Searching for ancient arabia reader

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SEARCHING FOR ANCIENT ARABIA Table of Contents Searching for Ancient Arabia (Introduction) Robert Kluijver

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A Selective History of Immortality and Al Khidr in Ancient Arabia Liane Al Ghusain

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The Politics of Preservation in Bahrain Robert Kluijver

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The Greengrocers of the Gulf (Searching for the Carmathians) Rahel Aima

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Dilmun Settlement in Saar, Bahrain, a Personal Reflection Mehdi Sabet

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Arabic dialects spoken in Bahrain Ahmed Makia

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Trip to Najran: reflections on Saudi cultural heritage policies Robert Kluijver

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The Endangered South Arabian Languages of Oman and Yemen Guest contribution by Michael Colin Dunn

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Archaeology, the past and the present in the UAE Robert Kluijver

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More on the Ancient Graves of Jebel Buhais Amal Bssiss

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Christians in the pre-Islamic Emirates: whence and where to?

Robert Kluijver

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Sir Bani Yas Island and the Church of the East Amal Bssiss

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About the contributors & colophon

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2 Searching for Ancient Arabia R Kluijver

"Only a small proportion of the lore of the Arabs has come down to you. Had it reached you in its entirety, much scientific and literary knowledge would have been yours" This quote from Abu ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ala, who passed away in AD 770/ AH 154, (cited by Ibn Sallam Al Jumahi in Tahaqaat Fuhuul al-Shu’araa’, Cairo, 1974) is one of the few recognitions by Muslim authors of the value of ancient Arabia’s cultures.

Not only Muslim scholars, but also Western specialists of ‘Islamic Art’, usually maintain that Islamic culture owes little to the civilizations that thrived on the Arabian peninsula in the millenia before the advent of Islam. It is true that the preIslamic Arabian cultures had mostly exhausted themselves before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the tail end of their great legacy being smothered in the rivalry between Rome and Parthia. But there was also continuity between the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods on the Arabian peninsula: Islam and Arab culture were integrated smoothly, in most cases, by local cultures that were the inheritors of Dilmun, Saba, Kindah, the Nabataeans etc.

Stone Altar from Marib (5th - 4th Century BC) and Bronze Statuette of the warrior Ma’dikarib, South Arabia (6th century BC). These and all other photos and maps/diagrams on this page are reproduced from the book “Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam’ by Robert Hoyland, 2001. See below for ordering information.

In fact, this dismissive attitude towards pre-Islamic Arabian culture seems mostly to be the result of ignorance. Although rapid progress is being made in our knowledge of ancient Arabia, thanks to archaeology and increased research supported by the GCC states, the amount of information about these cultures is still scant. The contemporary researcher is faced by beautiful but puzzling remnants of these civilizations.

The historical narrative of ancient Arabia is thus a largely unexplored patchwork of stories, or fragments of stories. While this may be problematic to the historian, it provides a fertile ground for artists.

From left to right: limestone funerary statuette from Bahrain, 2nd-3rd C AD / stone grave marker from Tayma region (NW Arabia) / Basalt stele depicting the goddess Allat fitted out like the Greek goddess Athena, from Kharaba in the Hawran, 2nd C AD

There is little information about pre-Islamic Arabia in most school curricula, and thus most contemporary Arabians grow up with little knowledge about the cultures that thrived on the peninsula thousands of years ago. As a result there is not much presence of ancient Arabia in contemporary Arabian culture.

This research proposes to turn the spotlight on this relatively unknown part of Arabian history. It is primarily an artistic research, but it seeks to embed itself within the academic knowledge of this topic, which fortunately is quite abundant in the Gulf states, particularly in the UAE. The research will be fully hosted on a dedicated website, which will soon appear online, and it will result in an online exhibition and a public presentation in the UAE. This research project is supported by a fellowship of the Forming Intersections in Dialogue (FIND) programme hosted by New York University Abu Dhabi. FIND is an innovative cultural laboratory that forms intersections and dialogues between artists, writers, scholars, designers, technologists and the UAE landscape in both a historical and contemporary context.

Through the production of art, stories, scholarship, workshops, and analogue and digital initiatives, FIND engages Emiratis, UAE residents, and the world with reflections of the UAE (extract from the FIND website).

Artistic scope of the research There are many ways in which an artist could approach this subject. One is by studying the material remnants of ancient Arabian cultures: statues, rock art, architecture, ornaments and archaeological objects and giving them a new expression in contemporary art. A few interesting examples of this material culture can be found on this page.

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The Barbar temple of Dilmun. Reconstruction by David Hopkins

(left:) Nabataean god-stone,1st C AD and (right:) head of a Lihyanite sandstone statue from Dedan.

Another is by studying immaterial culture: in the history of this period an artist may find interesting parallels to contemporary perspectives on Arabia. For example, ancient Arabia was at once secluded - a territory unknown to outsiders - and well integrated into the trade networks linking India, Iran, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Mediterranean. Another parallel: Arabia was famed and envied for its riches, which made foreign chroniclers fantasize about palaces lined with silver and gold.

There are many interesting myths about this era; one could be inspired by accounts of winged snakes (as told by Herodotus) that guarded the frankincense trees that provided so much wealth to Arabia; or investigate the mythical mines of King Solomon, which also financed part of the initial expansion of Islam; or again, study the complicated relations between Christians and Jews on both sides of the Red Sea, that led to the massacre at Al Ukhdood (Najran).

Closer to the UAE are the mines of Magan, that provided the classical world with copper since the bronze age - why not use this copper in art? Or could something be done with the abundant detritus produced by copper mining? The UAE itself hosted some of the largest and wealthiest settlements of the peninsula - how is that presented nowadays, in museums?

Then again, archaeologists have deduced building types from uncovered vestiges. All this could also be fertile material for artists.

There is thus no set approach to how artists could be inspired by ancient Arabia; the purpose of this research project is to open up this domain for artists, and start a public dialogue on the subject of possible parallels, or even continuity, between the ages.

For preliminary reading I strongly suggest the book “Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam‘ by Robert Hoyland, Routledge, 2001. All the images and quotes on this page come from this book, and I am heavily indebted to the author for my scant knowledge on the topic – just enough to fire the imagination.

It is available on Amazon, also on Kindle

4 A Selective History of Immortality and Al Khidr in Ancient Arabia Liane Al Ghussain More and more it seems that anything you can’t google is gold.

As a writer and fetishist of the cultural sidestream, into which I’m pulled by personal stories, creative analyses, and fountains of kitsch, it’s an almost spiritual pursuit - bringing to light the unknown, the unexamined. The question that continues to haunt me is: what ideologies and beliefs are toppled whenever a building is demolished?

Last week our Searching for Ancient Arabia team arrived in Bahrain armed with bits of mysterious and often incomplete information on our pet topics – Al Khider shrines and fertility rites, Sufi mysticism, pre-Islamic and pre-Arabic scripts, and the eating habits/ruling MO of the Carmathians. With the generous help of Al Riwaq gallery and NYU Abu Dhabi, we were able to view historical sites and artifacts as well as have meetings with Bahraini historians and anthropologists.

These age-old initiations ring remarkably true for anyone who has ever left home. Going to college in the US I definitely had to kill parts of myself to survive, shedding my inhibited selfexpression and previously unexamined beliefs to make room for new ones. The ruthlessness I took on as cut precious sentences from my writing and ending draining relationships are the kind of skills I’ve brought back to the Middle East as a teacher and cultural practitioner, where stagnated status quos reign supreme and as a response, thankfully, all kinds of education initiatives are attempting to breathe fresh life into young artists and thinkers.

But given all we’ve learned and all we’ve had to overturn to learn it, there’s still a place for honoring the skins we’ve shed and preserving the past so we can see how and why we’ve come this far. And that’s where the epic of Gilgamesh comes in.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story of trying to return to old ways, only to find they’re too far gone. The story takes place as Mesopotamian civilization turned from an agrarian society into an urban one, with the city of Uruk at its center (modern day Iraq). At the time the spiritual landscape was changing so that there was less room for old Sumerian gods and less trust in their divine hand in determining people’s destinies – with more active belief in free will and the importance of building cities that would last forever.

King Gilgamesh, who is a totally modern man for his time,[1] has anxiety about dying and being forgotten, so he journeys to modern day Bahrain to find the immortal Utnapashim and receive his advice. Gilgamesh fails the first and only challenge that Utnapashim sets for him which is to stay awake for 7 consecutive days. Thus we can characterize immortality with vision – the ability to keep one’s eyes open.

The author in front of the Bahrain Fort Museum. Bee sculpture designed by Dina Mahmoud for Bokja.

Background As someone who is first and foremost interested in storytelling, the way our shared stories change over time is of particular interest. Karen Armstrong, in A Short History of Myth explains that myths and storytelling came about as a response to the anxiety of hunting, with storytelling existing as a viable survival technique in the Paleolithic period: “the hunter, the shaman and the neophyte all had to turn their backs on the familiar, and endure fearsome trials…the old ideas that have nourished his community no longer speak to him. So he…fights monsters, climbs inaccessible mountains, traverses dark forests and, in the process dies to his old self, and gains a new insight or skillset, which he brings back to his people.

Utnapashim is the only survivor of the Great Flood,[2] later cast in the Abrahamic religions as Noah, and in the Quran as Al Khider, the servant of Moses (and perhaps also in the Alexander romance as the servant of Alexander the Great, and he is even thought to be a stand-in for St.George).[3] Among the alternative spellings of his name are: Khidr, Khodr, Khoder, Khadr, Khader. The Wikipedia entry on Al Khider would also have one believe that he is a figure linked to the mythologies of a number of ancient cultures including those of Phoenicia, Ireland, Greece, and India, appearing across cultures as a boatbuilder, mason, miller and presiding wise man. [4]

5 Cults of Infertility A number of shrines dotted around the Gulf in Iraq, Iran, Bahrain and Kuwait as well as in the Levant have been erected in the name of Al Khider, although many have been demolished. Women hoping for health and fertility arrive at these sites with talismans, stitched flags, and bottles of rosewater, which they sprinkle as they pray for children.[5] Al Khider’s legacy in Kuwait is a troubled one – shrines built in his name were demolished three times – once in 1937 and two more times in the seventies (the latter being in 1977) – after a fatwa was issued by Sheikh Al Jarrah claiming that the shrine and the famed site of Al Khider’s footprint on Failaka island drew a kind of reverence that was tainted with polytheistic blasphemy or sherek. Although it isn’t mentioned in the fatwa, polytheism had been central to Failaka island for thousands of years, where there was a shrine dedicated to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt by followers of Alexander the Great.

A found image of Al Khider.

In the Quran’s Surat Al-Kahf (18) Al Khider is a guide who remains one step ahead of Moses at all times, often knowing how actions in the present, (such as making a hole in a ship), will affect the outcome of the future (saving the ship and its owner from being possessed by a greedy king). Al Khider’s prescience of what is to come, and his connection to water and hence fertility has mythologized him all around the Arab and Persian Gulf to this day.

The first demolished shrine of Al Khider on Failaka Island. Courtesy Tareq and Jehan Al-Rajab.

The social attitudes towards the Al Khider shrine are perhaps best modeled in Khalid Al-Faraj’s short story Muneera, where the protagonist’s husband considers her a “hollow beauty…[with] a brain stuffed with superstitions and delusions” due to her attachments to the Al Khider shrine…and by the answer given to me at an office of older men who gather at souk el mubarakiya in Kuwait when I asked him how the shrine functioned as a part of daily life. He described how attached women would get to the site, spending all day picnicking there.

