A Window on Bahrain

Many have sung and written about their love for Bahrain; many have fallen deeply in love with it, venerating its land, for it is a country of peace, love, and harmony. Many have excelled in literary and cultural writings about the pearl of the Arabian Gulf and the cradle of civilizations, whose antiquity is timeless, with a venerable history stretching back into the depths of prehistory. History immortalizes a great civilization that existed before the advent of the Common Era itself. Bahrain is a work of art that creates creative spaces for lovers of art, history, and civilization. Bahrain is an open book that never tires you when you delve into it with your mind, feelings, and emotions. The land of Bahrain and its flourishing present, blessed by God with sea, trees, and people yearning for life, bloom in our present with goodness, love, and peace. The writer, poet, and diplomat Dr. Ghazi al-Qusaybi described Bahrain upon his return to it after a period of absence: “O Bahrain, this is the time of reunion, so flow forth… From Bahrain of gold and fresh water, breathe in my sorrows and enter my anguish… And let your stream flow through my veins and settle my fatigue… I carried your face in my soul and flew with it… Over oceans, through lightning and clouds…” The traveler Al-Rihani also wrote about Bahrain when he visited it in the 1920s: “I saw in Bahrain a political renaissance that is the companion of the literary renaissance. Indeed, in Bahrain there are those who call for Arab unity, and in the Bahrain Club, when visited by those who elevate both renaissances to the level of high philosophy and the highest level of humanity.” Meanwhile, the writer Abdulqader Aqeel described it as “the most beautiful thing in the world, and the most beautiful part of it is Manama.” When one dives into literary, cultural, and intellectual writing about Bahrain, the writer faces a vast station whose boundaries are inexhaustible. Bahrain, blessed by the Creator with a great civilizational and cultural heritage, cannot be reduced to a window through which we take a quick glance. It is a deep sea. It is Bahrain, from which we draw the simple aspects of our ideas, because it is a civilization and history that is not easy to grasp. It is the enjoyable and fascinating present that illuminates our insight and opens wide horizons for the mind, from the beacons of civilization, culture, and literature that have no terminal station where we stop. Every discourse about it has different stations where thought and intellect delight, and the love of the heart blends with them.