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EXPLORING THE SHARQIYAH

Written and photographed by ROB ARNHEM

“Haraka haraka haina baraka
– in hurrying there is no blessing”

WELCOME TO MUDAIRIB
Wadis, desert and history

All of 12 years ago, on my first trip into the Sharqiyah on a desert crossing, I first glimpsed a classic early morning landscape. I had a feeling that something different was in the offing: we’d passed through the serpentine defile of Wadi Aqq, and yet more strange new names beckoned from the roadside – Gboo, Wadi Squt, al Fankh, Wadi Seijani and the quirky Izz and al Ghabbi. Then, just past Ibra, between that old watering hole the Al Qabil Rest House and Mintrib, was an eye-catching arrangement of several pepper-pot towers watching over a sea of grey-green palms against those heat-crumbled ophiolite rocks. It was built on several adjoining small hills less than a kilometre off the main road, but did we have time to stop and poke our noses in? It remained captured in my mind’s eye, though, and I later made a little sketch as I remembered it. Not until I made a plan to base myself for a weekend at Qabil and spend some time in the area did I finally get around to exploring what I had always confused with Mudaibi. Welcome to Mudairib.

To the left, or the north, are the Eastern Hajar mountains and the great wadis of Dima wa Tayyin and Wadi Naam, Wadi Khabbah and Wadi Dayqah that drain the range. Straight ahead lies the road to Sur, the Ja’alan and al Ashkharah, and to the south, laid out on a regular north-south axis, combed by the prevailing winds, are the officially renamed Sharqiya Sands – Ramla as Sharqiyah. They are home to the biggest confederation of Bedu tribes, the al Wahaibi. Mountains, desert, wadis, trading routes from the sea to the interior, and strategically sited fortified towns – a pattern to be repeated with subtle variations all over northern Oman. Settlement is often about exploitation and control of resources – permanent water, date plantations, livestock, and something as basic as firewood – and opportunities to trade and raid. Those forts might look like picturesque 19th-century theatrical backdrops, but they saw gun smoke and clashing steel in an often unforgiving and harsh environment.

MEN OF THE DESERT
Orange is for caution

A who’s who of the Sharqiyah reveals complex tribal alliances and memories of ancient feuds, now happily fading in the modern era of security and prosperity. As in Scotland and elsewhere, smaller weaker tribal clans unable to defend themselves pledged loyalty to a more powerful protector. The sheikh of the al Harthy tribe’s power base at al Qabil straddled the route between the seafaring al Junuba of Sur and al Ashkharah, the warlike Ja’alan and the larger centre of Ibra, so the al Harth became a force to be reckoned with. The al Habsi of Mudhaibi, or al Habus in the plural, were once famed as travelling traders along this route, recognisable by their orange – for caution – turbans. They led the camel caravans and were well armed.

Turning in to Mudairib’s main centre, fringed by the old souq, now in its last throes, you’ll see the frowning walls of a towered and gated complex built on a slight rise. This is the tribal boardroom, or sabla of the al Muharmi. Its massive teak doors are among the finest of their kind in a region known for its splendid doors and carved gateways. I struck it on a lucky day – it hadn’t been used for a long time. Polite boys were busy cleaning out pigeon droppings and raising dust in preparation for an azha, a formal meeting of condolences for a local worthy who had died. A panoramic view from the flat roof revealed the seven towers, now empty of sharp-eyed watchers, still standing mute guard over the oasis. My guide was a very affable local, an old student named Mohammed Rashid Mohammed al Harthy. With quiet pride and understanding about what strangers might want to see and know, and endless patience, he and his brother Said, a teacher, took turns to unpeel the layers of history and human settlement. The name Mudairib, they explained, means a mustering place, where armed men gather. Today, during Eid and National Day holidays, the open area outside the walls still witnesses martial scenes of flashing swords and khanjars, stirring songs and plumes of dust from racing Arabian horses, with crowds of ululating women as a chorus.

