"ملف 32/10 (4/18) ممارسات إحياء ذكرى محرّم" [و‎‎٢‎٩] (٩٠/٥٧)

During the first ten days of the month of
Muharram the Shias in Bahrain who constitute over
half of the population hold readings in their Matems
every evening. In Manamah there are about a dozen
large matems^capable of holding several hundred men
and smaller matems exist in every village, A matem
is a building which resembles a church hall in an
English village. It is partly a religious build
ing and is maintained by religious endowments but
it is used on secular occasions and eating and
smoking is permitted inside it. Separate matems
exist for women and for children.
The matems are managed by one or more of the
leading men of the neighbourhood frequently by
members of the man who originally built and endowed
the matem. Each matem has its own patrons who fre
quent it in the same way as members frequent a club.
There has always been, in Manamah, a certain amount
of rivalry between the matems. During the first
seven days of Muharram all the Shias congregate in
the matems at night listening to the preachers who
usually succeed in stirring their audiences into a
state of great excitement and emotion.
On the eighth and ninth nights of Muharram the
men from each matem after the reading go out into
the town in procession, each matem having its own
procession. They carry banners, torches, effigies
and many hundreds of them beat their chests, others
flog themselves with chains and on the last night
they brandish the swords which they use on the tenth
in the day time procession when they cut their heads
open. The largest matem is the Persian matem which