A Shabbat in Bahrain

In Bahrain’s capital, Muslims and Jews pray side by side—defying sectarianism and the cynicism of global geopolitics

Attending a Shabbat service isn’t how I typically spend my Saturday mornings. But at 8:30 a.m., I find myself seated inside a synagogue tucked into the heart of Manama, the capital of Bahrain. A young man stands at the lectern, reciting a Hebrew psalm in a gentle, rhythmic cadence. He’s dressed in a neon-green sports shirt, swaying slightly as he chants.

His name is Abdullah. His Hebrew is fluid and melodic—though laced with an unmistakable Arabic accent. That’s because Abdullah is not Jewish. He’s a practicing Muslim. And he’s not alone: most of the congregation this morning are Muslims.

“All beliefs are the same,” Abdullah tells me simply when I ask him why he’s reciting Jewish prayers. “We’re all part of the Abrahamic family.”

This moment—so serene, so seemingly incongruous—would be notable anywhere. But in a Muslim-majority country like Bahrain, it’s remarkable. In the West, particularly in Britain where I live, Jewish-Muslim relations have frayed under the weight of the Israel-Gaza war and the social ruptures it has triggered. Friendships have dissolved. Long-standing interfaith ties have snapped. As Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, founder of Ideas Beyond Borders, once quipped, “Unlike in Las Vegas, what happens in the Middle East rarely stays in the Middle East.”

But what if the inverse is also true? What if some lessons from the region could help us repair what’s broken at home?

At the synagogue—formally known as the House of Ten Commandments—we are handed laminated sheets containing the psalm in Hebrew, with English transliteration and Arabic translation side by side. It’s a symbolic gesture, but a powerful one. “Once people can read what Jews are praying about, they understand us better,” says Ebrahim Nonoo, the soft-spoken head of Bahrain’s Jewish community.

“Ask any Muslim,” he continues, “and they’ll tell you—you can’t be a Muslim without believing in the Torah.”

Bahrain’s spirit of coexistence isn’t a utopian ideal; it’s a practical reality baked into the island’s cultural DNA. Manama is the only city in the Middle East where you can walk without crossing police checkpoints past Sunni and Shiite mosques, Christian churches, a Hindu temple, and a synagogue. There are no security guards stationed at the House of Ten Commandments, no bulletproof glass, no concrete barricades—just a door that opens into prayer.

Contrast that with Britain, where synagogues are increasingly fortified behind high fences and CCTV, reflecting a darker turn in public life.

Jews have lived in Bahrain since the late 19th century, having migrated from Iraq in search of commercial opportunity. They became integral to Bahrain’s economic fabric, trading in textiles, banking, and commerce, while continuing to speak Arabic in the dialect of their ancestral Baghdad. Today, the few dozen Jews who remain (down from an estimated 1,500 a century ago) still call this place home.

On one synagogue wall, a wooden plaque bearing the word “Allah” in Arabic hangs across from the Torah ark. It’s not a political statement. It’s just how things are here.

After morning prayers, the congregation gathers for a meal of kosher challah bread, grape juice, and Rooh Afza—a rose-flavored, milk-based drink more common in the Indian subcontinent than the Gulf. Ahmed, a 25-year-old Bahraini in a traditional white thobe, helps serve. He’s also a synagogue board member and is studying Hebrew.

“My grandmother used to go to our Jewish neighbor’s house every Sabbath to turn on her stove,” he tells me, grinning. “She’d even light the coals for her shisha pipe.”

Ahmed laughs, but then turns serious. “I’m not saying Bahrain is perfect. But I think the rest of the world can learn about coexistence from us.”

It hasn’t all been harmony. In 1947, following the UN vote on the partition of Palestine, Bahraini rioters torched the synagogue and looted its only Torah scroll. Many Jews fled, some to the newly formed State of Israel.

Today’s modest revival of Jewish life is, in part, thanks to the Abraham Accords—agreements signed in 2020 between Israel and several Arab states, including Bahrain. “The Accords were meant to normalize the picture of the guy you’ve always called the enemy,” says Eitan Na’eh, Israel’s ambassador to Bahrain. “People hate what they’re afraid of.”

That normalization is still incomplete. Israel’s diplomatic presence in Bahrain is intentionally discreet. Anti-normalization protests, especially among the Shia population, often surface during Ashura, when effigies and Israeli flags are burned or trampled. At one such protest last year, Hezbollah flags were waved in the streets of Manama.

“The problem with Israel,” Bahraini political consultant Ahmed Khuzaie tells me, “is that it seeks validation—even when it’s empty.”

Bahrain’s internal politics are delicate. While ruled by a Sunni monarchy, the island has a Shia majority, an imbalance that informs its wariness toward Iran. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Gulf states have viewed Tehran as the primary destabilizing force in the region.

That anxiety intensified shortly after my trip, when Israel launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites, killing several senior officials. Iran retaliated with waves of missile attacks. A decades-long cold war erupted, briefly, into hot conflict.

Though a ceasefire now holds, few believe it’s durable. Tehran is already rebuilding its nuclear infrastructure. Some UN officials warn the regime could produce weapons-grade uranium “in a matter of months.” The mullahs are publicly claiming victory.

“This is a sign of another part to the war very soon,” warns Khuzaie, drawing parallels to the slow-rolling catastrophe that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

And yet, for one brief morning in Manama, I witnessed something astonishing: Jews and Muslims not merely tolerating one another, but praying together, eating together, and laughing together. In a region often consumed by fear, mistrust, and violence, it felt quietly radical.

“This is our history,” says Ebrahim Nonoo. “We say in Arabic: kul wahid lideenihum—everyone to their own religion.”

In a world where identity often serves as a weapon, maybe that simple refrain is enough to build something better.

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