Sights & Landmarks In Manama

Manama, the capital of Bahrain, unfolds like a living palimpsest, where ancient threads of history interweave with modern high-rise skylines and a desert’s quiet endurance. As Bahrain’s largest city (housing about one-fifth of the kingdom’s people), Manama stands at the northeastern tip of Bahrain Island in the Persian Gulf. First chronicled around 1345 CE, the city passed through Portuguese and Persian hands before the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty established control in 1783. For centuries its economy revolved around pearling, fishing, boatbuilding and trade. Oil’s discovery in 1932 accelerated Manama’s transformation into a financial and commercial hub, but many layers of its past remain visible. From the telltale ruins of Dilmun temples and Islamic-period mosques to stately merchant houses and bustling souqs, Manama’s major sights reveal a city shaped by maritime exchange and cultural encounter.

Perched atop an ancient mound, Qal’at al-Bahrain (Bahrain Fort) bears a UNESCO World Heritage plaque marking it as the Ancient Harbour and Capital of Dilmun. This fort complex crowns a 4,000-year-old tell — an artificial mound built by successive settlers since about 2300 BC. Archaeologists have unearthed houses, workshops, temples and harbor facilities from the Bronze Age up through the early Islamic period. These finds attest to Bahrain’s role as the capital of Dilmun, the famed trading civilization of the Gulf (often mentioned in Sumerian legend). Although only about 25% of the site has been excavated, the recovered remains are extraordinary. A Portuguese fortress (built in 1521) caps the summit, but below its walls lie layers of stone houses, ovens and streets dating back thousands of years. The UNESCO dossier notes that Qal’at al-Bahrain’s 300×600 m site holds “the richest remains inventoried of [the Dilmun] civilization”. Its museum and reconstructed sections allow visitors to trace the city’s transformation: from a Dilmun port town, through Hellenistic and Islamic eras, to a fortified gateway under colonial powers. In essence, Bahrain Fort offers a concentrated microcosm of Manama’s millennia-long history.

Beyond the great fort, Manama preserves numerous landmarks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Bahrain’s pearl trade and merchants flourished. For example, Bin Matar House in the heart of the old city is a fine courtyard house built around 1905 by a leading pearl merchant. Its two-storey coral-stone walls and carved wooden detailing evoke traditional Gulf architecture. In its heyday it hosted traders from India, the Gulf and even Europe, among them the jeweler Jacques Cartier in 1911. Restored to near-original condition, today it functions as a heritage center in the Pearling Path UNESCO area, preserving period furnishings and crafts.

Another grand merchant’s residence lies just over the causeway on Muharraq island. Siyadi (Seyadi) House is a late 19th-century complex built for pearl magnate Abdullah bin Isa Siyadi. With its stucco-decorated courtyard, separate majlis (guest hall) and mosque, it exemplifies vernacular Gulf design. The Siyadi Mosque itself — whose original donation dates to 1865 — is the oldest preserved mosque in Muharraq and still serves worshippers. (Today Siyadi House remains a private home for descendants of the family, but the mosque and majlis are accessible to visitors.) Siyadi House, along with neighboring pearl trade offices and warehouses, forms part of the UNESCO-recognized Pearling Path, which honors Bahrain’s centuries-old pearl diving tradition.

Notable too are Manama’s religious buildings. Al-Fateh Grand Mosque (completed 1988) is the largest in Bahrain, covering 6,500 m² with capacity for some 7,000 worshippers. Named for Ahmed al-Fatih (the Barmakid officer who conquered Bahrain in 1345), it was commissioned by Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa on the eve of modern nationhood. Its vast prayer hall (roughly the size of three tennis courts) is capped by a 54-ton fiberglass dome — at the time the world’s largest made of its kind. The interior is clad in Italian marble and softly colored tiles, with an Austrian crystal chandelier — details reflecting Bahrain’s blend of global craftsmanship. (Non-Muslim visitors may tour the mosque outside prayer times, making Al-Fateh an opportunity to appreciate Islamic architecture up close.) Nearby stands Bayt al-Qur’an (House of the Qur’an), a modern complex housing one of the world’s most valuable collections of Quranic manuscripts. Its exterior — a pale geometric design echoing a 12th-century mosque — gives way to a museum of ten exhibition halls and a stained-glass-domed library. Here the printed and hand-copied Qur’ans are a highlight, but the building itself, set beside a small mosque and school, embodies Bahrain’s recent efforts to honor religious scholarship and art.

