Chapter 04
Indian Ocean routes in rhythm and ritual
5 min
Bahrain's music also faces south and east. Liwa, tanbura and related practices carry histories of movement between East Africa, Arabia, Iran, Baloch communities and the wider Indian Ocean. Their shared routes do not make them interchangeable.
Liwa: reed, drums and circular force
Liwa is one of the most immediately physical sounds in Bahrain's folk repertory. A loud double-reed instrument, often identified as the surnay, projects a narrow, penetrating melody above a layered drum ensemble. The drums do not simply keep time; they create interlocking patterns that pull dancers and listeners into a circular flow.
The music's East African connections are part of its history, as are the Gulf communities that made it local. In performance, the contrast between reed and percussion is dramatic. The surnay can sound almost abrasive at close range, while the drums produce a broad bodily pressure. Repetition intensifies rather than flattens the groove because accents shift the listener's attention.
Named Bahraini groups make the route concrete. The Ismaeel Dawas Band, established in Muharraq in the 1930s, has long been associated with liwa and tanbura. Sami Al Malood Folk Group and other ensembles have also presented liwa in official heritage programmes. Hearing these groups is more informative than treating liwa as anonymous African influence.
The Ismaeel Dawas Band and Al-Liwa House
The Ismaeel Dawas Band provides a rare human and institutional thread through Bahrain's Indian Ocean music. Founded by Dawas bin Faraj, the group developed a home known as Al-Liwa House, also described through local terms for the gathering place. Members met regularly, maintained repertory and carried it into radio and public performance.
That continuity matters because instruments alone cannot tell the story. A surnay or drum may travel widely, but the ensemble decides how pieces begin, how dancers enter, how rhythm is layered and how knowledge passes between generations. The house anchors a transoceanic form in neighbourhood routine.
Listen for the group's control of density. Liwa is sometimes described as exuberant, but its excitement is organised. The reed line provides a signal around which the percussion rotates. The strongest performances make the groove feel inevitable while preserving small changes in accent and response.
Tanbura, mangour and a darker resonance
The tanbura is a bowl lyre whose strings create a low, buzzing field of sound. In Gulf settings it can appear with drums, singing and the mangour, a belt fitted with goat hooves that rattles as the performer moves. The resulting texture is very different from the bright attack of liwa: more suspended, resonant and inward.
Tanbura traditions have connections across the Red Sea, East Africa and the Gulf. In Bahrain they belong to specific community and ritual histories. The instrument should therefore not be treated as an exotic colour that can be detached from the people who play it.
For public listening, concentrate on texture. Follow the tanbura's repeating resonance, then hear how percussion and movement disturb and renew it. The mangour is not decoration; its dry shake translates bodily motion into rhythm. Together, the parts create a sound that is simultaneously grounded and unstable.
Jirba and other travelling instruments
Bahrain's folk programmes also feature jirba, a bagpipe tradition accompanied by percussion. The sustained pipe tone and continuous air produce a different energy from the stop-and-start phrasing of reed and drum music. In a festival sequence, jirba can sound startlingly close to other bagpipe cultures while remaining embedded in Gulf social performance.
Jassim Jamsheer Band and other named groups have presented jirba in Bahrain. Ardha, samri, khamari and marboo'a add further rhythmic and social forms to the public repertory. Dar Bin Harban and ensembles from Riffa and Hidd provide useful entry points when their programmes are active.
The variety challenges any neat division between Arab and African sound. Instruments arrived through movement, but local ensembles shaped their use. The best question is not where an instrument truly belongs. It is what musicians in Bahrain make it do.
Ritual, belief and respectful listening
Some tanbura and zar-related practices belong to ritual settings with their own beliefs, permissions and community meanings. They should not be repackaged as generic wellness music or described as medical treatment. A public concert excerpt cannot explain every private or sacred dimension.
That boundary need not make the chapter silent. Musical features can still be heard: repeated lyre patterns, percussion cycles, sung response and the sonic contribution of movement. Publicly presented ensembles can be named. What remains private can remain private without turning the tradition into mystery theatre.
Respectful listening begins by accepting that access is not the same as ownership. A recording can introduce a sound, but it does not grant entry into every setting from which that sound comes.
Resident communities in the present
Indian Ocean movement did not end with the pearling era. Bahrain's current population includes long-established and newer South Asian, Filipino, Arab, African and other resident communities. Churches, schools, clubs, hotels, festivals and private celebrations all support musical activity that belongs to life in Bahrain even when the repertory points elsewhere.
This contemporary layer can be heard in choirs, film-song events, dance programmes, jazz groups, wedding bands and collaborative ensembles. It complicates the idea that national music must be either old heritage or citizen-only popular culture. People make music where they live.
For a visitor, the most revealing programme may therefore combine a Bahraini folk group, an expatriate choir and an international ensemble. The mixture is not a failure of curatorship. It reflects the social reality of an island connected by work and migration.
