Dammam

Overview

Dammam is a city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It stands on the country’s Gulf coast, within a region central to Saudi petroleum production and maritime commerce. The discovery of oil in commercial quantities at Dammam’s seventh well in 1938 made the city part of a turning point in Saudi economic history. Saudi and American drillers made that discovery, which helped lay the foundation for a lasting economic and security partnership between their countries. Dammam subsequently became a setting for the development of the Eastern Province’s urban and commercial life.

Home to a significant Shi’a community, Dammam also illustrates the effect of Saudi religious policy on daily worship. Authorities repeatedly withheld approval for construction of Shi’a mosques, restricted public observance of Ashura, closed Shi’a community centers and acted against private Christian gatherings. In May 2015, an Islamic State suicide bomber attacked near a Shi’a mosque during afternoon prayers, killing at least three people. These events form part of the city’s history alongside its economic growth and regional diplomatic role.

Dammam entered discussion of Arab engagement with Israel when an Arab League summit was scheduled there for April 15, 2018. Attention centered on whether warmer informal language about Israel, including that of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would lead to formal diplomatic change. An Israeli business and diplomatic delegation later attended a Saudi government-sponsored cybersecurity conference in Dammam in September 2023. The visit marked a public encounter in the city, without itself establishing a change in formal relations.

Geography

Dammam lies in eastern Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf. Its coastal position places it among the Gulf-facing cities and communities of the Eastern Province. Qatif and al-Ahsa, both mentioned alongside Dammam in accounts of the province’s Shi’a communities, provide important regional context. Saudi religious authorities allowed public Ashura observance in Qatif during periods when they barred or restricted it in Dammam and al-Ahsa. Practices permitted in one part of the province therefore did not necessarily extend to another.

The city’s place in the Eastern Province connects its urban economy to oil production and Gulf commerce. The 1938 discovery at Dammam Well No. 7 was an early commercial oil breakthrough for Saudi Arabia. It gave the city a lasting association with the industry that transformed the country’s finances and its ties with the United States. Dammam’s port also serves Saudi maritime trade. Together, the coastal location, the nearby petroleum industry and links to other Saudi cities explain why Dammam has figured in national economic planning as well as regional affairs.

Modern history

In 1938, Saudi and American drillers found oil in commercial quantities at Dammam’s seventh well. Earlier exploration had not produced the commercial result sought by the drillers; the seventh well supplied it. The discovery made eastern Saudi Arabia central to the country’s emerging oil industry and strengthened the economic relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States. That relationship later acquired a security dimension. For Dammam, the well remains a defining event in the city’s modern history, linking its growth to the development of Saudi petroleum production.

Saudi Arabia’s approach to religious practice shaped another part of Dammam’s modern experience. The city has a significant Shi’a population, yet official treatment of Shi’a institutions differed from treatment of Sunni mosques. Saudi authorities did not finance construction or maintenance of Shi’a mosques. Shi’a residents seeking to build one needed permission from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, the municipality and the governorate. Governorate approval was not required for Sunni mosques. In the 2006 reporting period, authorities had approved new Shi’a mosques in Qatif and parts of al-Ahsa, sometimes after lengthy delays, while approving none in Dammam.

The absence of approval persisted in later reports. The 2008 reporting period again recorded no approval for construction of Shi’a mosques in Dammam, and the 2013 reporting period recorded the same result. These repeated decisions mattered in a city with a substantial Shi’a community: a congregation could not rely on the same approval process or state support available to Sunni institutions. Saudi authorities also refused to approve construction or registration of hussainiyas, Shi’a community centers used for gatherings and religious instruction. Some communities used spaces inside private homes instead. Without legal recognition, those spaces faced difficulties with continuity, financing and compliance with building requirements.

Restrictions extended beyond mosques and community centers. Saudi authorities did not approve a Shi’a graveyard in Dammam during the 2006 reporting period. Shi’a residents of the city could not use Ja’afari courts, whose jurisdiction was confined to Qatif and al-Ahsa. Even within those areas, rulings of Ja’afari courts could be set aside by Sunni courts, and government departments could decline to implement judgments issued by Shi’a judges. For Dammam residents, the territorial limit alone excluded access to those courts. Worship, burial and legal recourse were thus affected by distinct official rules.

Ashura, which commemorates the death of Hussein bin Ali, became a recurring focus of restrictions. During the 2006 reporting period, Saudi authorities permitted public observance in Qatif but did not permit it in Dammam. They banned public Ashura marches in the city and loudspeaker broadcasts of clerics’ lectures from Shi’a community centers. In some instances, they also banned gatherings inside those centers. These measures reached both public processions and activities conducted within community spaces. The 2008 reporting period continued to record restrictions on public Ashura observance in Dammam, including limits on marches, broadcasts and some indoor gatherings.

