Editing Muharraq (section)

==History==
[[File:Muharraq Town and Causeway 1953.png|thumb|left|Muharraq in 1953]]
Muharraq was originally part of [[Dilmun]], a [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] speaking [[Bronze Age]] polity. Later, it became the city of Arwad on the island of [[Tylos]] (as Bahrain was referred to in antiquity), believed by some (including [[Strabo]] and [[Herodotus]]) to be the birthplace of [[Phoenicia]]. At the end of Persian rule, Bahrain came under the domination of the [[Seleucid Empire|Seleucid Greeks]], and Muharraq was the centre of a pagan cult dedicated to the ox god, [[Awal]]. 

By the 5th century AD, Muharraq had become a major centre of [[Nestorian Christianity]], which had come to dominate the southern shores of the [[Persian Gulf]]. As a sect, the Nestorians were often persecuted as heretics by the [[Byzantine Empire]], but Bahrain was outside the Empire's control offering safety. The names of several of Muharraq's villages today reflect this Christian legacy, with Al-Dair meaning 'the monastery' and Qalali meaning a 'monk's cloisters'.

Taken by the [[Portugal|Portuguese]] (1521) and the [[Safavid dynasty|Persians]] (1602), Al-Muḥarraq passed to the control of the [[Āl Khalīfah]] dynasty in 1783 with the rest of Bahrain.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica: [http://www.britannica.com/place/al-Muharraq Al-Muḥarraq].</ref>

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