The Bahārna (Arabic: بُحارنة, lit. 'Buharnah', or Arabic: اِلبحارنه, lit. 'il baharneh'), are an ethnoreligious group of Shia Muslim Arabs indigenous to the historical region of Bahrain. Regarded by some scholars as the original inhabitants of Eastern Arabia, most Bahraini citizens are Baharna. They inhabited the region before the arrival of the Banu Utbah, which the Bahraini royal family descends from, in the 18th century.
Outside the modern country of Bahrain, Baharna populations are found throughout Eastern Arabia (Bahrain, Qatif, and al-Ahsa). There are also significant populations in Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Iraq (specifically Najaf and Karbala), as well as Khorramshahr and Hormozgan province in Iran.
