waters. It protects habitats globally important for species such as the Socotra cormorant, of which up to 100,000 breeding pairs have been recorded over the Hawar Islands.

With the adoption of the National Action Charter on 14 February 2002 the State of Bahrain was renamed a kingdom and Hamad's title changed from emir to king. Article 2 of the constitution made sharia a principal source for legislation.

Under pressure from international bodies, the government established the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. This ended Batelco's monopoly from 2004 and opened the market to Zain and later VIVA.

The 2002 poll was boycotted by the opposition society Al Wefaq, which then won majorities in 2006 and 2010. Parliamentary politics remained tightly constrained, with Bahrain rated among the least electorally democratic states in the Middle East.

Women participated fully for the first time in the 2002 election. Lateefa Al Gaood became the first female MP in 2006, and the number of women MPs rose to four after the 2011 by-elections.

A Bahraini frigate joined rescue and humanitarian operations in the Arabian Sea in October 2001, and in November the Bush administration granted Bahrain major non-NATO ally status. The designation cemented Bahrain's role as a principal American security partner in the Gulf.

The Hague court's ruling settled a long-running border dispute. Relations with neighbouring Qatar improved markedly as a result.

A referendum on 14 and 15 February 2001 backed the National Action Charter, extending the vote to women and paving the way for Bahrain's proclamation as a constitutional monarchy in 2002. Parliamentary elections followed that October, the first in nearly three decades.

He held elections for parliament, gave women the right to vote and released all political prisoners, ending the 1994–2000 uprising. Human rights conditions improved significantly after two decades of State Security Law rule.

Early connectivity supported rapid growth in usage, from 40,000 users in 2000 to 250,000 in 2008 and 961,000 by June 2012. Bahrain topped the Arab world for internet penetration at 90% in 2013.

Bahrain became a founding member of the World Trade Organization when it was established on 1 January 1995, extending commitments made earlier under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Financial services and trade already anchored the economy beyond oil.

Sparked in December 1994 by a clash with police over an international marathon, the unrest lasted six years and caused roughly forty deaths. It ended after Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa became emir in 1999.

Bahrain hosted United States and allied coalition forces and provided naval and air facilities during the 1991 Gulf War, fought to reverse Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. The war cemented Manama's role as headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in the years that followed.

Financed by Saudi Arabia, the fixed link opened in December 1986 and carried 17,743,495 passengers in 2008. It bound Bahrain physically and economically to its larger neighbour.

The university became the country's principal centre of higher education and research, publishing 5,500 papers and books between 1986 and 2014. By 2014 it had over 20,000 students, 65% of them women.

The country's first telecommunications company monopolised the sector until 2004, with more than 45,000 telephones in use in its founding year and over 100,000 mobile contracts by 1999. Liberalisation followed the 2002 telecommunications law and the entry of Zain in 2004 and VIVA in 2010.