Al-Makharga or Fareeq el-makharga is a district in the Manama Souq

Manama Souq

Manama Souq is the old bazaar of Bahrain's capital, Manama. It lies in the north of Manama Peninsula, in-between the old parts of the city and the Central Business District, to the east of Noaim and west of Ras Rumman. The area also is home to Bahrain's only synagogue.It is a bustling...

, the heart of Manama

Manama

Manama is the capital and largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 155,000 people.Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is home to a very diverse population...

, the capital of Bahrain

Bahrain

' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

. It neighbours the adjacent districts of Fareeq el-Hammam, Fareeq el-Hatab, Fareeg el-Fadhel, Gudaibiya

Gudaibiya

Gudaibiya is a neighbourhood in Manama, the capital city of Bahrain.An older part of the city, yet it is one of the busy areas, Gudaibiya is a bustling highly cosmopolitan area and home to many new arrivals in the Kingdom, as well as government offices including parliament. It has large numbers of...

, and the original city of Manama.

Its name derives from the ancient craft of piercing pearl

Pearl

A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...

s and making jewellery that was one of commercial activities in the neighborhood.

For centuries, it was and still is a stone in the government's throat due to its political rights demands. It holds the most important meetings of the opposition parties. Therefore, meetings of the opposing movements from all over Bahrain were held in the influential Shiite mosque Masjid Mo'min and the Sunni mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

 Jami'a Al-Mihza' in Al-Makharga.

Nowadays, it is a sacred district in the old city of Manama, in which religious gatherings are held, especially during the month of Muharram

Muharram

Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year in which fighting is prohibited...

 and in Ashura

Ashura

Ashura may refer to:* Ashura, meaning "tenth" in Arabic** The Day of Ashura, , day of mourning in Shi'a Islam* King Ashura, character from the manga series Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle...

, the sacred day of Shia Islam in which Imam Hussain, the grandson of the prophet

Prophets of Islam

Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...

 Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

, was killed by the Umayyad

Umayyad

The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...

rulers.