“Who were these women?” I asked. “The old ones” he replied, making a gesture with his hand that went up into the air, indicating ascension of age. “The old ones,” he repeated, and the same hand began to spiral by his head in the universal indication of craziness.

Families in front of the second demolished shrine of Al Khider on Failaka Island. Courtesy Tareq and Jehan Al-Rajab.

6 But who is to judge what is a crazy pursuit of posterity? Why shouldn’t women with anxiety about childbirth and motherhood gather and share experiences at the site where stories about immortality reign supreme?

Living Forever In Bahrain Having begun to grasp the reasons for the shrine’s annihilation in Kuwait, my interest was piqued when Searching for Ancient Arabia presented the opportunity to further study fertility rites and Al Khider in Bahrain.

The subject of Al Khider was even harder to broach in Bahrain.

On our first day at Qalaat Bahrain, or Bahrain fort, I encountered a small, colorful compound that was composed of a few buildings covered in drawings, dedicated to Shia burials and charitable donations. When I asked one of the caretakers of the place about it, he said it was going to be torn down soon. We got to talking and he told me about the Al Khider mosque in Bahrain, located in a region called Askar – trying to go pray at that mosque after the government crackdown on the Shia population could be extremely difficult, and perhaps could have dangerous consequences.

Shiite funerary association next door to the Bahrain fort.

Talking to Ali Akbar Bushiri, historian and writer of the book “Dilmun Culture” he informed me of the island of “Chawchab” where an Al Khider shrine had once existed. Ali described the site of Chawchab, which was constantly littered with eggshells offered to Al Khider by hopeful mothers– a ritualistic holdover from sacrifices to the goddess Ishtar and the practice of decorating eggs for Nowruz (the Persian New Year).[6] Chawchab has been destructed at the expense of Bahrain’s ongoing coastline expansion project, the rocky island being covered by manmade beaches. Fertility rituals of all kinds persist all over Bahrain, however.

We learned from Dalal Al Sherouqi, a food anthropologist and eating heritage cookbook author, about a wide range of contemporary Bahraini food lore, traditions and proverbs.[7] Most compelling was a recipe for male virility called “lukhma,” from the word for “hit” or “sting,” which is composed of steamed sting ray and rice! Another nice tidbit of information had to do with alfalfa sprouts or “barseem,” which are native to Bahrain and grow in large quantities in the months of March and April. According to AlSherouqi, when brides come to their marriage home for the first time, the threshold of the home is covered with alfalfa – this is to signal wild, unfettered growth, for as the proverb goes about barseem, “the more you pick it, the more it grows.” Barseem is also thought to make the milk of cows and goats creamier and the soil of the earth richer with potassium. Hence the bride’s first steps over the barseem are thought to bode fertility.

Found image of Alfalfa/Barseem.

Ali painted a picture of his wife, whom he called his very own fertility goddess, after she had their first child and was being bathed by midwives. He sat there on a chair in the doorway, lovingly taking notes as they washed and oiled her. Afterwards, dates stuffed with ghee were placed in the north, south, east and west corners of the house to attract sweetness and prosperity – for people from Persia, which is where a lot of Bahrainis today originally came from, the combination of sugar and oil is tantamount, he explained.

What was often exciting was to find the overlap and commonalities in all of our topics – some patterns emerged in regards what is most likely to contribute a subject being obscured by the hegemony of history and the master

7 narratives of the Arab world. The recent conflicts in Bahrain played a role in our process of discovery and more often than not in our persisting ignorance about the minutiae of our chosen research topics. It often seemed like information about Al Khider, the Carmathians, and pre-Islamic scripts was advertently covered up or lost.

conscientiously honor the spiritual impulses of our ancient civilizations in our daily lives?

The censorship of Shia-related histories makes for a palimpsest of artifacts and a confusing collage of claims – interestingly this makes my research journey take creative diversions. Sadly, it makes for a tense daily living situation in Bahrain. Throughout my time in Bahrain I remained grateful to people who spoke freely about their knowledge, memories and opinions. The way that populations deals with the demolition of their heritage is exemplified by graffiti of the Pearl roundabout – though it was demolished only once, the protest site continues to be reiterated all over Bahrain with cans of spray paint.

NB: The research for the blog post was collected orally as well as from a number of texts including: Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth, the Quran, Wikipedia, and The Epic of Gilgamesh. Any comments or corrections will be received with appreciation and gratitude.

[1] having initiated his servant Enkidu into modernity by sending him a prostitute, Gilgamesh then turns down Inanna (also known as Ishtar, the ultimate sex goddess - rejecting a goddess had been previously unheard of).

[2] In the text of Atrahasis, the Great Flood is sent by Enlil because the laborers of the new city are disturbing his peace. This is an interesting allegory for labor in the Gulf, and their callous treatment.

[3] There’s something to be said for how interchangeable the figure of Al Khider seems to be across cultures – perhaps this is the truest form of immortality?

[4] Al Khider is a prominent figure in Sufi mysticism, functioning according to Sufi scholar Henry Corbin as a “person-archetype” whose teachings allow Sufists to each discover their own, individual spiritual identity.

[5] See Khalid Al-Farraj’s short story Muneera (1929).

[6] Eggs as emblems of fertility are also a part of Easter and prePassover rituals A graffito in the area of A’Ali pictures the demolished Pearl roundabout and claims “we are returning.”

Skepticism towards Paganism and wide dismissal of it as a legitimately charged religious practice also makes conversations about the history of sexuality and fertility to be quite a trial. It seems a shame that almost nobody bats an eyelash at scantily clad models on billboards, yet most people sneer at the word “goddess.” Learning from the protestors in Bahrain I continue to wonder: how can we consciously and

[7] The proverbs we learned from her translated to the likes of “give him the seed of peace, give it to him and send him to Manama”

8 The Politics of Preservation in Bahrain Robert Kluijver

Summary Between 8 and 11 April I visited Bahrain with a group of artists and researchers. The artists had been selected through a call for proposals posted on this website (see here for English and here for Arabic) and communicated through Facebook and email. Liane al Ghusain, Ahmad Makia and Rahel Aima were selected on the basis of their projects (see next post for more information). On the scholarly side I had invited Prof. Mehdi Sabet from Zayed University in Dubai, while my research assistant Amal Bssiss joined us on 10 April. We were kindly hosted by Al Riwaq who provided us with apartments in the hip neighborhood of Adliya and helped us set up meetings.

The objective of this trip was to research Ancient Arabia from the perspective of contemporary cultural issues. Each artist and scholar had his/her own research objectives.

I wish to express my gratitude towards Alexandra Stock, Kanwal Hameed, Zain, Ahmed Buarsali, Saji and the other helpful office staff working under the direction of Bayan Kanoo at Al Riwaq. And also to the FIND team (Mo Ogrodnik, Alaa Edris and others) of New York University Abu Dhabi, that funded this trip as part of my research fellowship. Thanks also to Frances Stafford, Dr. Akbar Bushiri and all the other people we met during this trip, who provided us with invaluable information alongside unforgettable hospitality.

Several team members making their way through the burial mounds of Aali under the scorching sun.

General Impressions Pre-Islamic Arabia is certainly more present in Bahrain than in other Gulf countries. About 5% of the surface of the island is rd covered by burial mounds from the Dilmun civilization, 3 millennia BC to the first centuries BC[1]. Besides the burial mounds, there are quite a few archaeological sites on the island, ranging from temples (Barbar) and forts (Portuguese fort) to whole villages (Saar). Most of these are from the preIslamic period. There are also shrines, ancient qanats (underground water channels) and other archaeological vestiges. Bahrain’s museums are full of artifacts found on these sites. Bahrain’s cultural heritage is thus abundant and relatively well preserved – compared to that of neighbouring countries.

Contemporary culture, however, is barely cognizant of this cultural heritage. Bahrain is mainly known in the region for its relatively lax morals; residents of other GCC countries come there to party. Not enjoying the natural wealth of its neighbors – oil supplies in Bahrain have nearly been depleted – Bahrain thrives through trade, tourism and financial services. That requires a certain openness, and that is what the island stands for culturally.

View of the excavated Portuguese fort with the sea behind it, and the palm groves between the two. One of the beautiful sceneries we encountered during our research.

This openness can also be found in the contemporary art sector. It is vibrant and more layered, being several decades older than the art scenes in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The Ministry of Culture supports quite a few museums, festivals and artistic institutions, while the private sector also plays an important role in supporting artistic and other creative initiatives.

The relaxed, open and dynamic art scene stands in sharp contrast with the social tensions on the island. The majority of Bahrain’s population is indigenous and quite poor, and the contrasts between rich and poor are growing. The social tensions have a religious dimension, as the indigenous population is mostly Shia while the ruling elites are mostly Sunni. The Al Khalifa royal family is related to the royal families of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and has ruled the island since the th late 18 century when they arrived from present-day Qatar.

9 Their power has traditionally been buttressed by England, and now by the USA. As we noticed while driving through the northern half of the island, there are daily clashes between the government and the opposition. The protestors cut off roads and set up blockades with burning tires, to which the government reacts with tear gas, riot police and the cordoning off of entire residential areas. This situation is strangely underreported by the Bahraini and the international media, and it came to us as a surprise. It is likely that only few in the partying crowd of th Saudis, Americans from the 8 fleet base in Jufair and Western expats realize that there is daily fighting on the rest of the island.

fraught period of Islamic history and the formation of the current national polity. There is thus a severe disconnect between the Island’s present and its past.

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The results of academic and scientific research of the whole history of Bahrain would probably fortify the cultural identity of the local population, which now suffers from being undefined. For example the identification of Bahrain’s Shia with those from Iran is clearly a fallacy. The Arabs of the Northeastern peninsula (encompassing Bahrain, Eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) were Shia before the Persians, and they have little interest in the theories and agitation of post-revolutionary Shia Iran. Even the old Persian community on Bahrain is nationalistic rather than pro-Iranian. But since the cultural identity of the Bahraini indigenous opposition is so unclear, such allegations when made are difficult to dispel.

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As a result of the above, historic research is mainly performed by outsiders, and preferably on the pre-Islamic period. The Bahraini cultural institutions tend to cherrypick those research results which most interest them (the same can be said of, for example, Western museums, but without conflict these choices are less extreme).

Some of the burial mounds have been integrated into the urban landscape of Aali

Hypotheses about the role of cultural heritage in current political discussions The discussions I had with different Bahrainis led me to formulate the following hypotheses about the relations between ancient and contemporary culture, as seen through a political prism: 1.

The discussion of the Island’s Islamic past, in particular the th th period of the Carmathians (Isma’ili Shia rule, 10 -11 centuries AD, over Bahrain and much of the current Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia) is highly controversial as it implicitly raises questions about the legitimacy of the current rulers, given the current political context. The preIslamic past, by contrast, presents less problems.

2.

This leads to a situation where much of history is rather left blank, unwritten, then written by one of the two sides (Sunni rulers[2] versus Shia indigenous population)[3], as this would certainly exacerbate tensions. No history = good history.

3.

This in turns leads to disaffection with the whole subject of history and cultural heritage, and to a focus on the surface, on the here and now. Ancient history is acknowledged and appreciated, but not in terms of a relation with presentday Bahrain, as this relation would have to go through the

Strange stones at the Barbar temple site

The Carmathians: don’t trust Wikipedia Specific focus of my research was the Carmathian (or Qarmatian) period. My interest had been sparked by a Wikipedia article which described the Qarmatian regime as being one based on reason, the abolishing of private property, equal rights between all citizens (except the slaves) and vegetarianism. Very little seemed to be known about these people who, from the island of Bahrain (then called Awal) had ruled over the neighboring coasts, and who were known for their ferocious raids on Hajj caravans and their stealing of the black stone from the Ka’aba (they eventually sold it back to the caliph for a ransom).

