The natural environment, especially climate, has played a significant role in influencing politics and government in both Bahrain and Egypt over the centuries; however, they were a more decisive factor in Egyptian political history. Bahrain as a culture dates back to the third millennium B.C., whereas Egyptian civilization (one of the oldest in the world) is more than 6,000 years old. Robison & Greenway commented that Bahrain had "a much more temperate climate 4500 years ago" than it does today (62). The Dilmun Empire in Bahrain was closely connected to the Sumerian religion then practiced in Mesopotamia in which "Bahrain's greenery was central" (Robison & Greenway 64). The relatively mild climate of Bahrain, as compared to that of neighboring continental areas of the Gulf region, made it ideal for seafaring trade including excellent harbors and an abundant supply of fresh water. Egypt's politics and state structures were more directly a product of a climate which yielded a large, thinly populated arid area and a densely populated Nile River Valley whose inhabitants have been dependent for their survival on the effects of rainfall and floods. According to Metz, Egypt's political and economic system "developed around the concept of a god incarnate (the pharaoh) who was believed through his magical powers to control the Nile flood" (8). Rule under the pharaohs generated (especially after the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt) in the third millennium B.C., centralized royal administrative institutions and structures.
Geographical position played a critical role in the political development of both nations. In ancient times, Bahrain lay across the main ocean trading routes between the Romans and Greeks to the West, the Indian subcontinent, and sea trade among nations along the Persian or Arabic Gulf. Nakhleh said that for centuries Bahrain has prided itself "on the urbanity and middle-class pragmatism of its people," the result of ...