Notes on Gulf Arab history, culture and cuisine

Robert Tyabji

(with excerpts from The Curry Club Middle Eastern Cookbook by Pat Chapman and Crossing the Sands by Wilfred Thessiger)

The Arabian peninsula is a region of arid wastes and deserts, punctuated by the occasional water well or oasis. For thousands of years it was home to indigenous tribes who were able to criss-cross them and survive. This in turn presented them with the opportunity to act as the carriers of goods between the Mediterranean and India. Acting as middlemen, it made the early Arabs extremely wealthy, and powerful, and eventually they became invincible empire builders.

Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) was born in the late 5'th century AD. He was forty when he founded Islam, which led to the expansion of the Arab territories. They took Damascus, then captured the land of Sind (now in Pakistan) and went on to India and later entered China. They took all the territories of the southern Mediterranean and Spain and they went on into France, occupying the southern half until they were driven out in 732. They had captured Baghdad by 900, at which point their empire was at its height.

It lasted for seven centuries, until it was replaced by a regime it had created itself - the Ottoman Empire. Arab power waned as their importance as spice traders was supplanted by northern European mariners. The empire retreated to the Arabian peninsula, with influences in north Africa and parts of Asia and central Europe. The Arabs entered a period of insignificance, poverty and the old nomadic ways of the Bedouin tribes.

In his book Crossing the Sands, Wilfred Thessiger writes thus of the Bedouin:<

Bedu notice everything and forget nothing. Garrulous by nature, they reminisce endlessly, whiling away with their chatter the long marching hours, and talking late into the night round their camp fires. Their life is at all times desperately hard, and they are merciless critics of those who fall short in patience, good humor, generosity, loyalty, or courage. They make no allowance for the stranger. Whoever lives with the Bedu must accept Bedu conventions, and conform to Bedu standards. Only those who have journeyed with them can appreciate the strain of such a life. These tribesmen are accustomed since birth to the physical hardships of the desert, to drink the scanty bitter water of the Sands, to eat gritty unleavened bread, to endure the maddening irritation of driven sand, intense cold, heat, and blinding glare in a land without shade or cloud.

But in this century the discovery of oil brought about a second Arab renaissance and with it a rapid and profound change of life style. While Bedouin tribes still dwell in the deserts of the Gulf states, today one is more likely to see mansions, shopping malls and Land Cruisers than tents and camels.

This is explained poignantly by Wilfred Thesiger:

After the First World War, cars, aeroplanes and wireless gave government for the first time in history a mobility greater than that of the Bedu. The desert was no longer a refuge for raiders but an open plain where concealment was impossible. It was a strange coincidence that at the same time as the Bedu in the Syrian desert were being brought under control with the help of modern weapons, the greatest king in Arabian history should reign in central Arabia. Abd Al Aziz Ibn Saud had already broken and brought to heel the most powerful tribes in the peninsula before he introduced a single car or aeroplane into his kingdom. The peace which he imposed would normally have disappeared with his death, and the desert would have reverted to the state of anarchy necessary to Bedu society; but I knew that the mechanical innovations which he had introduced would enable his successors to maintain the control which he had established. The desert had been pacified, and raids and tribal warfare had been effectively prevented from the Jordan valley to the northern edge of the Empty Quarter...

In northern and central Arabia, while the structure of tribal life was breaking down as a result of the peace which had been imposed on the tribes and of administrative interference from outside, the economy of Bedu life was also collapsing. Deprived of their inaccessibility, the tribes could no longer blackmail the government into paying them large subsidies for their good behavior. They could no longer levy tolls on travelers, nor exact tribute from the villagers and cultivators. A man who had lost his animals from disease could no longer borrow a mount and ride forth with a raiding party to retrieve his fortune. But the most disastrous change of all was caused by the introduction of mechanical transport, which practically abolished the dependence of the townsmen and villagers on the camels which the Bedu breed. In the past the Bedu had always found a ready sale for their camels, especially the thoroughbreds, for which the Arab rulers and richer merchants were prepared to pay large prices. Some tribes made money by carrying goods across the desert, and wherever the carrying trade was in the hands of professional carriers, the Bedu sold them camels and extorted tolls.

In spite of this modernization, Hootoksi and I were privileged to glimpse the old Bedu way of life when we lived in Yemen not so long ago, albeit from the relative safety of the capital city, Sana'a, and from our occasional forays into the country's desert and mountain regions. Even today, tribal raids on government installations, kidnapping of tourists and foreign oil workers, and armed insurgencies, are not uncommon, although the famous Bedu hospitality which extends to guests and prisoners alike, was seldom compromised.

However, such incidents are unknown in Oman, Yemen's neighbor to the south-east, since the infrastructure and institutions that are the bedrock of a modern and progressive nation have been firmly established in the Sultanate. Even so, fizzy drinks, burger bars and pizza parlors have not displaced traditional Arab food which is delicious, benefiting from the influences of Arab foreign trade and conquests. Popular spices include fenugreek, garlic and chilies. With their direct links to India, the southern Gulf states produce spicy dishes, some very hot, some in curried form. Fragrant rice dishes such as khubus and biriyani, prepared in a variety of styles with lamb, beef, chicken, fish or prawns, are regular dishes in Oman. These dishes are often served on huge silver platters, topped with the roasted carcass of an entire goat. Arabs like sweet things and enjoy honey-dripping pastries. The other day we were treated to kunafiya, a dense, sweet and totally irrisistible concoction of a dozen different finely ground nuts liberally doused in sugar and rose water syrup and topped with crispy vermicelli. Dates, indigenous to the Gulf, are eaten daily in every guise conceivable. Qahwah, Arab coffee served in tiny cups is sipped spiced or plain, usually very sweet and always strong. Traditionally, one must have at least two cups and not put the cup down until one has had enough. The cup will be replenished repeatedly until one indicates by shaking it that one has finished.

I have to admit that after three weeks of sampling some of Oman's delicacies at Clara's, at her neighbours' and at Zawawi family gatherings, I feel I have grown bloated and indolent and have a hard task undoing the damage after I return to Malaysia.