I shared this information from Wikipedia in my publication ‘The Gulf Art Guide’ and brought it to the attention of many people.

It now turns out that this information is incorrect on several key points. As far as historical sources ascertain, the

10 Carmathians were not vegetarian, but were precisely known for their eating of unclean meats such as dog-meat and pork.

And the view of their regime, even by their allies (such as the Isma’ili philosopher Nasir Khusraw), seems to have been rather negative: cruelty, despotism, military adventurism. But I still need to consult the original sources, specifically Nasir Khusraw, or find an author who has read them carefully and interpreted them without religious bias.

The mention of the Carmathians mostly drew blank stares from the Bahrainis I spoke to (as if you would mention the Picts to a Briton). The historian Ali Bushehri affirmed that the study of this period was problematic, because it was one of Shia rule; also for the lack of historical evidence about the Carmathians, as they did not practice writing, and few contemporaries wrote about them. In the Bahrain National Museum there is almost nothing about this period. The Carmathians are only mentioned twice, both in the phrase “After the Carmathian period…”.

I speculated whether the contemporary Shia Bahraini identity could be culturally derived from the Carmathian period. Mr. Bushehri didn’t think so, as the Carmathians were Isma’ili, while the roots of Shia Baharni culture went further back in time. There are also still about 600 Isma’ilis living in Bahrain, in a closed community.

It appears I’m on a dead-end track with the Carmathians, but I remain as intrigued by them as before.

of fertility rites. This was of course common throughout the Middle East; in the worship of the goddesses of love and of fertility (the Mother-Goddess) temple maids were often required to offer themselves to men. Needless to say, no trace of this erotic past can be found in Bahrain’s museums and public collections of antiquities, while the city’s hotel lounges seem to be full of its contemporary expression.

Concluding remarks While my research on Ancient Arabia in Contemporary Culture started out as an investigation of the historical fracture between the great civilizations on the Arabian peninsula before the advent of Islam and its destiny afterwards, I am finding increasingly that other periods of history can be much more problematic. While the UAE lends itself well to my research topic, the minds of artists in Saudi Arabia are much more preoccupied with registering the changes in the country occurred over the last 100 years, while in Bahrain the periods of strong Shia rule are most problematic.

The gaps in the presentations at the National Museum – which, nonetheless, is one of the best of its kind in the region – show how sensitive historic truths can be, and the convenient solution of simply ignoring history, or serving it up as a dish for tourists after a bit of censoring. But this solution ignites the curiosity of artists and researchers like me. Besides those mentioned above, there are many more crevices to explore within Bahrain’s national narrative.

Bahrain, Love-Paradise The influx of prostitutes to entertain wealthy visitors in Bahrain may seem dystopic at first sight; considered more carefully, however, this may be in line of a much longer tradition. In the Gilgamesh, the island of Dilmun is already portrayed as a paradise of sorts. The abundance of sweet ground water was explained to us at length by a German hydrologist one evening.

Before the ground water was depleted by modern industrial use, it appeared as if there was a sweet-water sea under the salty one: whence the name of the island, ‘two seas’. Sweet water springs in the shallow sea around Bahrain were used, already in antiquity, for different kinds of rites.

Ancient seals depict the centrality of love in ancient Dilmun.

While the more obscene ones are hidden from public view, the romantic seals, showing a man and a woman seated opposite each other, drinking a nectar from a shared vessel through straws, have become emblematic for the island. Sea-shells suggesting a woman’s private parts, filled with kohl and other beautifiers, were found next to buried women.

It also seems ancient religions practiced in Bahrain encouraged, at least seasonally, free sexual practices – probably in the guise

[1] Apparently this proportion used to be close to 10% - it has decreased due to the razing of burial mounds to make place for residences, roads and other infrastructure, but also due to the constant increase of the island’s surface through land reclamation projects.

[2] The ruling elites however include independent historians, intellectuals and creative minds, who would welcome such research whatever the political implications. On the other hand many common people, both Sunni and quiescent or non-politicized Shia, may not want the situation on the island to be further destabilized by the realities of history.

[3] The division between ‘Sunni rulers’ and ‘Shia indigenous population’ is anything but clear-cut. Not only are there many fractures within each of these blocs, which causes them to align differently according to the issue of contention; there have also traditionally been many other communities living on the island, which also have a say in collective affairs. Nevertheless, for the purpose of the discussion, this simplification is, I believe, legitimate – as long as no simplistic conclusions are drawn as a result.

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Research team members from left to right: Rahel Aima, Liane Al Ghusain, Mehdi Sabet and Ahmad Makia

12 Black flags over the Shi’i village of A’ali

The Greengrocers of the Gulf (Searching for the Carmathians) Rahel Aima

Last month, we travelled to Bahrain with FiND in search of Ancient Arabia. More specifically I was looking for the Carmathians. Promisingly referred to as ‘those who took small steps’ or ‘those who write in small letters,’ they were a radical messianic Ismaili group who ruled in southern Iraq and the historic Al Ahsa, which covers Eastern Saudi Arabia and modern-day Bahrain. They weren’t quite ancient, living some two centuries after the Hijra, but their dissident history is just as marginalised as that of the pre-Islamic Jahiliyya period.

Today, they’re grudgingly remembered for their revolts against the Abbasid Caliphate, in which they sacked Mecca, stole the Black Stone of the Kaaba, and desecrated the Well of Zamzam with corpses. The preference seems to be to dismiss them as loutish pirates, if they must be mentioned at all. Nominally egalitarian despite owning slaves, they also attempted to establish a theocratic utopian republic there in 899 CE—a contradiction which intrigues me. They were also, seemingly impossibly for the time, vegetarian.

Or so my initial research promised. I’ve long been fascinated by horizontal movements in history, especially when they intersect with mysticism, from the medieval Brethren of the Free Spirit to Jordan’s sufi-anarchists. The Carmathians were big proponents of collective ownership, which applied to both land and slaves; the latter were considered the property not of individuals, but the entire community. Similarly, anyone could grind their grain free of charge at the state-maintained mills.There was a robust welfare state which granted interestfree loans to anyone in need, as well as to craftsmen newlyarrived in Al Ahsa so that they could establish a new business there. All repairs of private property were done by the state, which also readily financed military and raiding expeditions.

Replace craftsmen with entrepreneurs, military raids with higher education, and you begin to see some really interesting parallels to the modern-day tax-free Gulf city.

Yet as a vegetarian myself, it was their purported culinary habits which really drew me in. For thousands of years, human settlement in Bahrain has been almost inextricably bound up with seafaring. It could be extrapolated that the diet of the Carmathians, like those before and after them, heavily relied the fruits of the sea. Given the aridity of the Arabian Peninsula, a robust agricultural culture would seem unfeasible several centuries before the advent of modern artificial irrigation. That leaves trade—and some say, pirating—which would have been a constant, but did they really survive entirely on imports?

We spent our first full day in Bahrain at the old Portuguese fort—and erstwhile capital of the ancient Dilmun civilisation of Qalat al Bahrain, returning in the evening for a talk by Dr.

13 Randolf Rausch. Though ostensibly billed as being about the epic of Gilgamesh, in practice it was an expansive sweep through the hydrogeological history of the peninsula. We learned about the constellation of freshwater springs that allowed the ancient civilisation of Dilmun to flourish, along with an education in groundwater and karst aquifer systems.

Some of these springs were even found underwater; fishermen were able to dive and collect this ‘sweet water’ in goatskin bags to replenish their potable water supply while out at sea.

Although today water table depletion means that these springs have all but dried up—a paltry 1% of the island is now considered arable—the fertile northern part of the island was historically able to support an astonishingly diverse range of crops, including fruit (bananas, citrus fruit, peaches, pomegranates, figs), almonds, various vegetables as well as the staple crops of dates and alfalfa. So perhaps an entirely vegetarian diet was possible after all.

Yet perhaps unsurprisingly for a period generally suppressed and elided as unsavoury, information about the eating habits of the Carmathians remained thin on the ground. I began sifting through larger timescale with a view to puzzling out the Carmathians’ eating habits by filling in the blanks. A visit to the Bahrain National Museum was particularly useful in this regard.

Analysis of dental diseases in archaeological remains suggests that from the Dilmun period onwards, standard fare consisted of dates, fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish, with very little consumption of grains. From a later change in dental diseases, however, it can be inferred that the advent of Islam coincided with a marked rise in grain—barley, millet and wheat—exports of which were particularly lucrative for the Carmathians.

There is unfortunately little record—in English, that is—of eating habits up until the arrival of the British, but Ibn Magid, writing in the 15th century, does note that primary exports included cereals, lemons, pomegranates, and date honey. The production and consumption of the highly nutritious date honey is something that the coastal gulf was especially known for. Madbasas, which are structures for collecting the juice— ’honey’ of dates have been found at the Bahrain fort site at both the Middle Dilmun (2000 BCE) and early Tylos (1st and 2nd centuries CE) levels. At this point, we could extrapolate that the Carmathian diet included a range of fruits, vegetables, and cereals, but their vegetarianism remains woefully unverified.

14 Qalat al Bahrain

Top: Dental diseases at the Bahrain Museum. Bottom: Baqal (image via Asoud Al Iraq)

The Carmatians were also ostensibly known as Al Baqaliyya, which translates to ‘The Greengrocers.’ The Arabic word ‘baql’ broadly connotes vegetables, and derives from the Qu’ran. In Bahrain, however, ‘baql’ is used to refer specifically to a flat, fleshy alium that resembles an engorged blade of grass that’s usually served in salads or with meats. I had a chance to sample it at the Budaiyya farmer’s market; it tastes something like a more aggressive chive.

I was to later find, however, that the Baqaliyya were a separate subsect under the broader Carmathian umbrella. One source suggests their name comes from one al-Baqli, a companion of the heretic/revolutionary (depending on which way you look at it) Abdullah ibn Mu’awiya. Al Baqli is quoted in Abu Faraj al Isfahani’s seminal Kitab al Aghani as having declared, “mankind is like the vegetable: when it dies it never comes back,” yet is identified as living during the Caliph Al Mansur of 754-75 CE, well before the Carmathians. It is unknown whether this elevation of the vegetable extended to their eating habits.

A less literary but more feasible explanation points to the da’i (Ismaili missionary) Abu Hattem Zotti, who banned the consumption of certain vegetables as well as the slaughtering of animals. His followers were called the Baqliya, a name which came to apply to all the Carmathians of southern Iraq—and a millennia’s worth of historical fog later, possibly all Carmathians.

Image via Archaeology, luxury and the exotic: the examples of Islamic Gao (Mali) and Bahrain [PDF]

Upon reading Timothy Insoll’s book, The Land of Enki in the Islamic Era: Pearls, Palms, and Religious Identity in Bahrain, I was disabused of any notion of Qarmatian vegetarianism.

Archaeological remains from the period include dog, donkey/pony, and cat bones, with butchery marks which point to these animals being eaten. Pig bones were even found at Al Khamis. Unlike the other animals, however, the type of bone and its cut marks suggest that swine were imported as joints of meat, as opposed to being reared and butchered on the island.