PURE ARABIAN
Breeding and racing

Camel breeding and racing are major activities. Formerly, the Sharqiyah was famed for its Arabian horses, exported to India, but trade declined with 19th-century fortunes. We passed along a dusty lane and plantations of palms dying for lack of water, and a solitary gate, now without the walls that it gave entry to, with a superb arabesque carved lintel and inscription from the Holy Qur’an. Its six-inch nails are hand-forged iron, and there are no hinges – just conical ends which swivel in well-worn holes in the lintel and base. It was an unexpected treat then, to visit this village, al Ghulagi, where Mohammed’s friend Wadha owns two superb horses. One, appropriately named Major, is a fine English thoroughbred (and all of those are descended from just three Arabian stallions brought to England in the 18th century) and his stable mate is a spirited grey Pegasus who enjoyed kicking up his heels and was obviously longing for a canter. The Sharqiyah is still home to that elegant and svelte breed, the Arabian horse, and the government has expressed a special interest in reviving ancient breeding and equestrian skills. Both boys and girls are being encouraged to ride. If you phone the Equestrian and Camel Racing Federations, they’ll provide you with an annual official programme and you’ll be able to plan a visit to take in one of these stirring spectacles. It means an early-morning wake-up, though, so it’s easiest planning an overnight stay in the new Ibra Hotel or that old favourite, the Al Qabil Motel, or arranging with a tour company to stay in one of their convenient desert camps. It’s difficult to know exactly where and when the races will be held unless you have some local contact, as there are several venues. You can strike it lucky too during any of the public holidays at less official venues, and these can be great fun as they’re wilder events unrestricted by modern tracks and railings.

SWAHILI
Fortunes of East Africa

Mohammed’s widowed mother had prepared us a typical Sharqiyah lunch of spiced rice and a spinach-like relish called mboga, with some zesty green chilli sauce to accompany delicious fresh marinated baby shark. She wore the typical double kanga, the bright and boldly patterned cotton cloth arranged around the head and upper body by women, with its trademark Swahili motto. That brought it all home – the long result of cross-pollination between Arabia and Africa. The kummah, so typical of Omani men, originated in East Africa. The carved wooden doors owe much to African geometric design, too. Many local people can understand Swahili – it’s a melodious language African in grammar but with many Arabic words, to which it has added a softer vowel ending – samak (fish) becomes samaki and asal (honey) asali. A devastating drought in the 19th century forced many in the Sharqiyah to try their luck in East Africa, especially Zanzibar and the mainland of what’s now Tanzania. And as Zanzibar became richer the centre of power and wealth moved from Oman to East Africa. Many of the old mansions now crumbling in the al Mansafah quarter of Ibra and Mudairib point to an era of former prosperity. Migration to and from the East African coast was nothing new, of course. It has been going on for at least 1,500 years, and often there are still family connections today. The word Swahili itself is derived directly from sahel, the Arabic for ‘coast’, where the first Omani, Yemeni and Shirazi Persian merchants made contact. Words like safari, from Arabic for ‘a journey’, and dengue, have spread far beyond their Swahili-speaking homeland. As a trading lingua franca, Swahili spread all over East Africa, from Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique to the Great Lakes as far inland as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and even the eastern Congo. In fact, one early al Harthy marched to fame with Henry Morton Stanley into the Congo. Mohammed’s father, Said, spent a number of years in Tanzania as a young man. His sons sat for a belated family portrait, holding a tinted photograph of their father between them. Old Ibra, which sent legions of its sons to Africa, is a cluster of different tribal quarters, or harat, and villages, co-existing to exploit the numerous springs and falaj systems, without which they could not have survived. So here al Maskari, al Barwani, al Yahmadi and al Yazeedi are frequent surnames, just as al Harthy predominates in al Qabil and Mudairib. Place names and personal names are often the most ancient things about us, and in the Arab world a deep interest is shown in genealogy.

A DAMP FOG
Weather and date plantations

Not far from Mudairib, on the main road, is Mintrib, standing at one of the several access routes into the deep Wahiba. Bidiya Castle is worth a visit for its barrel-vaulted ceilings. Normally, the width of a room was determined by the length of a suitably strong palm log split in half, but this fort has thick plaster coating its arches as added insulation on the fringe of the desert, and for defence. The Sharqiya can be oven-like during the day and often unexpectedly cold at night. A damp fog seeps inland from the Arabian Sea and soaks gardens, enabling people to survive here. And here, al Hajri and al Awaisi are common local tribal names.

The residents of the Sharqiyah will tell you that their region produces the best dates in Oman. Every village has its favourite cultivars. In midsummer each year, it’s tabsil time: yellow unripe dates called mabsaili are picked and boiled before being dried and exported to their main market, India. The open-air kitchen where these are processed, with its great copper-bottomed cauldrons, is a prominent feature in these villages. The al Harthy of Mudairib have theirs in the walled complex of their sabla at Hosh Ma’alek.
In the cooler late afternoon, we visited some of the 69 sites dating back to prehistoric Bronze Age times, when copper mining was the mainstay of the economy of the land then called Magan. South of al Qabil, into the gravel plains of the wadi towards Mudhaibi, the circular scars of ancient cairn tombs line the ridges.

So when you’re along this way again, break your safari and let the caravan couch in Mudairib or al Qabil. Before hurrying off, think of the proverb haraka haraka haina baraka – in hurrying there is no blessing. It’s Swahili, but three of the words are essentially Arabic. As a memento, buy a couple of those vibrant kangas – and you’ll find a Swahili proverb on each one.