Qatar’s rich and prosperous maritime history Wednesday, 16 June 2010 04:59

During the opening of the 10th Doha Forum at the Ritz Carlton (and certainly a scene repeated on several occasions) a large tent was set up in one of the hotel’s spacious courtyards. In front of the tent and toward one of its corners were two men meant to symbolize Qatar’s heritage to the guests, both Arab and foreign. One of them was weaving branches of palm leaves into baskets, and the other sat holding a falcon.

Stopping in front of the man weaving palm leaves with empty baskets in front of him, I had no idea what he was doing. I thought that perhaps there was something being displayed in the baskets, however, they were all empty. After discovering that this person weaving baskets is supposed to be a euphemism for Qatar’s rich maritime heritage, I was honestly not only shocked, but also offended. Is Qatar’s historical maritime heritage supposed to be centred within this basket?

The fact is that I have grown up with stories of my family about our past, and become a mother to children who are the fourth generation of Qataris living since the discovery of oil, and many of their peers are mothering and fathering the fifth generation. Not once have I heard or seen in our history or heritage that we are basket weavers.

What about South East Asian countries, known for their creation of baskets, whose economies depended on their production, which they did so beautifully and skillfully, and are at the heart of their homes, livelihoods, and culture?

My grandfather was a merchant of pearls and ship-owner in the town of Al Wakrah. He and his generation were residents of Al-Wakrah, Doha, Al-Khor and other Qatari cities who made a living through their profession, which has its seasons, tools, and riches. Through their ships, they would sell precious pearls and import rice, flour, dates, clothes, furniture, and gold. They were living a life of luxury at the time, where mirrors were inscribed with peacocks, and trunks in which they kept their clothes, and high-column beds constructed by skilled carpenters. They had golden cases with engraved drawers where they secured their money, pearls, and precious gems. They have had their unique, two-story architecture, as construction was booming and can be seen today through the remains of forts with multiple chambers, living quarters, and rooms for guests.

The remains of these forts still exist even after decades of the families’ abandonment. I recall my grandfather’s house, which was constructed in the nineteenth century and abandoned after his death and my ancestors’ migration to Doha. After his death, following the fall of the pearl industry, and the discovery of oil, remainders of the house still exist. That was the same house that my grandfather lived, and the home of his wives, sons, their wives, and children. Remains of the home tell stories of its rich past. I remember my relatives and I afraid of the ruins when were children during the sixties, passing by and peering on what was left over from our ancestors’ home. The ruins of the abandoned home existed before the country began its advancement, openness, and wavered with indecision between demolition or restoration – whether to maintain remains of the past, located on the beautiful coast of Al-Wakrah.

Some people might think that in the past, before the discovery of oil, Qatari people were barefoot or naked, and this is certainly not true. Although there was no electricity or water pumps, Qataris were living in civilization. They were importing furniture, fabrics, tools, food, and valuable jewelry, in which women were adorned depending on the capabilities of their husbands. My grandfather left over a gold plated sword, which was an heirloom inherited by my uncle, father of the businessman Ghanim Al-Saad. The sword was a major feature of traditional celebration at the time, which remains a part of our festivities today. The quarters of their homes were the centers of poetry and governance, their memories strong, tongues eloquent, and minds quick-witted, that would enrapture great grand children with story-telling. So often my daughter and I would sit with my mother and aunts, enchanted as their memories still preserved poems and anecdotes transferred to them from the men’s chambers. The poems and stories would circulate amongst women, who would help each other with memorizing through repetition. They remained alive in their hearts until their death beds; all the while in this day and age we can hardly remember the simplest things as we’ve become accustomed to recording and reading, thereby eroding our ability to memorize.