15 As it turns out the radical Ismailism of the Carmathians meant that they did not follow Islamic dietary mores. Instead, as reported by poet Nasir-i-Khusraw, who spent 9 months with them in 1051— consumed “the flesh of every animal, including cats and dogs.” More on their way of life and can be found in Kenneth Rexroth’s Communalism:

A later conversation with Raneem Baassiri pointed me towards the Druze, who are Fatamid descendants. Traces of the Carmathian doctrine can be found in their beliefs, which include asceticism, reincarnation and vegetarianism.The Druze and Carmathians are also believed to share influences, which include Zoroastrianism, Manicheism and proto-Hindu Vedism.

"Within Bahrayn itself there was complete absolutist communism. The citizens paid no tribute or tax; their welfare was guaranteed from birth to death, in sickness or health. All hard, menial, or unpleasant work was performed by the Negro slaves, who seem at first to have been the defeated remnants of the Zanj revolt who fled to their quasi-allies and voluntarily chose slavery with the Carmathians rather than extermination with the Sunnites. The orthodox accused the Carmathians of community of women and all manner of orgies. As a matter of fact they were strictly monogamous, a military caste something like Plato’s guardians or the Teutonic Knights, who led a pure, severely regulated life. The use of wine and all minor vices were strictly forbidden. Women unveiled and circulated freely in public and enjoyed considerable influence. The specific ordinances of Islam, however, were not enforced, not even the Friday meeting, the daily prayers, or the eating of food that was taboo."

Does this mean that there might be a Carmathian vegetarianism after all, possibly in the Baqaliyya? It’s worth mentioning language barriers here, not in the least the Arabic letter ‫ ق‬which resulted in several transliterations, including Karmathian, Garmathian, Qarmatian, and Qaramati. There’s also a tendency to refer to all early Ismailis as Qarmatians, which further complicates the matter. All mentions of vegetarianism—and for that matter, most breathy characterisations of their brand of communism—that I have found have been in English, and I suspect they reflect a certain linguistically-delineated ideological bias—just as anarchists like to point to the Zapatistas or the Paris Commune, soviet literature seems especially fond of the Carmathians. I do like the idea of a people who are vegetarian only in one language though, and how it reflects the myths we like to weave about ourselves. As for me, perhaps I wasn’t searching for Ancient Arabia or even the Qarmatians at all.

The Carmathians were also proponents of a millenarian, mysticism; Rexroth adds that “like the Sufis the Carmathians dressed exclusively in white and placed great emphasis on moral and physical purity.” They had a close, if tempestuous relationship with Fatamids of Egypt and the Levant, with periods of co-conspiring against the Abbasid Sunni hegemony regularly punctuated by warring. Although both proponents of social change, the Fatamid might be seen as a reformist to the Carmathian revolutionary; in more current language we might term them social democrats and ultra-left respectively.

A carpet embedded into concrete in A’ali

16 Dilmun Settlement in Saar, Bahrain, a Personal Reflection Dr. Mehdi Sabet With the exception of a few, it’s a unfortunate and sad scenario that the history of Middle East, especially the Arabian peninsula civilization has been riddled with and overshadowed by the 21st century of political chaos and social upheavals that has truly disrupted the advancement of arts and science for centuries.

With the scorching sun rising ever higher in the sky, in our recent visit to the excavated village of Dilmun in Saar, a formidable civilization dated long before the introduction of Islam in the region, sited on the northwest part of the island of Bahrain, I was utterly fascinated with a treasure trove of architecture and planning standing in front of my naked eyes. I witnessed the evidence of the architecture and planning evidence that proposes a valuable understanding into the social and economic organization of Bahrain during the Bronze Age. This planning testimony offers certain level of intellectual curiosity and assumptions as to how these people lived and structured their environment, interacted with each other and guarded certain social values, and how the civil society behaved.

The site “covers an area of about 2.5 hectares (~6 acres), and it lies on the lee side of a north/south limestone ridge which once included an extensive cemetery”[1]. Though, I do not claim to be a historian or an archeologist, but an architect by profession and ancient enthusiast at heart. The visit to the site, despite the hot midday temperature, enticed me to walk about and put myself in the frame of mind as an ancient Dilmun-ian resident in the ruins. I climbed up on top of the dirt mound on the southeast corner to see the entire settlement. I was in total awe to notice a clear logic of planning and siting of the buildings in relation to the sun orientation and in the context of social structure, clearly defining religious belief at the center of the village. I imagined myself walking on the shaded Main Street, perhaps lined with palm tree, until I reached the cross section of the Temple Street, center of village.

The archeological findings give rich glimpses of Dilmun society as an enigmatic and cohesive civilization and an important trade and knowledge center, a wealth that stretched between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley as early as 5,000 years ago.

“Four thousand years ago the merchants of Bahrain (ancient Dilmun) had contacts far and wide from the Indus to the Euphrates, bartering and exchanging a wide range of commodities. The economic success of these trading ventures led to increased prosperity at home, where stone-built temples and settlements were established in the well-watered northern part of Bahrain by the start of the second millennium BC”.[2]

The physical positioning of the village in the lower part of valley is perhaps an indication of community visual and noise privacy, security, close to water shed for agriculture, and cooler environment.

The physical evidence of the “houses”, especial the pattern and form of spaces, size and complexity, orientation to sun, wall thickness and niches, construction materiality, access to the main street, door opening and size give clear clues to the importance or social hierarchy of the occupants. Perhaps, even the proximity of the houses to the Temple and Main Street signify certain level of social order and importance in the community. The jigsaw positioning and the inter-connectivity of houses (no single freestanding house to signify uniqueness) suggest certain degree of equality and community bonding of the occupants, economy of construction material, and physical sustainability of the community. Other buildings in Saar include a water-well, a large kiln and two circular structures at the southeastern border of the settlement which may have been storage facilities, or a sacred place of offering, postulate evidences of community based and a well organized infrastructure to provide service for the community.

17 The built-in niches in the wall of a house across from the Temple, perhaps sign of priest wealth and prominence, to store objects of positions.

to the structure of a community building, social values, and infrastructure pattern, see “plan”[4].

The site map clearly identifies axial planning concept to position the Temple in the center of the community, and concise pedestrian orientation.

[1] K.Kris Hirst, Saar (Bahrain), Early Dilmun Village in the Persian Gulf [2] & [3] & [4] Antiquity Journal

The uniformity of wall thickness and door opening (almost in every structure) implies knowledge of construction, measurement, science and building sitting.

“There is a remarkable degree of similarity in building form and installation type at Saar. A striking feature of the settlement as a whole is that the buildings were constructed in rows, sharing communal walls: not a single building stands alone in the settlement. Built of un-coursed locally available rough limestone, the single-story buildings contain rooms with ovens and hearths, plastered storage pits, benches and basins.

Most buildings seem to have performed a similar domestic function. The micro stratigraphic evidence demonstrates very distinctive characteristics within each room, changing within the space of 1-2m. The remarkable recurrence and similarity of the deposits within the two buildings studied suggests some regularity”[3].

There is much written information about the Temple. However, it is important to note centrality and orientation in the context of community signifies power of belief and authority of government, a notion that has transcended to later eras of civilization such as church in Christian community, and mosque the center of Islamic community. This evidence denotes an ancient neighborhood-planning concept, providing an insight

http://antiquity.ac.uk/reviews/beech.html

18 Arabic dialects spoken in Bahrain Ahmad Makia Arriving to Bahrain, it’s difficult to miss the provenance of the term ‘Gulf’ all over the island. In contrast to its neighboring cities, such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi who employ an extensive city branding campaign, Bahrain seems much more attached to a regional Gulf identity. You will notice an urban landscape plastered with the word ‘Gulf’—a term which is being displaced from its geographical position, to a much more localised and imagined Arabian landmass with all of its PanArab hangoverness, de-Persianification, and urgent programs for globalisation.

My latest fascination—read, obsession—has been the Arabic language, and how it has been used as a tool for colonisation, reinscriptions, and erasures. I’ve been searching for lesser known scripts and vernaculars which have been rubbed out and neglected by history.

Some scripts I’ve stumbled upon include: ancient Nabatean, or Babylonian Aramaic scripts. It was brought to light by historian Ibn Wahshiya when he translated the Kitab al-falah al nabatiya, a dossier on Babylonian scientific and agricultural advancements. The book also glorifies their civilization over the ‘barbaric’ conquering Arabs. It also included a story which debunks the Adam and Eve myth by describing peoples before them.

Another is the old pre-Islamic Kurda alphabet. Although the alphabet hasn’t been used since the 9th century, you will find some anti-Arab dissenting voices on the internet who call for reusing the alphabet as a way to reclaim Kurdish identity.

Today, the Kurdish Academy of Language has devised an entirely new script known as Yekgirtú (a modified Latin alphabet made of 34 characters), meaning unified, in an attempt to ‘unify’ the language from its otherwise disparate scripts usually written in Perso-Arabic, Latin, or Cyrillic.

Lastly, the Ajami script in West Africa—which is not a ‘preIslamic’ script—reveals a history of anti-Arab resistance. Islamic colonisation in the Maghreb and Sahel meant the religious conversion of locals, the slave trade, and resource exploitation.

Holy men began to modify the Arabic script to adapt to local languages, such as Hausa and Wolof. This resulted in the Ajami script as a way to disseminate Islamic teachings. The accessibility of Ajami in its surrounding context ended up displacing Arabic as a teaching script. Ajami also signals to community loyalties, where it began to refer to a more Afrocentric Black identity.

In Bahrain, I was looking to uncover another language, script, or dialect with a similar trajectory to those mentioned above.

Here’s what I found: Bahraini ‘Arabs’ are descendants of the Al-Khalifa tribe, or other Sunni tribes from mainland Arabia who inhabited the island from the 18th century onwards. Baharna are the nonPersian Shi’ite Arab group, who form most of Bahrain’s

population, and also claim to be the original Bahrainis. Shi’ite Persian Bahrainis refer to themselves as Ajam.

The island during the 7th century and pre-Arab political dominance, shows a checkered group of dialects influenced by Akkadian, Semitic, and Aramaic cultures—especially spoken by Gulf traders and seafarers. The dialect groups of Bahrain share their linguistic history to that of the Gulf strip: a gradual and steady arabicization of the area where other Semitic languages were once spoken.

The major communal dialect differences of Bahrain correspond to two major groups: Arab dialects and Baharna dialects. The ‘Arab’ Arabic comes from central Arabia; a dialect developed from the Najdi accent. Baharna, on the other hand, is more mixed in origin with early Akkadian traces and contemporary phonetic borrowings from Persian and Hindi. Their differences stem from their geographical origins, and more pointedly by their religious differences. Baharna is also spoken in some parts of Oman, Yemen, and the UAE. The Najdi, or sometimes referred to as Anazi, is a dialect usually associated with the ruling families of the Gulf, or more formally known as Eastern Arabian, or Gulf Arabic. The ‘Arab’ Arabic is more dominant on a governance level, and over time Baharna Arabic adopted and accommodated the dialect since it is perceived to be more socially prestigious. Baharna dialect is also claimed to be the ‘original Bahraini,’ while the Arabic speakers are ‘newcomers.’ Functional words such as what are typically different: the Arabic will say Shinu, while Baharna use wes or weshnu. The dialect division and variations are especially prominent in the lexicon attached to labor.

Baharna’s unique words are tied to agriculture and farming, while the ‘new’ Arabic contains words specific to the pearling industry.

Another indigenous dialect of Bahrain is Hwala or Holi. It is also used to ethnically categorize a non-tribal group of traders who had become Persianised through port contact with the south of present day Iran in between the 15th and 17th century. They later intermarried and assimilated into the Arab governing structure and became Arabized, with the Hwala dialect slowly dying out.

