proceedings of the eleventh seminar for arabian studies held at st. john's college, oxford on...

ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE IN EASTERN ARABIAAuthor(s): Geoffrey KingSource: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 8, Proceedings of the EleventhSEMINAR FOR ARABIAN STUDIES held at St. John's College, Oxford on 7th-9th July, 1977(1978), pp. 15-28Published by: ArchaeopressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41223197 .

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ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE IN EASTERN ARABIA

Geoffrey King

The area of eastern Arabia whose Islamic architecture I wish to discuss is principally that area encompassed by the modern Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: this territory more or less coincides with the old Ottoman Sanjaq of al-Hasã, although I shall also in the course of this paper refer to al-Bahrayn, to the United Arab Emirates, to 'Uman and to Iran for comparative purposes. This Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, more than any other part of the Kingdom, had lost much of its traditional Islamic architecture by 1974. This process of demolition struck eastern Saudi Arabia early on, for it was here that oil was first found and it was here that the oil-based economy, the destruction of old buildings and the expansion of towns and cities, old and new, were first felt. The main towns of the Saudi Gulf coast today are al-Jubayl in the north, now forming a modern industrial complex but once a sizable fishing and pearling village; to the south, al-Qa^ïf, formerly a port which served itself, its own oases and the desert hinterland (Lorimer, 1908, ii, 1546), Tãrut, an island off al- Qatif and belonging to Saudi Arabia, al-Dammãm, a town which grew after the discovery of oil between 1932 and 1935, along with the dormitory town of al-Khubar and the ARAMCO and airport town of al-Zahrãn; al- 'Uqayr, and inland, al-Hasã oasis, whose main city is al-Hufuf : it is the site of major agricultural development. Of these towns and cities, al-Jubayl, al-Qatif and its oasis, Tãrut island, and the al-Hasã oasis preserved the most eastern Arabian architecture within the Kingdom in the period 1972-1975.

The towns and villages of eastern Saudi Arabia in the pre-oil period were dependent economically on pearling and fishing, on trade with the rest of the Gulf, with India and with Africa, and with the bedouin hinterland. The palm was the agricultural staple and there was some woollen and metal manufacture. Along the Gulf coast, the traditional building material is coral aggregate: blocks of this material are termed hajar al-bahr, a name common to the Arabian Gulf and to the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia; in the Gulf, the word hasãh is also used for an aggregate block. The tern f irsh is given to a tiat slab of coral aggregate used for foundations of a building (Ahmad Abu cAysha, communication, al-Riyâd, 24.5.75). The walls so formed are finished with plaster, and carved plaster screens are often set into the walls, either as pierced ventilation screens or as straightforward decoration. The exterior surfaces of buildings are either whitened or ochre coloured, whereas interior surfaces are usually, although not invariably, white: interior wall surfaces occasionally have simple painting decorating them, mostly in the form of horizontal lines. The roofing of the buildings in the east consists of wooden beams either of indigenous tamarisk (athal) or of imported woods locally said to be from India although I assume that there was some wood imported from East Africa. The average length of the beams dictated the width of rooms, which are usually about 3. 5 metres wide.

15



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Al-Jubayl

Al-Jubayl is a port of some draught and so it has been designated the centre of a modern Saudi industrial complex: the name al-Jubayl seems to derive from the small rocky headland off-shore and south of the harbour. The fishing village which I saw intact in 1972 was rapidly being demolished by the autumn of 1974. The houses of al-Jubayl are either freestanding cube-like structures or are built within walled enclosures, which surround gardens. All these buildings have level roofs and there is sometimes a staircase to the roof. The lower walls are pierced by rectangular windows closed by metal grills in those buildings which appear to have served as pavilions, other buildings are far more enclosed, with the exterior surface articulated by blind niches, arched and rectangular. Ventilation seems to be through the doorway and through small rectangular apertures in the upper wall. Some of these al-Jubayl houses are in two storeys. The entrances to the houses are usually rectangular, closed by plain wooden doors with rows of iron nails, but occasionally greater emphasis is given to the doorways by an arch. Inside, the wall surfaces are articulated by blind arches, rectangular recesses and string courses of V-shaped mouldings; some interior surfaces have red and blue painting on the white ground. Although I have not had any local confirmation, I suspect that the more open buildings in al-Jubayl are reception and recreation pavilions rather than residential buildings, and with their open windows they are designed to gain as much advantage as possible from the breezes in the oppressive summer climate of the Gulf.

