2428: Bahrain Aug 14, 2021

There are some countries with names that are meaningful descriptions and take 'the' in their names like 'the Netherlands' (the lowlands) and 'the Ukraine' (the borderland). This is also true of 'Bahrain', which in Arabic is البحرين‎ (al-Baḥrayn) meaning 'the two seas', as it is in the dual. It is not clear, however, which seas this is referring to. Some suggest that the island's east and west bay may be the source, or even just natural water beneath the ground and above the surface, as there are many notably natural bubbling springs. Either way, in antiquity and in the Quran this name simply referred to all of eastern Arabia, and it's not clear when the islands took on this name exclusively.