Although, other research shows that the Hola ethnic group are non-Arabs who are of Persian or Afro-Persian descent, that later migrated to the Gulf in the 19th and 20th centuries. The term Holi is a corrupted term of the Persian word ‘Koli,’ meaning gypsy. It is also used very explicitly differentiate between Shi’te Persian and Sunni Persian, with the former being Ajam and the latter being Holi. The Holi group are also marked by the Khodomoni Persian dialect that they speak.

That’s all for now. New languages that I attempt to start looking at include the Harsusi language in Oman, Shirvani in Azerbaijan and Dagestan, and also Arabic sign language.

19 Trip to Najran: reflections on Saudi cultural heritage policies

the site of Al Ukhdood, a major city from the pre-Islamic period that has been almost wholly excavated.

Robert Kluijver One of the premises of the ‘Searching for Ancient Arabia’ research project is the cultural diversity of the Arabian Peninsula; one of the research hypotheses being that this pluralism—well evident in ancient history—was smothered by subsequent narratives and historical developments, but that it could be a great asset for the future development of the Gulf region, particularly in artistic and cultural terms.

I previously explored the role cultural heritage plays in Bahrain.

Now I would like to turn to the complex issue of cultural heritage in Saudi Arabia. Later I will also examine the case of the UAE.

Main thoroughfare of Al Ukhdood, with monumental buildings on either side and the mountains of Yemen in the background.

This is surprising: not only because of the quality of the site (the excavated city is large at 220 by 235 meters, its architecture is compellingly visible and there are fascinating rock engravings on many of the stone blocks used in its construction), but also because the city features prominently in the Holy Quran, as a place of damnation where a massacre took place a century before the Hegira[1].

Ancient Dam at Khaybar, 150 km north of Medina. Khaybar was a wealthy Jewish settlement until the Jews were expelled by Caliph Umar. The dams ensured agricultural prosperity. Photo by my father, M. Kluijver.

The beautiful square cuts of the masonry at Al Ukhdood are proof of an advanced culture, as are the well-executed inscriptions.

Najran My interest in Najran was awoken by an as yet unpublished experimental artwork by the Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem.

It reminded me of a trip I had made in my childhood, when my father was working in the country, to the region, and I resolved to return there as soon as I had the opportunity. That was provided to me by the fellowship I received for this research from NYU Abu Dhabi’s FIND programme.

Najran is a dusty town in southern Saudi Arabia, a few kilometers north of the Yemeni border. It is not a place many foreigners go to; and of the visitors that do come, only few visit

One could therefore expect detailed descriptions and analyses online, and a steady inflow of Saudi and other Muslim tourists, in the same way the biblical sites in Palestine attract Christian tourists. But no! We were the only visitors for most of the day.

Even educated people from the nearby town admitted never having been there before.

In fact, the site is officially closed, but a security guard speaking on his phone in the shade of his pickup suggested with a gesture that we should enter through a hole in the fence. The site museum, which used to be unimpressive, is being renovated into a big visitor center, so maybe the provincial

20 government expects more visitors, but, just as likely, this is a prestige project without a real audience in mind.

Descriptions of the site are hard to find online (see here for a summary report with photographs by an American tourist, and here for a more detailed but still insufficient description by a local tour operator). As to me, I have neither the required knowledge, nor the intention, to provide a detailed scientific analysis of the site. What I can say, however, is that this is one of the most impressive archaeological sites I have ever seen[2].

This makes one wonder why there is so little public interest in cultural heritage in Saudi Arabia

Saudi attitudes towards cultural heritage Saudi Arabian cultural heritage policies are quite contradictory.

On the one hand, there has been a rapid destruction of cultural heritage, including many early Islamic monuments such as the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad (replaced by public toilets), and mosques and mausoleums built by or for the companions of the prophet. The arguments given for this destruction range from the practical (infrastructural works) to the religious (preventing shirk or polytheism, assuming the admiration of cultural heritage could detract believers from the worship of the one God). For more information see this page of related Saudi fatwas, or the opinions on this matter of Saudi specialists such as Dr. Sami Angawi or Anwar Eshki, as compiled in, for example, this comprehensive article on the destruction of Islamic heritage in the Kingdom.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia not only allows, but also at times encourages archaeological exploration by foreign scholars. It has lavishly funded the ‘Roads of Arabia’ exhibition about pre-Islamic Saudi history organized by the Louvre, as well as the Hajj exhibition first hosted by the British Museum.

Both exhibitions traveled to other locations with Saudi support.

This encouraging attitude towards cultural heritage is not only for foreign consumption; the collection of the National Museum in Riyadh and its display are up to international standards.

The ruling elites of the country can also be great lovers of their country and its history. The photograph above depicts the Emir of Ha’il touring my father around the province’s many sites with rock engravings, back in the 1990s. The governors of Makkah and Medina provinces both have recently stood up, against further attacks on their city’s cultural heritage.

As with other policies dealing with society and culture in Saudi Arabia, their dual, ambiguous nature does not seem to be a temporary contradiction. It rather seems enshrined in the very constitutional make-up of the Kingdom: the pact between the Wahhabi clergy and the House of Al Saud, whereby the former is allowed to rule society on the condition of explicit obedience to the royal family, which manages the destiny of the country.

This funerary monument, found near Ha’il, is about 6000 years old. Note the double-bladed sword.

Photo coutesy ‘Roads of Arabia’.

21

The ruling Emir of Ha’il, an archaeology buff, in the 1990s. Photo by my father, Marinus Kluijver

Indeed, the National Museum of Riyadh offers a beautiful example of this contradiction. When leaving the pre-Islamic galleries on the ground floor, the visitor must pass through a sound and light display in a small corridor, where he/she learns that all the magnificent cultural artifacts, architectural grandeur and scientific explanations that he/she has just seen are nothing else than evidence of the ignorance (jahiliyya) which characterized the pre-Islamic period. After this ordeal, the visitor emerges in a great hall basking in light. On one side is a monumental entrance that can be used to circumvent the ground floor displays, in front of which an endless escalator leads to the spacious first floor, dedicated to the Islamic history of the country. One surmises that members of the clergy and their followers use this entrance to avoid being confronted with the ‘polytheistic’ past of the Kingdom.

The preservation of cultural heritage has become the responsibility of a few wealthy educated Saudis. The architect Dr. Sami Angawi built his house in Jeddah incorporating many different Saudi crafts and building traditions.

Contemporary Historic Dissonances The most interesting part of my visit to Najran was the road trip from Abha. I spent some days enjoying the hospitality of Ibrahim Abumsmar, a contemporary artist, working with him on his next solo. His family hails from Rijal al Alma, a village hanging off a cliff in the magnificent green escarpment bordering Abha towards the Red Sea[3], and he has spent most of his life in Abha.

Ibrahim and his friend, the artist Abdelkarim Qassem, proved knowledgeable guides about the Asir, the province of which Abha is the capital. This region historically enjoyed considerable autonomy, and was as close to Yemen as to other neighboring regions until the Saudis took over, after a brief war, and annexed the province into the Kingdom in 1934, barely 80 years ago. It is one of the few areas on the Arabian Peninsula that catches enough rain for subsistence agriculture, and it has a sedentary society as a result.

22 pronounce their names in public. Local society seems to have assimilated these new values very easily. In turn local artists and intellectuals wonder what has happened to their culture, and where it is going.

Ibrahim Abumsmar guiding through the ruins of what was purportedly the first public school in the Asir, built in the 1950s.

As we drove south-east through this mountainous region, Ibrahim and Abdelkarim pointed out the many changes that had occurred in the province and its society over the past years. Since the 1980s, in particular, change planned by the central government has been rapid. This not only affects the landscapes (rapid urbanization, destruction of traditional habitats) but also the people living in it. Old men still remember the days that Christian and Jewish merchants would come to the local markets. They have been replaced by shops staffed by South Asians, selling Chinese and other global produce. Crops cherished by the Asiris are no longer planted, and the small holdings set on rain-fed terraces along the mountainsides have been replaced by larger, industrialized farms in the flat (and dry) lands that guzzle up groundwater at an alarming rate.

Example of a traditional Asiri house, now abandoned in favor of more contemporary – but not necessarily more comfortable - lifestyles.

But besides these changes that inevitably seem to accompany modernity, there has also been a conscious effort to align Asiri society with what one might call Nejdi[4] values: a stricter observance of social propriety rules and more fundamentalist religious practices. Thirty years ago, people in the villages used to dance together at the harvest - men and women, old and young together. Now young men will not show their wife’s face to their own brothers, and mothers will not let their sons

Obviously, the Saudi government also has a strong incentive to shield its Southwestern provinces from the unrest that has plagued Yemen over the past decade. In 2009, a six-month war took place between the Saudi Army and Houthi rebels from northern Yemen, who used to traverse the porous border easily (it has now become difficult). The artist Abdelkarim Qassem portrays a gripping moment from this war in his video ‘Evacuation’. But local culture also suffers as a result. The Zaydi faith that inspires the Houthi rebels is shared by a majority of the population in Najran[5]. Although the tribal loyalty of the main tribe of Najran (the Yam) to the Al Saud remains unquestioned since the 1930s, their protests against religious persecution have been met with violence. (Human Rights Watch published a report on the issue in 2008). Similarly, many Asiris resent being cut off from their Yemeni neighbors, with whom they used to entertain close commercial and cultural relations.

It thus dawned on me that the dynamics between Ancient Arabia and contemporary culture, which this research focuses on, are still at play in the contemporary period – as recollections of how the country used to be fifty years ago and now. This makes the role of artists in expressing and negotiating cultural change all the more pressing. Asiri artists, such as Ahmed Mater and those mentioned above, take this role seriously, infusing the contemporary art world in Saudi Arabia with much of its vibrancy. One wonders what may happen when artists and intellectuals reach back to the potent symbols and rich cultures of Ancient Arabia to develop a vision of a society with a strong potential rooted in Arabian cultural diversity.

Emara Castle in Najran, built in 1944 (and photographed by Thesiger in 1947) is a rare example of preserved traditional architecture.

I would like to thank the artists that have awoken my interest in Saudi cultural heritage, first and foremost Ahmed Mater with whom I have enjoyed many long discussions about this subject, and the artists mentioned in the text above. I also thank Athr gallery in Jeddah for facilitating my trip to Abha.

23

[1] Surah 85 (Al Buruj, known as ‘The Constellations’ in English): “Perish the People of the Trench / With its fire and its faggots / As they sat above it / Witnessing what they did to the faithful / All they held against them was their belief in God (…). Translation by Tarif Khalidi, Penguin Books 2008. While this passage may also refer to other historic events, the most commonly accepted explanation is that it refers to the massacre of Christians by Jewish converts in Al Ukhdood near Najran.

[2] A selection of Wikipedia pages providing interesting backgrounds: -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_community_of_Najran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Saudi_Arabia -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najran

[3] Rijal al Alma is also the native village of the contemporary artists Ahmed Mater and Abdelkarim Qassem. This group, with their friends, has played an important part in the genesis of the contemporary Saudi art movement.

[4] From the Nejd, the central desert region from which the Al Saud family hails, and whose capital is Riyadh.

[5] This faith is often branded as Isma’ilism by foreign experts, but the local population rejects this association. They recognize their faith as a branch of Shiism, but unrelated to that practiced in Iran or elsewhere.

Table made by R Kluijver after downloading & installing the free Qataban (TTF) font, and with the help of Unicode tables and scriptsource.org

24 The Endangered South Arabian Languages of Oman and Yemen Article reproduced with the permission of Michael Collins Dunn.

