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VAKIL OF THE MOSQUE
Tapping through back alleys

The vakil of the mosque sits outside Misfah, a blind man in a grey dishdasha on a grey rock. Suleiman bin Nasser bin Abdullah al Abri is in his 60s, and you will find him tapping his way through the labyrinth of alleyways that wind around each other, always climbing or descending. There is no level ground in Misfah.
Suleiman has followed the ups and downs of his work for the past 15 years. A village mosque is much more than just a place to pray. It owns property, especially agricultural land, which is rented out to residents and used to fund its activities such as providing free food during Ramadan and to cover the cost of maintenance and repair of its assets and infrastructure. A falaj system comes with the gardens, and this requires special attention. “In the old days, when Misfah had much fewer people, we didn’t really have to manage the water.
It just flowed from one field to another, in a line. Now, with a lot more ground to cover, we have to block the channels and siphon the flow to specific areas at certain times of the day and week. As the population grew, we dug for more water.” Time was measured in baddas, atars and kias. Approximately, one badda is 12 hours, or 24 atars, and each atar is 32 minutes. One atar consists of 24 kias.

SABLAT AL HADAYER
The rise and fall of the community

A vakil is elected by a committee of locals, who will typically meet in the sablah of the village, the Sablat al Hadayer in Misfah. “Everyone comes here with a coffee pot and a bowl of dates from their farm, to sit here between ten in the morning till noon and
discuss matters of common concern. After lunch, villagers will go back to their farms, and come together after sunset and sit in the sablah, or the mosque.
“Key persons of the committee are the rashids, the heads of each family group. A rashid is also the coordinator between the families and their sheikh.”
There are four rashids in Misfah, heads of the four families. The Aulad Saif, Aulad Umran and Aulad Sanad are all al Abris, the original inhabitants of Misfah, whose stronghold is at al Hamra at the base of the mountain. The fourth family is the al Hatali, members of a tribe that migrated from Wadi Bani Auf, on the northern side of the mountain. “The Hatalis are our brothers,” adds Suleiman. “And there has even been inter-marriage over the generations.” Such
bonhomie is already diluting with each fresh slap of concrete on the slopes. The sablah is generally empty now, because most villagers have business outside, with concrete roads and cars to connect them to the big towns like al Hamra, Nizwa and eventually Muscat. No one is really hopping over the fields with a jug of kahwa. “In the old days, we would retire to our rooms after the maghrib prayer, to study the Koran or discuss science until the last prayer, al isha.” Now, you are more likely to find the young ones on their cell phones, at the many lay-bys on the road down to al Hamra. Misfah itself seems to be flooded by wave over wave of tourist group: scraggly hikers down from Jebel Shams, a busload of schoolchildren, even residents of surrounding towns – all seen over a few hours on a Thursday morning. Such visiting might even be apt, if it weren’t somehow sad. Misfah has long hosted travellers because of its position on the route across the mountains, and for its importance to the Abri tribe. “Even the sheikhs used to come here – we would get visitors from Rustaq, al Hamra, Wadi Sahtan, and Bahla. Guests were brought to the sablah, not people’s homes, because they were guests of the entire village, not a particular person.”
A lot has changed, even the little things such as how the people dress. Of course, all the men in Misfah wear the dishdasha,
but, according to Suleiman, “It used to be shameful to go outside without your khanjar and the thin stick called assa. If you were poor, you would at least stick a knife through your belt to make yourself presentable. You would have to add a rifle or tafaq and a belt of
cartridges called mahzam if you were heading on a journey out of the village.”
Suleiman has fathered five children and worked in the fields before he became vakil, with a two-year break in Ruwi, where he was a construction labourer making 700bz a day in the 1970s.

VAKIL OF THE FALAJ
Channelling Ayn al Athba

Saleh bin Issa bin Salim al Abri has the last house on the hill, so he can look out over the canyon and see the entire village, with its plantations spread across the slopes. As the vakil of Misfah’s falaj system, he is responsible for the upkeep of the irrigation channels that are the life-blood of this settlement. You can imagine how important a job his is by trying to picture the village without its gardens.

“Six years ago, I went to the government and asked for their help. They sent an engineer to examine the falaj and make a report. On his recommendation, 997m of channels were repaired, rebuilt and widened. The ministry came up with the RO27,000 needed, which was a good thing because the falaj relies only on donations to cover the costs of its upkeep. Ten years ago, we had property like the mosque, date trees and lemon. Now, the money has dried up and the lemon has died. We might get RO35 a year from the dates – nothing.”

The main source of water is Ayn al Athba, channelled through a complex system of sharing that revolves around time and quantity. Cultivators receive their water once every eight days, and for an exact amount of time that varies from 15 minutes for the smallest of plots to six hours for the larger tracts of land. That might not seem like much, but bear in mind that farmers in drier villages might receive their supply only once every 16 days.

Greens are grown in winter, while summer brings forth wheat, banana, mango and lemon. Misfah used to be self-sufficient, until the roads came and business shifted away from the family farms, now largely a ceremonial side income. “Nothing was ever wasted. Leftover food was fed to the animals, and the goats in turn were eaten, bringing the chain full circle. Everything was carried on the head and shoulder, and a few people had donkeys to transport goods and food for barter.” You will still see them plodding around, steered by the shawawi who leave for mountain trails up to villages like Aqabat al Hamra, which we featured in our April 2007 issue.