Bahrain

The Kingdom of Bahrain (Arabic: البحرين‎, al-Baḥrayn) is a Middle Eastern archipelago in the Persian Gulf, tucked into a pocket of the sea flanked by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It displays relatively social liberalism compared with more conservative neighboring countries, where Islamic law is applied in a much stricter way. Case in point: alcohol is legal here. Although Bahrain has a heavily petroleum-based economy, its political, social, and cultural peculiarities helped it develop a fairly cosmopolitan middle class and a politically conscious working class.\nA string of political unrest (culminating in the demonstrations in 2011 and the following government crackdown) exposed significant discomfort as well as sectarian and social cleavages.\nBahrain means "two seas" in the Arabic language.