The original article was published here on May 14, 2014

In March, the irregular Exploring Oman’s Linguistic Treasures blog had a post, "The Harsusi Language in Oman: Another Treasure Slipping Away?" This is as good a reason as any to do a major post on the surviving pockets of Modern South Arabian languages, spoken in Oman and Yemen and in some Gulf diasporas of their peoples.

I realize the vast majority of my readers have never heard of Harsusi, or probably of Hobyot or Bat’hari either, but they are real, living, if endangered languages of Oman (with Hobyot extending into Yemen). Along with the Soqotri and the much healthier and widely spoken Mehri (or Mahri) and Shehri (or Shahri or Jebali/Jibbali/Jibali) in Oman, these are the surviving Modern South Arabian languages, . They are quite distinct from Arabic, and are usually classed as part of the Southern Semitic subgroup of Afro-Asiatic, while Arabic is more closely related to Northwest Semitic. Even if you’ve never heard of these six languages, this post will not only make sure you hear of them, but will give you a chance to actually hear three of them.

A seventh language may deserve inclusion. Razihi, spoken in the Jabal Razih in the extreme north of Yemen, is sometimesclassified as the only direct survivor of Old South Arabian, rather than as Modern South Arabian. UNESCO lists it as an endangered language, but others consider it an Arabic variant; Ethnologue doesn’t list it.

The Modern South Arabian languages have many affinities with the Ethiopic languages, including Classical Ge’ez and Amharic, but they are also distinct. Though it was long assumed the Modern South Arabian languages were descended from Old South Arabian, some linguists say they are distinct even there; I’m not qualified to judge. But one tiny surviving language in Yemen, Let’s start with some maps from Wikipedia and the language reference site Ethnologue.com:

Wikipedia

25 Ethnologue

others that once were endangered by a dominant language have strongly rebounded (notably Catalan and at least up to now, Ukrainian). In the Middle East, Amazigh (Berber) has been one of the big winners in the Libyan and Tunisian revolutions; if “Arab Spring” has withered, “Berber Spring” survives. Kurdish has always held on, and Aramaic continues to survive. But (with asterisks on Amazigh) those are all written languages.

But when an unwritten language dies, its words are gone forever, except what anthropologists or explorers may have written down. All of the Modern South Arabian languages (unlike Old South Arabian), lacked a writing system, though Arabic, English transliteration systems, and the International Phonetic Alphabet have been used to record them. This is a disadvantage.

Endangered languages are a key issue in the 21st century. This may be, for example, the fatal century for Native North American languages. Of 3000 or more languages spoken when Columbus landed, only about 175-200 survived at the turn of the 21st century, mostly in Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii. In the “lower 48” US states, the scene is bleak, except for Navajo, Cherokee, and Cree. In 1997 it was estimated that 55 languages in North America had between one and six native speakers. That was 17 years ago, and many of those are likely now extinct.

Linguists around the world are racing to record endangered languages before the last native speaker dies. Today we usually know even their names. Ned Maddrel, the last native speaker of Manx, died December 27, 1974. Wikipedia lists close to a dozen languages that have only one living native speaker.

And UNESCO says that one half of some 6000 languages in the world today will be extinct by the end of the century.

When any language dies, a part of its culture is lost; not everything translates. When a written language dies, it doesn’t die forever; there are still web pages published in Latin, and we have learned to read Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic and even Linear B Mycenean Greek again, awakening long silenced voices. Even Mayan is now re-emerging. There are efforts to revive Manx and Cornish, and many on the Isle of Man and in Cornwall are learning them, but they are not native speakers and it will never be their first language.

The Middle East, of course has seen what is as far as I know the only example of a language that once had no native speakers not just revive but become a language which is the only language of many: Hebrew. But it’s a unique case: it was always the liturgical language of Jews everywhere, and Israel was created from immigrants whose first languages were as different as Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic and many others. Israeli Hebrew is not just an exception; so far it’s the only exception.

Some languages that once seemed moribund like Irish, Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Provencal etc. have had a new lease on life, while

Though the largest of the surviving South Arabian languages, Mehri, has over 100,000 speakers, all of them are endangered.

As with Native American and other minority indigenous languages, as rural, mountain, or nomadic peoples move to the cities, or as central governments provide schooling, there is great pressure to adopt the dominant language to succeed.

The younger generation are likely to prefer Arabic, and literacy is only possible in Arabic. All the languages are already heavily influenced by Arabic vocabulary.

Before providing some comments and examples of the six Modern South Arabian languages, here are some resources dealing with them as a group: Miranda Morris at the British-Yemeni Society:The Pre-Literate, Non-Arabic Languages of Oman and Yemen From CNRS: Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, Les Langues Sudarabiques Modernes,des Langues Semitiques Menacees? In French.

Susan Al Shahri, "The Language Crisis," A blogpost by a blogger from Dhofar. Though her name suggests an affiliation with the tribal group speaking Shahri/Jibali, she admits that “Although I have lived in Dhofar my entire life, I have never had the privilege of hearing Hobyot or Batthari being spoken.”

From SOAS’ Endangered Languages Archive: Links to"The documentation and ethnolinguistic analysis of Modern South Arabian" pages for five of the six languages, though these are pages describing the holdings rather than linking to them.

Except for Soqotri, separated by sea from the others, there is reportedly some mutual comprehensibility among these languages.

For the individual languages themselves languages themselves, many of the published grammars and such are published by E.J. Brill or other high-end publishers and are only found in specialist libraries. Leaving aside the uncertain case of Razihi, mentioned above, here are brief descriptions for he other six, along with estimates of the number of speakers from 1) UNESCO, 2) Ethnologue, the language reference work by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (a Christian missionary endeavor), 3) the SOAS Endangered Languages Archive cited

26 earlier, and 4) Wikipedia. I also include related links, and videos where I found them. I am taking the languages alphabetically.

The two videos below show general scenes of Oman (not just Dhofar, but the background audio is recordings of Jibbali speakers, including a recitation of numbers.

Bat’hari One of the most endangered is Bat’hari, spoken by a few hundred fishermen along the Bay of Khuriya Muria on the coast of Oman. UNESCO estimates 300 speakers, Ethnologue 200, and Wikipedia ”about 200.” SOAS gives no estimate.

Bat’hari numerals.

Harsusi Spoken in the Jiddat al-Harasis area of Central Oman. Estimates of speakers vary dramatically: UNESCO says 3000 in 1996, 3500-4000 today, both based on fieldwork by Dawn Chatty; Ethnologue says 600; SOAS says between 600-1000; Wikipedia says 1000-2000.

Some further reading on Harsusi: The Linguistic Treasures of Oman blogpost cited at the beginning: "The Harsusi Language in Oman: Another Treasure Slipping Away?"

Lameen Souag at Jabal al-Lughat:"Destroying Harsusi."

A post about numbers in Harsusi. Clearly all but a few of those from 1-10 differ significantly from Arabic; 11 upwards resemble Arabic.

Hobyot (or Hobyót) Hobyot is spoken on either side of the Yemen-Oman border. It may have fewer than 100 speakers today. UNESCO puts it at 400; Ethnologue says 100 in Oman, not citing Yemeni figures; SOAS says under 1000; Wikipedia says 100 in Oman.

Jibbali/Jibali/Jebali or Shehri/Shahri The two sets of names are respectively from the Arabic and Shehri words meaning “of the mountain.The second largest of the Omsni South Arabian languages, Jibbali or Shehri is spoken in several areas off Dhofar, including the capital Salalah, and on the Khuria Muria islands. UNESCO, Ethnologue, and Wikipediaall put the number of speakers at 25,000, based on the 1993 (21 years ago!) Omani census, while SOAS puts it at 30,000, and the previously cited blogger Susan Al Shahri, a Dhofari whose name is the same as the language, says Contrary to what our ever-so-useful Wikipedia says, general consensus seems to be that Shahri (Jebbali) is spoken by approximately 50,000 or more Dhofaris from mountain tribes as well as a large number of individuals from town tribes.

Mahri is also spoken by a decent percentage of the Bedouin population of Dhofar.

Other materials on Jibaali/Shehri: Lameen Souag, "PluralBreaking in the Mountains of Oman."

Mehri Mehri, or Mahri, is by far the most widely spoken of the surviving South Arabian languages, and by dar the most studied. Though unwritten histoeically, t has a rich poetic tradition (see songs below). It is spoke on the coast and inland in the Mahra Province of eastern Yemen and in Dhofar in Oman. UNESCO puts its speakers at 100,000; Ethnologue at 115,200, of whom 50,000 are in Yemen and th rest in Oman; SOAS estimates 180,000; and Wikipedia gives 120,000.

Lameen Souag has noted in "Why They Thought Berbers Came From Yemen" a tradition in Arabic that Berber and Mehri were linked due to some common features not shared by Arabic.

Though both part of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages, Mehri belongs to the Semitic group, not the Berber.

Soqotri Last alphabetically but no means least is Soqotri. It is spoken on the Yemeni island of Soqotra in the Yemeni island of Soqotra, and while is second only to Mehri in number of speakers, being hundredsiles from the others and insular, there is said to be no mutual comprehensibility with the other languages.

UNESCO mentions 50,000 speakers; Ethnologue reports 64,000 overall, 57,000 in Yemen; and Wikipedia 64,500. SOAS does not appear to have an entry for it.

You can listen to Mehri songs here and to Soqotri poems here.

27 Archaeology, the past and the present in the UAE Robert Kluijver

As part of this research project I visited three archaeological sites in Eastern Sharjah Emirate, exemplary for the range of different approaches that can be taken towards cultural heritage: Jebel Buhais, Mleiha and Thuqeibah. I also visited the Sharjah archaeological museum and spoke to a few archaeologists working in the emirate. Taken together these encounters sketch the range of cultural heritage policies in the emirate of Sharjah.

I also visited the site of Hili near Al Ain, and the Al Ain museum, and tried to find the cemetery at Dibba with the graves of, according to legend, ten thousand local Muslims who refused to submit to the authority of the first caliph, Abu Bakr. These experiences were all enriching in their own way, opening new perspectives on my research project ‘Searching for Ancient Arabia’ and raising further questions.

Map of the sites I visited in the Emirate of Sharjah.

Eastern Sharjah Emirate The first three sites lie along the western foothills of the Hajjar Mountains, as they extend from Oman along the Indian Ocean coastline to the peninsula of Musandam. The mountains still catch some rainfall, irrigating the plains to the west (along the eastern coast the mountains drop into the ocean, leaving little space for cultivation). In the past the rainfall, and thus the amount of rain-fed plains, was much higher (in the centuries before the arrival of Islam this area was densely populated; there were even lakes near Mleiha). It was thus a logical place for human settlement, and this is where most of the archaeological findings of the past decades in the Emirates have taken place.

This was evident from a large wall map in the Sharjah Archaeological Museum. Much of the collection on display in that museum comes from this area, providing evidence of advanced cultures in urban settings during the Iron Age (1300

BC to 300 AD), when this area – encompassing the eastern half of the UAE and the northern half of Oman – was called Magan.

Magan is the name given by the Sumerians to ancient Oman, which supplied them in copper and was also an important trading post with the Indus Valley civilizations and ancient Yemen. The name stayed in use until the Achaemenid period, the Persians having an acute strategic and commercial interest in this region just across the Hormuz straits. One can read the fascinating book by the archaeologist D.T. Potts on Ancient Magan here.

Jebel Buhais Jebel Buhais is known as a mass burial site that was used as early as 5000 BC, but became more frequently used in the late Bronze Age (2500 to 1300 BC), when the population of the area grew as a result of agricultural improvements and trade with Mesopotamia and ancient Persia. Some tombs held the remains of as many as 1000 people. The tombs, their shape and disposition, the way people are buried and what they are buried with are all sources of abundant information for researchers interested in the cultures which succeeded each other in this area. Many of these findings are excellently presented in the Sharjah Museum of Archaeology, and described in papers and articles that can be found in the Emirate’s universities.