Manama’s Bahrain National Museum also communicates the islands’ cultural heritage on a grand scale. Inaugurated in 1988 by Sheikh Isa Al Khalifa, the museum’s striking white travertine facade and twin-wing halls sit on a man-made peninsula facing Muharraq. Designed by Danish architects Krohn & Hartvig Rasmussen, the connected buildings total about 20,000 m², housing permanent galleries, temporary exhibit halls, and educational facilities. Inside, the curated halls chronicle six millennia of Bahrain’s story: from Neolithic graves and Bronze-Age Dilmun artifacts to the Hellenistic Tylos era and the arrival of Islam. There are sections on traditional trades, daily life and manuscript heritage, making the museum the repository of the nation’s collective memory. For a visitor, stepping through these halls is like traversing Bahraini time – each exhibit underscores how geography, religion and trade shaped Manama’s identity.

Even before Manama’s medieval chronicles, the landscape outside the city recalls Bahrain’s Bronze Age glory. The Barbar Temples (just 25 km north of Manama) consist of successive ruins of a mass of limestone steps and shrines. Since 1954 archaeologists have uncovered at least three temple phases (c. 3000–2000 BC) built one atop the other. These temples, dedicated to the goddess Inzak, feature huge limestone altars and offering pits. Although only foundations survive today, their scale (stones over 1 m across) conveys a sense of ritual drama. As one writer noted, the layers of Barbar span “a period of some 600 to 800 years”, suggesting that it was an important, continuously revered cult site in Dilmun. Viewers can peer into one excavated well of dressed blocks, where priests may once have gathered for ceremonies. The village above Barbar remains quiet and the site unfenced, offering a serene contrast to Manama’s urban bustle.

Further west sits Al-Adhbah Temple (often called the Ad-Diraz Temple). Excavations in 2019 exposed this smaller but unusually ornate Dilmun temple, tentatively dated to the early 2nd millennium BC. Its gateway and column fragments differ from both Mesopotamian style and the Barbar examples, indicating local innovation. For instance, archaeologists found a distinctive column base with three projecting arms, suggesting a tripod pedestal form absent elsewhere in the Gulf. Pottery sherds and seals found on site confirm its religious use. Today Ad-Diraz’s site is marked by a low stone platform amid date-palm groves, not yet visually dramatic but hinting at a wide cult precinct. Together with Barbar, these Dilmun temples underscore that the flat Bahrain plain once hosted vibrant sacred landscapes – a far cry from today’s traffic.

By the late Islamic period, Manama’s suburban environs featured another landmark: the al-Khamis Mosque, one of the oldest in the region. Ruins of this mosque lie in the south of Manama (the name “al-Khamis” means “Thursday,” referencing a market day) in a modern suburb. Archaeologists have identified two mosque phases: one possibly built in 717 AD under the Umayyads and a larger one built around 1058 AD. The earlier mosques were simple, but the 11th-century structure shows intricately dressed stone and carved Kufic inscriptions – evidence of the Qaramita (Qarmatian) dynasty’s patronage. Today visitors see partly excavated walls and twin minaret bases of the Qarmatian mosque. Though not actively used, this rubble remnant is a tangible link to Bahrain’s early Islamic age. It reminds us that, by the 10th century, Manama’s outskirts were already home to communities large enough to build monumental congregational mosques.