Restrictions remained visible in the 2013 reporting period. Authorities limited Shi’a religious activities in Dammam, including public marches and loudspeaker broadcasts of clerics’ lectures. During Muharram, the month in which Ashura occurs, they closed all hussainiyas in the city. The closures prevented use of community spaces at a central point in the Shi’a religious calendar. The different treatment of Dammam and Qatif shows how Saudi policy varied within the Eastern Province: greater scope for public commemoration in Qatif coexisted with constraints on the same observance in Dammam.

Saudi action against Christian worship also occurred in Dammam. In April 2006, authorities arrested a Catholic priest from India while he presided over a service in the city. He was released on April 7 and left Saudi Arabia the following day. The arrest took place within a national system that prohibited public non-Muslim worship and restricted entry and activity by non-Muslim clergy. Access to a priest was particularly consequential for Catholics, whose religious practice includes services and sacraments administered by clergy.

In February of the 2013 reporting period, Saudi religious police arrested more than 50 Ethiopian Christians at a private residence in Dammam. Authorities raised labor and passport violations in connection with the arrests, while three leaders of the group faced charges of seeking to convert Muslims to Christianity. At least 43 of those arrested were deported; others remained detained at the end of the reporting year. The arrests demonstrated that action against Christian worship in the city extended into a private home. They also exposed foreign residents to detention and deportation following a religious gathering.

These episodes occurred under rules that favored the Saudi state’s official interpretation of Islam and restricted other forms of worship. For Dammam’s Shi’a residents, the consequences included obstacles to building mosques, limits on religious processions, closure of community centers and lack of access to Ja’afari courts. For Christians in the city, the documented consequences included the arrest of a priest during a service and the arrest and deportation of members of a private gathering. The measures were separate in form, but both affected people seeking to practice their faith in Dammam.

Security

On May 29, 2015, during afternoon prayers, an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near the Imam Hussein bin Ali Shi’a mosque in Dammam. At least three people were killed. The Islamic State claimed responsibility. The attack followed by one week an Islamic State bombing of a Shi’a mosque in Qatif that killed more than 20 civilians and wounded about 50. The succession of attacks placed Shi’a worshippers in two Eastern Province cities under direct threat during religious gatherings.

The Dammam bomber targeted the area near the mosque, rather than a distant civilian or government site. Its timing during afternoon prayers made worshippers and others near the building vulnerable. The death toll reported for Dammam was lower than that of the preceding Qatif attack, but both belonged to the Islamic State’s campaign of violence against Shi’a civilians. The attacks also gave security authorities an immediate obligation to protect places of worship in a province where Shi’a communities had long faced restrictions on religious practice.

Dammam Prison appears in a later account of the treatment of Shi’a activists. Hussein al-Ribh, a Shi’a activist detained since 2017, died there at age 38 in 2019. Human rights groups announced his death on November 13. Shi’a activists outside Saudi Arabia accused authorities of torturing him during detention. His death drew attention to conditions faced by detained activists in the Eastern Province. It is distinct from the Islamic State attack: one concerns a death in state custody, the other a suicide bombing claimed by a terrorist organization.

Present day

Dammam continues to feature in Saudi economic policy. Saudi Arabia announced a policy linking government contracts to whether businesses maintained regional headquarters in Riyadh, Dammam or Jeddah. Naming Dammam alongside the capital and the Red Sea city placed it among the locations Saudi authorities identified for regional corporate offices. The policy reflects the city’s role beyond oil extraction alone: commercial activity, administrative access and connections to Gulf markets give Dammam a place in plans to attract and locate business within Saudi Arabia.

Later religious-freedom reporting recorded a change from the years in which no construction of Shi’a mosques in Dammam had been approved. Reports for 2020 and 2023 identified two government-licensed Shi’a mosques in the city serving an estimated 750,000 worshippers. Construction still required government approval, and Shi’a congregations financed their own mosque construction and maintenance. The later existence of licensed mosques does not erase the repeated refusals documented in 2006, 2008 and 2013. Read chronologically, the reports show both the earlier barriers and the later licensed institutions.

Dammam’s diplomatic profile emerged in advance of the Arab League summit scheduled for April 15, 2018. The planned meeting was viewed as a test of whether Arab leaders’ warmer informal language about Israel would enter formal diplomatic positions. Mohammed bin Salman’s stance drew particular attention. At the time the summit was planned, informal remarks and covert cooperation had not produced corresponding changes in formal policy or rhetoric. The scheduled meeting therefore belonged to a discussion about possible change, rather than proof that such change had occurred.

In September 2023, an Israeli business and diplomatic delegation attended a Saudi government-sponsored cybersecurity conference in Dammam. Israeli participants publicly presented cybersecurity companies there. Their attendance made the city a venue for visible professional contact between Israelis and Saudis. It followed years in which engagement was discussed largely through informal statements and less public cooperation. A conference visit, however, was an event in its own right; it did not by itself create formal diplomatic relations. Dammam’s recent history thus combines its established economic importance with continuing questions about religious freedom, public security and the pace of Saudi engagement with Israel.