28 Marker on the site of Jebel Buhais indicating location of an archaeological find.

To the visitor, however, the site reveals very little. Although it is well indicated with a big sign along the road, all the digs have been recovered with earth and stones. Only a small sign with a number provides clues to the archaeologists, but there is no information for visitors.

We wandered for a while over this mountainous outcrop overlooking the plains of Eastern Sharjah (see a short illustrated description of the site by my research assistant here). It must have been always dry, and therefore a good place to ‘stock’ the remains of human beings of the settlements around it, being neither fit for cultivation or for habitation. The sun was beating down on us and we started using our imagination to discern traces of the past in an otherwise unremarkable landscape. We found for example that the mountain was still used to dispose of animal carcasses, and here and there the disposition of stones in circular patterns seemed to indicate groups of ancient graves.

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M(i)leiha was a wealthy city from the 3 century BC to the 2 century AD, living from metallurgy (the copper mines of Magan, situated in the nearby mountains, were famous in antiquity), agriculture and trade. Amphora from ancient Greece, pottery, weapons and other items from the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean were found here. Only part of the big city has been excavated, each dig delivering many interesting results.

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The fort of Mleiha as seen from the side of the highway

Of note are the fort, which stands next to the E55 highway, and of which the lower walls have been restored, clearly indicating the layout to visitors; the burial sites (in which camels and horses used to be interred too), and a large round stone funeral monument from the Umm al Nar period (end of the third millennium BC); but there have been many other prospective digs with promising results by local, French, Belgian and Australian archaeological teams. It is expected that over the years Mleiha will lead to many more discoveries about the period preceding the advent of Islam.

Bones from recently killed animals litter the Jebel Buhais site.

The ‘Umm al Nar’ tomb of Mleiha, within the visitors’ park.

After climbing to the top of the ridge of the low mountain, thus gaining a view of the other slope of it, we decided to return to the car, uncertain of what we had actually gained from this rather strenuous visit.

This is probably why the Emirate’s government has decided to create a major visitors center and touristic experience.

Currently there’s a rather shabby playground and an empty “heritage village” (Qaryat-al Turathiyya) built around the Bronze Age tomb, set inside a large green park which, presumably because of its rather off-center location, does not seem to attract many visitors. The other Mleiha site ready for

Mleiha

29 visitors is the fort, covered by an immense roof to protect it from the elements. The intention is to open many more of area’s sites to visitors, building structures to accommodate, entertain and instruct them in line with the latest ideas about eco-tourism, sustainable development and community involvement in cultural heritage preservation (read more about it here).

Mleiha is thus the exact opposite of Jebel Buhais. Here nothing is left to the imagination, information is readily available and the visitors experience is carefully channeled. The archaeological remains are neatly reconstructed to child-safety standards. This could be interesting if there was more to see; hopefully the other archaeological excavations, when open to visitors, will make it a more rewarding experience than it is now.

Al Thuqeibah Named after a very small agricultural settlement located along the dry riverbed entering Al Madam, this was the most difficult site to find. It is currently being excavated by a Spanish archaeological mission – when we were there, however, only Pakistanis were working, the archaeologists coming to dig during field season (in the winter) only.

bringing fresh water from the nearby mountains. As the Spanish-speaking Pakistani overseer Ayub pointed out to us, the soil and the water irrigating it were retained by rims around them. But instead of building the retaining walls on top of the earth, as is usual, here it seemed the earth had been dug out, revealing beautiful patterns that showed exactly where the trees and wet fields were located; in this way they could be precisely irrigated from the falaj, the water spreading through the connected patches of soil downhill.

The excavations at Al Thuqeibah have just started, including some well-preserved houses. They indicate that in agricultural terms, too, local society was more developed than previously imagined. For visitors like us, this is the most rewarding kind of site. A lot is left to the imagination, but the excavations reveal sufficient details and are aesthetically rich enough to excite that imagination. The presence of an excavation team willing to talk about its work adds a lot to the experience.

Jebel Buhais, Mleiha and Al Thuqeibah thus exemplify the three stages of archaeological site development a visitor can experience: underdevelopment, overdevelopment and ‘in’ development. One could also take them to symbolize the different levels of commitment to archaeology in the Emirate of Sharjah, between neglect, superficial touristic development and true research. Of course this is not only true of Sharjah, as the visitor could probably find this range in any country’s cultural heritage policies.

Dibba We drove along the Indian ocean coast from Fujairah through Khor Fakkan to Dibba, on the border of the Omani exclave of Musandam. We wanted to find the cemetery where, according to the legend, ten thousand apostates were buried. Indeed, after the death of the Prophet Muhammad part of the population rebelled against caliph Abu Bakr, who promptly sent troops to quell the rebellion. According to the most commonly followed historic account (by early Muslim historian Al Tabari), ten thousand locals perished in the confrontation.

This historic episode shines a rare light on what was a more tumultuous acceptance of political Islam in the Arabian peninsula than is usually thought. The main narrative of this process is simple: before the death of the prophet the whole Arabian peninsula had embraced Islam, and that’s it. Mention is sometimes made of the Kharijites and the Zaydis as breakaway factions of mainstream Sunni orthodoxy on the peninsula; they survive today in Oman (the Ibadis) and Yemen (Zaydis). But in fact caliph Abu Bakr had to fight wars against those who didn’t accept his rule in all parts of the Arabian peninsula (the so-called Ridda Wars) during the first years of his caliphate.

Irrigation channels carved out of the soft-rock ground at Al Thuqeibah.

The excavation team was uncovering gardens and small fields hewn out of the rocky ground, that were irrigated by a falaj

What connected all these revolts was a rejection of the principle of succession by designation. The Ibadis and Zaydis still believe that their religious leader must be chosen by the believers in the community and prove himself worthy of the function. This strokes with the traditional mechanism to select

30 a leader among Arab tribes – dynastic succession never sat well th with them until the 18 century. This must obviously have happened with the people of Dibba: when the prophet Muhammad died they saw no reason to blindly accept his successor Abu Bakr. They paid for it dearly. If indeed 10.000 people died, this cannot be the result of the battlefield, but must imply a wholesale massacre of the local population, which, archaeological evidence ascertains, was much more important during the time of the Prophet than in later centuries.

When visiting Dibba we had no mobile internet coverage, so we relied on local inhabitants to guide us to the cemetery; later it turned out we had visited (and abundantly photographed) the wrong one (a picture of the presumably correct cemetery can be found here). Curiously, despite the historic significance of the event and the rather large landmark it left, few local people seemed aware of its location – probably the result of a history suppressed because deemed shameful.

Hili Archaeological Park The Bronze Age settlement (ca 2000 BC) of Hili lies just outside Al Ain. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, composed of a large circular stone collective tomb, typical of the Umm al Nar period (similar to the one in Mleiha), the foundations of several buildings - including what appears to have been a defensive fortress - and a falaj (underground water channel). A pleasurable green park has been built around the stone tomb and the foundations of two other bronze age buildings, but most of the site is outside that park, off-limits to casual visitors, straddling the Omani border.

Even more so than the facilities built around Mleiha, Hili archaeological park leaves little to the visitor’s imagination. As I was strolling among the many tourists visiting the park, I was struck by how this presentation of the past is more representative of the current epoch than the past itself (this opinion was shared by the way, by several other visitors). I started photographing details of the current tourist infrastructure as if I were performing some kind of future archaeology, imagining that these facilities will be excavated in 2000 years and taken as exemplary of the level of development of Al Ain, its economy, the beliefs of the people etc in 2000 AD.

Collage of contemporary culture for future archaeology at Hili Park.

Based on my findings a future archaeologist could conclude that the area was luxuriantly green and that the population of Hili was mostly white, generally so obese they needed to be motorized, and that they worshipped ancient stone structures.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with Ruth Impey about the dating techniques used by archaeologists. She a specialist in Julfar pottery, which was produced for many consecutive centuries in Ras al Khaimah Emirate, and widely exported throughout the region; the stylistic differences in the found pottery from Julfar is often used to date an archaeological site. These stylistic differences can be quite minimal, like a curved lip of a jar versus a straight one indicating a difference of two centuries.

Ruth is a potter herself, and has embarked on a project (also supported by FIND) to revive Julfar pottery production, although the last local potters, who knew how to assemble the clay and what to fire the kilns with, died a generation ago. She admitted that the dating technique based on Julfar pottery is not foolproof, as it assumes that all potters will adopt the same stylistic differences more or less simultaneously, and that none of them will produce pottery in a ‘retro’ style practiced by his ancestors.

This is probably why I feel uncomfortable with the definite presentation at archaeological sites such as Hili or Mleiha: because they assume that all the information collected through uncertain archaeological methods is correct, while it is quite likely that in the future, new information will invalidate many of these assumptions. Archaeologists and scholars themselves are usually not so adamant about the accuracy of their interpretations; it is when their findings are translated into

31 easily digestible ‘educational tools’ or ‘visitors guides’ that assumptions are converted into affirmations.

Archaeological presentations in the museums of Al Ain and Sharjah The translation of uncertain and often contradictory findings by archaeologists into a historic narrative takes place most clearly in the museum. There is a big difference, in this regard, between the Al Ain National Museum , where many of the findings of Hili are presented, and the Sharjah Archaeology Museum.

museums in the UAE – leading to many possible links between the past and the present, while the National Museum of Al Ain seemingly forecloses such multiple interpretations.

My visits made clear that the person wanting to understand the UAE’s ancient past is confronted with incomplete and often contradictory impressions, between lack of interest and enthusiastic claiming of a cultural heritage dissociated from contemporary culture. In my following report I will try to find out why.

An obvious difference is in the presentation: Al Ain is a somewhat stuffy museum with linear displays, with often missing or insufficient information about the pieces presented.

The Sharjah museum, in contrast, gives a contemporary, multimedia and less linear display and offers quite a lot of information about the displayed artifacts. A new national museum is being planned for Al Ain which will certainly conform to the latest practice in museum displays and to the subtleties of current national discourses in the UAE.

Photograph of Abu Dhabi around the 1950s; please supply the name of the photographer if known (this photograph was on display in Al Ain National Museum without information)

Diplomatic gifts to the UAE from other Arab countries displayed at the Al Ain National Museum.

A more subtle difference is the objective of the museum: where the National Museum of Al Ain seeks to present a national narrative, including ethnographic artifacts and photographs of the pre-oil period (fig 9), the museum in Sharjah seems geared towards the display of archaeological findings. In the first case, contradictions can be problematic (because they weaken the narrative), while in the second case, they can easily be justified (as elements of multiple storylines which are still being developed).

As source of artistic inspiration, the Archaeological Museum of Sharjah is thus much richer – and definitely one of the better

32 More on the Ancient Graves of Jebel Buhais Amal Bssiss The Jebel Buhais mountain range is surrounded by small farming settlements to the East of the emirate of Sharjah. Excavations of the area began in the 1990s and would prove to be one of the most significant discoveries made in Southeastern Arabia. The area is home to a vast number of burial sites dating to 7000 years ago and the archeological expeditions carried out in the past 2 decades have helped shed light on the cartography and customs of the ancient inhabitants of the UAE.

the Hili tombs. It is still however an interesting site to visit for anyone who has acquainted themselves with the history of the nomadic peoples that inhabited the area for thousands of years.

