Thursday, 24 October 2002 Parliamentary elections in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Bahrain is an archipelago of around 36 islands about 20 miles (32 km) off the Hasa coast (i.e. the east coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). The mainland is also called Bahrain, and is about 30 miles (48 km) long by about 10 miles broad (16 km). The highest point of the mainland, Bahrain, rises to about 445 ft (135.6 m) in Jebel Dukhan “Mount Smoke”, and its low coasts are fringed with coral reefs.

The name Bahrain literally means “the Two Seas”, which I have adopted as the background of my pages here: two blue strips on the sides (i.e. two seas), engulfing the sandy color in between (i.e. the lands of Bahrain).

Bahrain had been the marketing center of the best natural pearl fesheries of the Arabian Gulf. It was known as having the best and purest of natural pearls in the world [link to Aquatique page for more on pearls and pearl diving].

In the period around 2000 BC, the Sumerians called it “Dilmun” which interprets as ‘the land of merchants and trade’, and they spoke of Dilmun as a holy land, blessed by the 'God of Sweet Waters'. However, the Sumerian poems depicted Dilmun as the land of immortals, a kind of paradise to which the sages and heroes were transported to live in eternal bliss. Around 400 BC, Greeks called it “Tylos”. In the pre-Islamic era, it was known as “Awal”; and during the Islamic era, the name “Bahrain” was given to a wide area extending from ‘Basra’ in the north to ‘Oman’ in the south.

Bahrain was well known as the ‘the country of the million date palms’, and was also known as the “Garden of Eden” in the ancient times [go to my History page].

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