They had their celebrations, folklore, rituals, generosity, and interdependence. In Al-Raya newspaper during the 1980s, Saeed Salem Al-Badid, the poet, historical narrator, and folk doctor wrote about a time of scarcity that plagued the country in the past (from the impact of World War II to the development of cultured pearls), which prompted a vast group of people to migrate to neighbouring regions. Al-Badid travelled from Doha to Al-Wakrah on his camel after hearing that my grandfather, Majed bin Saad Al-Saad, was a generous man that could help him during this time. Although Al-Badid said that he could not explain how bad the situation was in Doha, Majid welcomed him. As he was ready to leave, Al-Badid was surprised to find that Majid’s slaves were loading his camel with rice, flour, and dates, serving as an example of that generation of Qataris’ generosity, and history of prosperity.

With the discovery of oil, Qatar entered a new era. Diving and trade were eroded, and oil corporations, modernization, and different professions emerged. Young people in that era, who are now the grandfathers of today’s youth, conducted the same work as present day laborers at oil companies. Qatar entered into the age of electricity, water, transportation, schools, and hospitals. While my generation were born in Hamad hospital, elder siblings were born at home. Many families and tribes left their cities of birth and migrated to Doha. The pace of modernization and progress accelerated very quickly in Qatar, and I still find it difficult to fathom how our elders were able to acclimate to such rapid development.

From their fear of the sound of airplanes, they would run and hide from them. They would memorize the Holy Quran because our grandfather’s generation were illiterate, all the while our older siblings were graduating from universities in Egypt during the 70s.

With a few blinks of the eye, these people adapted from one situation to another. They accepted and smoothly developed with the times. Although I was not from the first generation of Qatari women that travelled to Egypt to pursue sponsored university degrees, I was the first in my family to study abroad. Only a short while before that, my older sister was not sent to school under the pretext that girls did not need formal education. At that time, girls had no choice in marriage, and it was even shameful for a girl to know about what to expect from marriage. She was supposed to cry in fear as evidence of her chastity and innocence. Not to mention that girls did not walk into their own weddings toward their husbands, but were carried to them wrapped in rugs!

Education was the second revolution, and oil was the first, contributing to changing Qatar’s horizon. Our mothers and fathers learned with us through what we were taught in school, especially when my older siblings and I would read our lessons aloud at home. They would attend our school performances and participate in new traditions such as schedules, queues, uniforms, and celebrating Mother’s Day. We grew up with TV Dhahran from Saudi Aramco, television series, foreign films dubbed in Arabic, and Egyptian films and animation. Young people had access to reading material like magazines and books, and listened to the radio, impacted by Abdul Nasser’s speech of nationalizing the Suez Canal. That was the day I was born, and my father was delayed in taking my mother to the hospital due to demonstrations widespread across the country on that day in solidarity with the tripartite aggression, and so I was nicknamed the “Suez Canal” in my neighborhood (Al-Murgab) before we moved back to Al-Wakrah.

So Qatar was modernized as if it always were. All the years of isolation and darkness were broken down. Foreign education scholarships and medical treatment abroad were in abundance. Almost every Qatari travelled at the government’s expense for medical treatment in Egypt, Lebanon, and London. When one would travel, so would all of their family, in cloaks, veils, and traditional clothes. People accepted their daughters’ ambition to complete their education and enter the workforce. The first female graduates of secondary school saw the first teachers, and Qatari society bloomed with openness, awareness, and responsibility.

The simplicity and innate humble nature of Qataris contributed greatly to their rapid adaptation to these changes. They came from a rich life full of interdependence.

Therefore, it is difficult to bear the misrepresentation of Qatar’s maritime history in baskets of bamboo and palm leaves. If such baskets existed at all, they were on the sidelines of the true legacy of our ancestors at that time. We owe it to them to clarify the facts and challenge any distortion of history.

No doubt that the history of Qatar has been recorded by expatriates, as it is a fresh country that surrendered itself to historians, scholars and writers from abroad, and these professional depended on the information made available to them at the time, depending on the intentions of those relaying it to them. Like any anthropologists, they tried to convey our history to the best of their ability, depending on their interpretations. After everything was recorded, even our children today consider them as truths until they investigate themselves with their own ancestors. Therefore, no one objected to, or asked, this old man sitting back in a tent weaving baskets in a luxury hotel, for the country’s great guests to peer at him and wonder, was this really the country’s history?

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