In 1972 there were several traditional mosques in al-Jubayl. One of these was already in ruins and by 1974 it had disappeared. This ruined mosque was built of coral aggregate and plastered: remnants of two arcades ran parallel to the western qibla wall. The arches were of a form and structure common throughout the Gulf area, but one which does not penetrate inner Arabia, where all architecture is trabiate. Immed- iately east of this old ruined mosque was another more recent mosque coloured white whose most interesting feature was its projecting curved mifrrãb with rectangular windows. Another mosque in al-Jubayl had a rectangular open safon to the east and a rectangular level roofed sanctuary to the west, resting on pointed arches parallel to the western qibla wall: the side walls of the sanctuary are pierced by rectangular and arched openings. Another mosque in al-Jubayl was of similar design (P1.24' in front of the mifrrãb of this mosque was an aisle of broken arches, whereas the side aisles all had plain pointed arches. On the southern side of the open sahn was a staircase to the roof of the sanctuary with a simple rectangular minaret built over the staircase. The minaret decoration was in accordance with the east coast Saudi architectural style, but the design of the minaret and the staircase was identical to that found in Najdi mosques.

Al-Qatif

Lorimer' s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, <Omän and Central Arabia (1908, ii, 1535-1547) gives a description of al-Qatif and its oasis before 1908: the plantations extended nine miles north and nine miles south and three miles inland from the coast. The limits of the oasis were still much the same in 1974. Lorimer estimated the population of the oasis as 26,000, of whom 5,000 lived in the town itself, another 5,000 lived in the suburbs, and another 16,000 lived in the villages of the oasis. In 1908 the population were primarily Bahãrinah and Shici in their religious proclivities but there were also a few Ban! Khälid Sunnl. The al-cUtub of Sunnï sympathies dominated al-Qatif about the end of the 18th century A.D., but they were subsequently displaced by the Sacudls. The main traditional products of al-Qatif are listed by Lorimer as fish, pearls and dates, while mats, baskets, woven cloth and cages were locally manufactured. At Bahâri (Lorimer, 1908, ii, 1537) gypsum mortar was



17

produced and pottery was made at Jarãri : there were coppersmiths and blacksmiths at Sharicah. According to Lorimer there were no important manufactures at al-Qatîf , and as a port and market it served only its own oasis and the desert hinterland behind the town: in no way did al-Qatîf compete with al-cUqayr for trade with al-Hasã and Najd. However, by 1928 the al-Ikhwãn and the tribes of eastern Saudi Arabia tended to go to al- Qatif, al-Jubayl and Kuwayt to buy and sell (Dickson, 1968, 297), but cAbd Allah b. Jiluwi, the Sa'udi governor of al-Hasã, restricted freedom of trade with the coast to encourage people to trade instead at al-Hufuf, to promote al-Qasã and to maintain control over the al-Ikhwän and the bedouin. As a result al-Qatïf and al-Jubayl endured a period of enforced decline.

* 1

There are very few descriptions of al-Qatïf and its architecture. The most elaborate is given by Palgrave (1865," ii, 186ff), although his trustworthiness is suspect. He refers to ancient aqueducts at al-Qatlf and he describes the west gate of the town which was:

"a high stone arch of elegant form, and flanked by walls and towers, but all dismantled and ruinous".

By 1973, this had all vanished. Palgrave (1865, ii, 191) mentions the fortress of "Karmoot", which he ascribes to the 12th-13th centuries A.D. in its superstructure, but he suggests that the foundations were more ancient. He gives style as his reason for dating the fortress so. The fortress he describes as follows:

"The outer enclosure is square, and surrounded by the high walls which we had lately passed on the outside; with lofty corner towers, and a moat towards the land; the front is defended by the sea. At the south-western angle, the farthest from the entrance, stands the palace itself. In its present condition, partly thrown down and broken, partly clumsily patched up in later times, it were hard to make out the precise details of the original plan. First comes a large portico or arcade, in the so-called Moresco style, supported on ranges of light columns three arches in depth, and five, if I remember right, in length, crowned by cross-vaulting, and stuccoed over with arabesque ornament, now defaced. Hence admittance is given to what must have once been a long covered gallery, though it now shows only the side walls and pillars, with here and there an abutment jutting out for a broken arch across it. By this one enters an inner court, round which are many apartments in a tolerable state of preservation; and on one side is the reception hall, a long, large and wide room, with handsome pillars in the midst, and windows in the Persian style, divided into compartments by little columns; at the further end of the hall is a raised dais, where once a monarch sat, and now a negro. Beyond and within is an inextricable labyrinth of chambers, galleries, closets, and passages, in a first, a second, and a third storey; here is a falling staircase, there a door opening on vacancy. The windows, where they yet remain entire, are filled with a beautiful stone trellis, never the same in pattern throughout the whole range of the palace, and marking much ingenuity and taste. Lastly, a few yards beyond the reception room or K'hawah, and on the ground level, is what seems to have been a court for public audience, with large round columns and vestiges of decoration much resembling that yet common in Bagdad houses, where bas- relief takes the place of colours".

This fortress and palace seems to be the Kut or Qalcat al-Qatif to which Lorimer refers (1908, ii, 1545) as being a fortified area of'al-Qatif town, with a wall 30 feet high and 400 yards long on the seaward side with a gate in the wall: the north and south walls were both some 300



18

yards long and there were gates in the_western and southern walls. According to Lorimer the Kut of al-Qatif had no shops but there were 700 houses built of stone and gypsum mortar, as well as a few huts. I think Lorimer' s report should be emended slightly, inasmuch as all the buildings of the old area of al-Qatif were of coral aggregate blocks and gypsum when I visited the place in 1973-4. Lorimer says that there was no fortified wall around al-Qatif itself at the beginning of this century, when the place was still a part of the Turkish Sanjaq of al-Hasã. He mentions (1908, ii, 1546) that

"a minaret of considerable height towards the southern end is one of the most conspicuous objects at Qatif".

Dickson (1951, after 664) has published a line drawing entitled MA Sketch of Qatif Oasis looking due west" which shows a prominent ancient watch- tower in the southern part of the fortress of al-Qatif, the Kut. While it may well be the tower that Lorimer also mentioned, Dickson emphatically states that it did not belong to a mosque.

By 1973, when I first visited al-Qatif, there was no sign of this tall tower, nor of the fortifications of'the Kut or Qal'at of al-Qatif. However, the main concentration of old buildings of former importance, by 1973 abandoned and in ruins, was in the area which I take to have been the site of the Kut, close to the sea. I assume that although the old walls had been demolished, some of the 700 houses which Lorimer mentions inside the Kut were those which I saw (Plates 3&4 ). These palatial residences were rectangular in ground plan, sometimes constructed around open courtyards, and they were generally three storeys high. Whereas the lower walls tended to be pierced only by very small openings, the upper storeys were far more open to the air, with their walls pierced by pointed arches, for ventilation. These upper rooms and the more enclosed lower rooms had walls decorated with carved geometric plaster panels: in the lower storey rooms these geometric panels were often pierced to allow ventilation. There are also rectangular recesses set into the walls on all storeys of the buildings, presumably for storage. Some of the buildings also had circular holes over the doorway, presumably to help the circulation of air. The better wooden doors of al-Qatif were of a quality which recalls the doors of c Umãn and other parts of the Gulf. In this area of al-Qatif, the streets were narrow and there were some rooms built as bridges across the streets from one side to another. In the same area of al-Qatif there was a rather elegant fragment of a building whose wooden columns are very reminiscent of the Safãvid buildings of Isfahan. (Pl»4).

Lorimer refers to the market of al-Qatif (1908, ii, 1546) in the early part of this century which, joining

"externally to the south-western corner of the Kut, runs due south for quarter of a mile to the suburb of Kawaikib in which it ends; it is built of stone and lime, is roofed and contains about 300 shops".

Although the present market is built in the elegant style of Gulf architecture as far as its arcades are concerned, I suspect that it is no earlier than the 1930s. Most buildings in this area of the town are recent, but there are occasional traditional style buildings in otherwise concrete built rows of shops and houses, or at least, such was the case in 1973-4. Most of these, like the houses in the villages of Safwã and Sayhãt outside al-Qatif, have two storeys with an all-enclosing wooden balcony around the upper storey. These give privacy to the people of the building at the same time as ventilation: they are termed rawshan , a word used for the far more ornate and complicated wooden balconies and screens on the western side of Saudi Arabia, at Jidda, al-Tä'if, Mekka and al- Madina.



