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Major foundation work is being carried out at the historic Al Khamis Mosque to stop one of its twin minarets from collapsing.
Several deep cracks have appeared in the minaret caused by road construction taking place near the structure in Khamis.
The roadworks have been temporarily stopped to ensure no further damage is caused until the vital restoration and strengthening procedures have been put in place.
Haytham Al Shurooqi, the Ministry of Information, Archeology and Heritage Department's head of research and maintenance, said the minaret is in a critical condition.
He said: 'Al Khamis Mosque comes with a rich Islamic history. It was built 1,300 years ago by Khalifat Omar bin Abdulaziz.
'The minarets are built like rings, nothing from inside is holding them, so what we are doing now is applying cement around the cracked minaret to give it some strength and to keep it from falling down.
'In addition to that, we are digging under the minaret to find out what is going on down there and will try to fix it bit by bit since we don't know where the minaret's foundation base is because there are no drawings of the mosque. It is a good opportunity for us to look and document the results for generations to come.'
People passing near the mosque can see one of the minarets tilting a little to one side.
'I like this particular minaret, it has an older and more historical look than the other one,' said Mr Al Shurooqi.
'We have stopped the road construction works being carried out on Shaikh Salman Avenue, the vibration rollers and the rock breakers used on the roads are the main cause for these cracks on the minaret.
'It will take us around six months to finish our work and after that the minaret will be in good shape and we will have saved an important Islamic building in Bahrain.
'As far as the budgeting goes, we don't know how much the whole project will cost, because honestly, the problem turned out to be bigger than we initially thought.'
