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Abdul Rahman Al Bakir

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Abdul Rahman Al Bakir
Born1917
Manama, Bahrain
Died8 July 1971 (aged 53–54)
Beirut, Lebanon
Resting placeDoha, Qatar
Known forSecretary of the National Union Committee

Abdul Rahman Al Bakir (Arabic: عبدالرحمن الباكر; 1917–1971) was a leading activist and one of the independence leaders in the Arab Gulf states in the 20th century.[1] He was the founding member and secretary of the National Union Committee (NUC), a non-sectarian and pan-Arab independence group established in Bahrain in 1954.

Early life

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Al Bakir was born in Manama, Bahrain, in 1917.[2][3] His family were Jews lived in Baghdad who later converted to Islam.[4] The parents of Al Bakir were from Qatar.[4] Al Bakir received a law degree from an Indian University.[5]

Activities and arrest

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Al Bakir was employed at the Bahrain Petroleum Company in 1936 and then worked in Dubai, Qatar and in some African countries.[2] During this period he also visited various regions, including Zanzibar, Kenya and East Africa where he observed the effects of the British colonial policies which were very different from those in the Gulf states.[6] In the late 1940s he settled in Doha, Qatar, where he involved in ice business, but in 1952 he returned to Bahrain.[2] He was given a Bahraini passport in 1948.[2] In a meeting of the Bahraini political activists led by Al Bakir it was decided to launch a nationalist journal, Sawt al-Bahrain, which laid the basis of High Executive Committee.[7] Al Bakir published articles in Sawt al-Bahrain using a pseudonym, Ibn Taymiyyah.[8] One of his articles was about slavery in Islam.[8] He joined the editorial team of the weekly newspaper Al Qafilah in 1952.[2]

In 1954 Al Bakir and other progressive intellectuals established the High Executive Committee which would be later renamed the National Union Committee, and he was elected as its secretary.[2][9] The authorities asked Al Bakir to leave the country after the start of the large-scale demonstrations in country, and he left Bahrain for Cairo where he stayed between the end of March and September 1956.[2] In fact, the authorities ordered him to go to Lebanon.[2]

Following the demonstrations in 1956 the Bahraini authorities arrested three founders of the NUC, namely Abdul Rahman Al Bakir, Abdulaziz Al Shamlan and Abdul Ali Aliwat, who were accused of attempting to assassinate the ruler, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, three members of the ruling family, and Charles Belgrave, advisor of Salman on 6 November 1956.[10] They were detained and sent to Jidda Island.[9] After the trial they were sentenced to fourteen years in prison on 23 December 1956.[11]

They were sent to exile into the island of Saint Helena on the orders of Salman bin Hamad on 27 January 1957.[12] Al Bakir and others made an application to the Supreme Court of St Helena and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to use the habeas corpus which was admitted.[10] Although the Council rejected his petition in the early 1960, on 7 April their case was reopened which was also rejected.[10] In June 1960 two Labor Party members of the House of Commons and some British newspapers, including The Guardian, began to call for the release of three NUC members claiming that the court did not impartially deal with the case.[10] In the late 1950s the Labour Party members demanded that these three men should be released and not to be sent to Bahrain.[10]

On 13 June 1961 Al Bakir, Al Shamlan and Aliwat were freed and went to London with their St Helena passports.[10][13] Each of them was paid £15,000 for compensation and £5,000 for expenses.[11]

Later years

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After his short stay in London Al Bakir settled in Beirut, Lebanon.[3] There he published a book entitled min al-bahrain ila al-manfa~Sant Hilanah (Arabic: From Bahrain to Exile in 'Saint Helena') in 1965.[14]

Personal life and death

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Al Bakir was married and had four children, two sons and two daughters.[3] As of 2002 his wife and daughters were living in Qatar.[3] One of his daughters married Jassim Buhejji, cofounder of the National Union Committee.[1]

Al Bakir died in Beirut on 8 July 1971.[3] His body was brought to Bahrain, but the Bahraini authorities did not allow his family to bury him there. Instead, he was buried in a cemetery in Doha, Qatar.[3]

References

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  1. ^ a b Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi (28 February 2012). "Jassim Buhejji, a life for Bahrain". Open Democracy. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Hamad Ebrahim Abdulla (2016). Sir Charles Belgrave and the Rise and Fall of Bahrain's National Union Committee (PhD thesis). University of East Anglia.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "عبدالرحمن الباكر". Al Wasat (in Arabic). No. 39. 14 October 2002. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  4. ^ a b Miriam Joyce (2000). "The Bahraini Three on St. Helena, 1956-1961". The Middle East Journal. 54 (4): 613–623. JSTOR 4329546.
  5. ^ Troy Michael Carter. Traditions of protest, institutional sectarianism, and oil rentierism in authoritarian Bahrain (MA thesis). American University of Beirut. p. 60. hdl:10938/10241.
  6. ^ Hassan Mohammad Abdulla Saleh (1991). Labor, nationalism and imperialism in eastern Arabia: Britain, the Shaikhs and the Gulf oil workers in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, 1932-1956 (PhD thesis). University of Michigan. p. 223. ProQuest 304025111.
  7. ^ Wafa Alsayed (1 July 2020). "Sawt al-Bahrain: A Window onto the Gulf's Social and Political History". London School of Economics. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
  8. ^ a b "مقال (الرق في الاسلام) عبدالرحمن الباكر". Gulf Centre for Development Policies (in Arabic). 18 May 2019. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  9. ^ a b Mohammed Ghanim Al Rumaihi (1973). Social and political change in Bahrain since the First World War (PhD thesis). Durham University. pp. 365, 390.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Miriam Joyce (2003). Ruling Shaikhs and Her Majesty's Government, 1960-1969. London; Portland, OR: Frank Cass. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-7146-5413-3.
  11. ^ a b Richard E. Littlefield (1964). Bahrain as a Persian Gulf State With References to its Relations With Great Britain and the Province of Al-Hasa (MA thesis). American University of Beirut. ProQuest 2299173139.
  12. ^ "Arab In St. Helena To Appeal". The Times. No. 54526. 30 July 1959. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  13. ^ "Bahrainis In St. Helena Freed". The Times. No. 55107. St. Helena. 14 June 1961. p. 11. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  14. ^ Khawla Mohammed Mattar (1992). Silent citizens: State, citizenship and media in the Gulf (PhD thesis). University of Durham.
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