The aphrodisiac qualities of the coconut, abalone and shark fish

Dhofar coast, Oman                 20 Dhul Qadah, 1428

Dhofar is supposedly a blessed place. It has long been considered by its inhabitants to have some special divine protection. I was told this during my visit, and Ibn B was told the same thing;

“One of the special properties and marvels of this city is that no one approaches it with an evil design but his guile turns on himself and he is prevented from attaining it.” 

Even the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea writing in the 1st century AD wrote of the special atmosphere of the site of Khor Rouri, known to the Greeks as Moscha, which he felt must have the protection of a god. Ironically, nowadays the locals believe there are jinn or jinni, there and most people would never visit after dark for fear of them. (As has been mentioned on this site, the Arabic word ‘jinn’ is the origin of the English word ‘genie’ of Aladdin’s lamp fame.) 

Khor Rouri was built by a Hadhramut King sometime around the 1st century BC, for the export of frankincense. But like al-Baleed it suffered a reversal of fortune and today it is an isolated inlet (‘khor’ means inlet separated from the sea by a sand bar) home to flamingoes, herons and eagles.

Khor Rouri - photograph taken from the ruins of the city looking out towards the Arabian Sea 

Lost tombs and catastrophe, and the Land of al-Ahqaf

Salalah, Dhofar province, Oman            12 Dhul Qadah, 1428

I am struck by how many habits and customs remain intact from Ibn Battuta’s day almost 700 years ago. Mohammed and I were having lunch in Mirbat overlooking the sea when he idly picked up ‘The Travels [of Ibn Battuta]’ and read,

“One of their good customs is to shake hands with one another in the mosque after the morning and afternoon prayers; those in the front row turn their backs to the qibla, and those in the row next to them shake hands with them. They do the same thing after the noonday prayer on Friday, all of them shaking hands with one another.”

“But this is still done to this day”, exclaimed Mohammed surprised and seemingly rather delighted that this custom had been around at least since the 14^th century, “It is disappearing now as the older men die off and foreign imams come to the mosques who do not know the custom”, he added, “but the old men still like to do this.” Earlier in the day we had visited Taqah castle which has been restored as an ethnographic museum. In one of the rooms hanging on the wall were some woven palm leaf prayer mats which he said people still used. Ibn Battuta had noted as much,

"In every one of their houses, there is a prayer mat of palm leaves hung up inside the house, on which the master of the house performs his prayers exactly as the people of the Maghreb do..."

The restored Taqah fort where the wali, or governor, lived.

This led to another, little-known fact; Ahmed, a young colleague of Mohammed, was remarking on the similarity of the language between the people of Salalah, eastern Yemen and Morocco. Ibn B had noted this in 1329,

"Another strange thing is that the people of this city of all men most closely resemble the people of the Maghreb in their ways...."

This led him to suppose that the legend of the Himayrite King (of Yemen) who had conquered north-west Africa and whose troops had then stayed, must in fact be true. By now experience has taught me that despite occasional skepticism on the part of locals about some of his writings, Ibn B is usually right and I have learned not to be swayed by the naysayers. But on occasion - and the Morocco connection was one of them - I wonder about fleeting fanciful notions on his part. But once again the keen oberver is right.

The Rain Shadow, the khareef, and the lost city of al-Baleed.

Salalah, Dhofar province, Oman     6 Dhul Qadah, 1428 AH

I have been discombobulated. I have not been able to access my website for weeks; in Iran on certain servers it is blacklisted for reasons unknown and in Dubai both Girl Solo and Typepad are wholly inaccessible for reasons equally unknown, all of which has left me chomping at the bit. This is not a good position to be in when you are trying to arrange travel to places that were already off the beaten path in the 14th century, and to which the passing centuries have not improved accessibility. The final straw - the shutter button on my camera sheared clean off leaving me completely adrift – I feel as if I have been without an umbilical cord for the past two months.

I am thus happy to be back on Ibn B’s trail again in the company of Mohammed Saeed, mohdsr@hotmail.com an extremely knowledgeable and affable guide to these parts. This is going to be one of the most difficult parts of the trip to pull together – I have been trying for several months – so in the meantime I start with the easy stuff which is how I come to be driving to al-Baleed of a fine, tropical November Monday morning…….

The flora of this part of the Omani coast resembles that of South Asia with its poinsiana and frangipani trees, bougainvillea, banana and coconut groves

Dubai - 21st century entrepot

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Much has been written about the phenomenon that is Dubai. Ibn Battuta never came here because in his day there was no Dubai - its equivalent then was Hormuz or Mughistan - both of which are now obscure places on the Iranian side of the Gulf which I visited this summer.

What will be the tallest tower in the world, Burj Dubai.

Dubai essentially came into being in 1833 when the Bani Yas tribe broke away from Abu Dhabi to set up its own independent principality under the leadership of the al-Maktoum family. Things marched along quite happily, in 1853 the British signed a perpetual peace treaty with the Trucial states as they came to be known, giving protection in return for trade. But in the 1960s the British resigned themselves to the fact that they no longer had the wherewithal to rule the waves or anything else, and they announced their intention to withdraw. The Trucial States were vaguely alarmed - oil had been discovered and security was paramount. Abu Dhabi and Dubai linked forces and by the time the United Arab Emirates was formed in 1973, had been joined by Ras al-Khaima, Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajman and Um Qawain. (Bahrain and Qatar decided to go it alone.) Even then, contrary to what most people believe, Dubai did not rely on oil for its existence, and in fact oil is only about 5% of the country's GDP. The city was always an entrepot and to a large extent it still is - in the early 21st century, Dubai is the undisputable regional face of the future regards trade, transportation and commerce. And it is still ruled by the al-Maktoum family.

Historic creek, and dhows, in Dubai now flanked by ultra-modern high-rise buildings.