The site has been used for burial form the Late Bronze Age though to the Iron Age, and many of the graves were re-used on different occasions. The BHS18 is one of the largest burials in Jebel Buhais, with over a 1000 individuals buried there, some up to 7000 years old. The graves also yielded some 24,000 pieces of jewellery and other ornamental objects, now on display at the Sharjah Archaeological Museum. Some camel remains were also discovered, contributing to the study of camel domestication in the region.

Image courtesy of “The Necropolis of Jebel Buhais� by Dr. S. A. Jasim

Taking the E55 road towards Dhaid, Jebel buhais is easily accessible to anyone willing to explore it. Most burial sites that have been previously excavated have been covered again to ensure preservation, demarcating the spots with numbered placards. With most sites consisting of a small rock mound or a natural cave enclosure inside the mountain the site itself doesn’t yield much visual testament compared to for example

Photographs of the landscapes of Jebel Buhais.

33 In stark contrast to a museum experience, where one is served a carefully woven context of historical progression, visiting an archaeological site such as this, devoid of any visible structures, demands that we reconstruct the topology of a possible human settlement though the use of ones imaginative and logical faculties. Trekking about, taking in the geographical and environmental identity of the space and trying to visualise it through the eyes of earlier inhabitants is a necessary task that while archaeologists partake in regularly. An untrained enthusiast can do the same and experience first hand how much of what we know and read about history had come from the exercise of ones imagination.

Bibliography: 1. “The Necropolis of Jebel Buhais” by Sabah Abboud Jasim

There is some speculation by historians that Jebel buhais was used for burial by the neighbouring Mleiha and Thuqaibah settlements during the Iron Age Period. One of the most visually impressive burials are the U-shaped and Cloverleafshaped graves, dating to the 2nd millennium BC. The striking chambers differ from the rest of the burials in the Buhais area due to their ingenious shape and structure.

Images courtesy of “The Necropolis of Jebel Buhais” by Sabah Abboud Jasim

2. “The Archaeology of Jebel Buhais” Edited by Hans-Peter Uerpmann, Margarethe Uerpmann and Sabah Abboud Jasim

34 Christians in the pre-Islamic Emirates: where did they come from, where did they go?

Sir Bani Yas Island and the Church of the East

Robert Kluijver. Notes made while reading Peter Hellyer’s paper “Nestorian Christianity in Pre-Islamic UAE and Southeastern Arabia” in the Journal of Social Affairs, Winter 2001.

The island of Sir Bani Yas is situated off the coast of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The natural island spans 87 square km and is home to one of the largest natural reserves in the Arabian Peninsula.

It would appear that the Christian communities found on UAE islands such as Sir Bani Yas and other islands in the Gulf (Hellyer includes the island of Marawah, where a strucure was originally believed to be a church, but where subsequent research after Hellyer wrote his paper brought evidence that the stone structure was from the Stone Age - 5000BC - and thus the oldest house found in the UAE) was largely imported: because they did not live like the non-Christian population. The monastic life in stone buildings, in particular, was unique to these Christian communities which also lived in islands off the coast of Qatar, the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Amal Bssiss

The late ruler of Abu Dhabi, and founding father of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Zayed used the island as his personal retreat before it was cultivated into a tourist destination. In 1994, during an agricultural terracing operation, the remains of a Christian monastery dating back to around 600 AD, were discovered. Alongside similar sites found in Saudi Arabia, the Bani Yas monastery is of great historical significance as evidence of Christian presence in pre-Islamic East Arabia.

Given the presence in southern Iran of Christian communities, and the persecution by the Sassanian authorities to which they were submitted after its enemy the Roman Empire turned Christian in 312 AD (the waves of repression lasted from 339 to 380 and from 420 to 438, according to D.T. Potts in ‘The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity’) and given the late arrival of th th Christians in the Gulf (in the 4 -5 centuries AD) Hellyer surmises they may have come from Iran. They would have enjoyed some protection by the Beni Lakhm tribe (the Lakhmids) among whom there were many Christians.

This could explain how they survived on these desert islands: mostly through the pearl trade. Local fishers would know how to find the pearls, and presumably the Christians, through their religious networks, made an income selling them. This would be substantiated by the visit of the Catholicos (patriarch) Ezekiel (569-581) to the monastic communities on the islands along the Arabian Gulf coast, as he also made a report to the Sassanian Emperor Khusraw I on the pearl fisheries there.

With the fall of the Sassanian Empire and the conversion to Islam of the Bani Lakhm and other tribes in Southeastern Arabia, the Christian communities of the Gulf lost their protection, and presumably found it more difficult to survive and trade.

It is unclear where the Christians went when they left the th islands along the UAE coast at the end of the 7 century. There are no traces of violence, and the churches and monasteries seem to have crumbled, not been destroyed. There are less archaeological traces of human settlement on these islands in the early Islamic period than from the pre-Islamic period, so it would appear settled life had either disappeared or assumed forms that leave no archaeological evidence (nomadic life).

Given the flourishing of the Nestorian church in Central Asia (Sogdiana, around Samarkand) from the first missionary visit in 630 onwards, it appears likely that these Christian communities migrated there, as a ‘new promised land’ where there were ample opportunities to settle and trade.

Remains of the monastery

Robert Kluijver and I visited the site as part of a heritage tour organized by the Anantara resort situated on the island.

Although I was initially planning for a more “make-your-ownway” kind of visit, the scorching June heat made the appeal of a guided tour a more attractive option.

The remains of the monastery can be found about a kilometer from the coastline, surrounded by dry scrubland and low lying mountains. Looking at what is left of the original structure, consisting only of the outline of its foundation, it’s difficult to imagine the building in its original state.

Mark Beech, an archaeologist who had worked on the site pointed out at one of his lectures that the primary indicators of the space’s original religious purpose were the embossed tiles found to bear the cross. Unfortunately, we were not able to see these on the site as they are currently stored in Abu Dhabi,

35 where they await being displayed at the upcoming Zayed National Museum.

are traces of an irrigation channel coming from a nearby source (that has dried up, like all sources on the island). Alternatively the monks may have had water delivered from the nearby Delma island which is more fortunate with its water supply.

If the aim of this religious outpost, which most likely belonged to the Nestorian Church was to seek a degree of asceticism then the place would provide just that. Although the island is now home to numerous species of trees, these were planted in the past 20 years and are artificially irrigated with water from a desalination plant on the coast, reportedly using 8 million gallons of water per day.

Tile found at the Bani Yas monastery & Nestorian cross of the Yuan Dynasty, China

After some poking around, and with the assistance of the provided floor plan, it becomes a little easier to navigate the structure that once housed up to 60 monks on this remote island. Yet as with any site where physical evidence or written sources are scarce, speculation becomes a necessary exercise for archaeologists with disagreements regarding what purpose some of the rooms bore. The exercise of imagination when trying to envision life at sites such as these is as crucial as dusting off ancient stones with a brush.

The monastery was continuously inhabited for about 200 years, coinciding with the arrival of Islam, which having spread very early on to this region didn’t seem to hinder the monk’s existence. Similar Christian outposts found in Qatar and present day Saudi Arabia had an even longer span of duty, pointing to the degree of tolerance by the growing Muslim population.

I stood in each room, divided by faint outlines and tried to raise the walls up once more. What would the rooms feel like from the inside? How would sharing this space inform the daily lives of the monks? What were the rituals that these early Nestorians upheld?

Studies have indicated that the monks lived on a diet of mainly fish and basic crops, much of it imported from Persia. There

The Nestorian church, also known as the Church of the East, was formed after a schism with the Western Roman and Greek Orthodox Churches on the grounds of a theological disagreement regarding the dual nature of Christ.

Today, the church has been fragmented into many offshoots, the Coptic, Maronite and Assyrian churches being just a few. In the time of the Bani Yas Monastery, the Eastern Church was far superior in terms of its geographical reach to the church of the West. Sometimes also referred to as the Persian church, its influence stretched from Mesopotamia to the Malabar coast of India and into China.

While Christians were still being persecuted in Rome, the Eastern counterparts began to find refuge and relative religious freedom in Upper Mesopotamia and Parthia. The latter, with its liberal approach to religious difference (the state sanctioned religion was Zoroastrianism) welcomed the influx of Christians fleeing Rome’s outlying provinces.

Inside an Armenian church in present day Isfahan, Iran

With the conversion of Rome (Byzantium) to Christianity and the ascension of the Sassanid dynasty in rival Persia the Nestorians faced some tension within the Persian empire as evidence of purging on religious grounds attests. Many Christians were accused of spying for Rome and persecution escaladed during the reign of Shapur the Second and his successor Ardashir. However, since trade was one of the preferred activities taken up by Christian communities the influence of the Eastern Church spread far and wide, reaching China by means of Silk trade. With the ascension of Yazgird to the Sassanid throne in 399, the conditions for Christians began

36 to ease as he sought to improve relations with Rome. Many members of the Persian elite had begun converting to Christianity and the religion began to bear a stronger political presence.

According to tradition, an old Nestorian monk Bahira was the one who foretold about Muhammad’s future prophethood upon meeting him as an adolescent

The pearling trade would have been one of the draws for seafarers and merchants to visit the island. It may have also been on a pilgrimage route. Only a single burial was discovered on the grounds of the monastery, which may have belonged to a local holy man. The gravesite may have attracted pilgrims on their way from India to the Mediterranean, as sacred ground to receive blessings for an arduous journey ahead.

The bare scenery and the contemplative silence of the island would have provided bedrock for Nestorian mystics seeking solitude while maintaining a link to the rest of civilization through trade. Keeping the aridity of such an existence in mind the small monastery structure becomes more and more impressive once you take into account the hardship this small community would have to endure to survive.

Catholic monks debating with priests of the Eastern Church

The final division from Rome and adoption of Nestorian doctrine by the Church of the East occurred in 451 at the council of Chalcedon thus solidifying its independence from the West. Remains of outposts of small churches and monasteries can be found across the Persian gulf, with one of the earliest found on the Island of Kharg (present day Iran) dating back to the third century.

The blank canvas that this scenery provides is an invitation for artistic visualization to take over. What could it really be, this seemingly random religious outpost? One can imagine this as an outpost of mystic wisdom, protected by mythical creatures and forces of nature. A cleverly masked spy enclave in a place no one would suspect? A concealed treasure in a place where no one would think to look? As arid as the place presents itself to be it is fertile ground for the imagination to run wild. With local contemporary artists being increasingly keen to explore lost histories of their countries it is possible that the story of the Bani Yas monastery might even find its way into a screenplay.

Bibliography Baum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar The Church of the East: A Concise History, London: Routledge King ,G.R.D, Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, Trident Press

37 Contributors - Rahel Aima, writer and editor of The State, Dubai - Amal Bssiss, researcher, Dubai - Michael Collins Dunn, Editor of the Middle East Journal, London - Liane Al Ghussain, curator, artist and writer, Kuwait.

- Ahmad Makia, writer and editor of The State, Dubai - Robert Kluijver, curator and lecturer in international relations, the Netherlands and Paris, and initiator of this research/ editor of this publication.

- Dr. Mehdi Sabet, Associate Professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University, Dubai.

All articles, with the exception of the guest contribution by Michael Collins Dunn, were originally published between March and June 2014 on the website Searching for Ancient Arabia.

This research, the travels, and the current publication have all been supported with a fellowship granted to Robert Kluijver by the Forming Intersections in Dialogue program of New York University Abu Dhabi.

All materials published here are the joint copyright of FIND and the author, and are shared with the public domain under the Creative Commons license Attribution – Non Commercial – Share Alike.