History
The immigration of Persians to Bahrain might have begun when the Greek Seleucid kingdom which was ruling Bahrain at the time fell and the Persian Empire invaded the Bahrain islands, but it is often said that it started during the 1600s when Abbas I of Persia invaded Bahrain. After settling in Bahrain, the Persians were effectively Arabized, even having Arabic patronymics. They usually settled in areas inhabited by the indigenous Baharna, probably because they share the same Shia Muslim faith, however, some Sunni Ajam settled in areas mostly inhabited by Sunni Arab immigrants such as Hidd and Galali. In Muharraq, they have their own neighborhood called Fareej Karimi named after a rich Ajami man called Ali Abdulla Karimi.
According to the 1905 census, there were 1650 Bahraini citizens with Persian ancestry. Historian Ali Bushahri estimates that the Ajami population is about 100,000 or 20% of 550,000 Bahraini citizens.
Read more about this topic: Iranians In Bahrain
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)