19

On the southern outskirts of al-Qatif near the Küt area, next to the seashore, there survived in 1973 a small two-storey pavilion, rectangular in plan and flat roofed. Its windows and doorways were arched, sometimes with elegant lobed arches. This building had vanished by 1974. I am inclined to identify it with one of the small two-storey buildings on the shore of al-Qa1^if shown in Dickson' s line drawing to which I have already referred: I suggest that the building which I saw in May 1973 was the building east of the Kut which Dickson called "Darwishiyeh" .

Tärüt

The island of Tärüt lies offshore from al-Qatïf , joined to the mainland today by a causeway, but formerly reached by a ford uncovered at low tide. Lorimer (1908, ii, 1871) gives the population of the island as 4,000 at the turn of the century. In the main town of Tärüt, of the same name as the island itself, there is a badly ruined fortress with large towers: in 1973 it was very badly ruined and I was forbidden to take photographsof it. I take it that this fortress was that mentioned by Lorimer ( ibid. , 1872) in the following terms:

"There is an old fort with bastions, in bad condition but occupied by a detachment of 10 Turkish Dhabitîyahs" .

The Naval Handbook: Iraq and the Persian Gulf (1944, 142) says that Tärüt had date groves and two forts, of which I assume one to be that in Tärüt village itself. The second is probably that at Darin, at the eastern end of Tarut island, which is also mentioned by Lorimer (1908, ii, 1871) who says that "the village is defended by a square fort". He also says that Darin is known as Därayn. Darin is one of two villages on the island (the other is Zur) which are primarily Sunni in population. The Darin people are mostly Bani Khulid,_while there are also some Junaydát and Sadäh, and a few Bahrayni and Najdi families (ibid. , 1871, information confirmed by Ahmad Abu cAysha, communication, al-Riyãd, 24.5.75): by contrast, Tärüt, Sanãbis and Rabiliya are Shici, like al-Qatif itself.

The fortress of Darin (PI. 5 ) to which I have referred is known as Manzil or Bay t Jasirn (or Qãsim) b. fAbd al-Wahhãb, the family being of local repute and still with members living in the village. The building is dated by an inscription carvedon the wooden lintel of the eastern, seaward entrance, recording a hijri date of 1303, corresponding to A.D. 1885-6. The building forms a great rectangular enclosure with low walls on the western, landward side and higher, more substantial walls along the eastern, seaward side. There is a small door in the western wall and a large door with double flaps in the eastern wall. The buildings within the enclosure are spread around an irregular, rectangular courtyard: on the south side is a single-storey, free-standing, level-roofed building, approached by shallow flights of stairs. The lower walls are pierced by large rectangular windows, closed by iron grills : the upper wall surfaces are decorated with shallow recessed niches. On the eastern side of the open courtyard is a portico and above the portico a platform which gives access to the rooms of the upper storey. One of the

upper storey rooms has walls which have deep rectangular recesses and arches cut into them and a column (PI. 6 ) supporting the roof beams of the vanished ceiling. Another, adjacent room of the upper storey (PI. 7 ), part of a salient on the eastern, seaward side of the Bayt Jásim b. Abd al-Wahhãb, has similar rectangular blind recesses in its western walls: in its other walls, the room has rectangular windows giving views onto the sea and the beach. These windows have elegant iron balconies and they can be closed by wooden shutters in bad weather. The upper interior wall surfaces of the room have shallowly incised circles and arched motifs and carved plaster screens, as well as further rectangular recesses, some of which are closed by pierced geometric screens for ventilation The roof of the room (PI. 8 ) is one of the best constructed that I have seen in eastern or central Arabia. In 1973, there were merlon-like finials



20

at the corners of the exterior of the room, but when I returned in 1974, these had all fallen, and children were energetically engaged in finishing off the remaining plaster screens. The purpose of this room seems clear enough: situated on the upper storey of the Bayt Jãsim b. cAbd al-Wahhãb, three walls exposed to breezes coming off the sea, numerous large windows and a ventilation system of grills, two doors in the west wall, and a refined decoration and roofing system, all suggest that such a place was designed for important members of the family living in the building to retire in as much comfort as the Gulf in summer, without the benefits of electricity, can afford.

On the western side of the Bayt Jãsim b. c Abd al-Wahhãb courtyard, there are some ground floor rooms (PI. 9) which are much more enclosed, with the main light source being that which based through the single doorway to each room. As is the case with the upper-storey room to which I have referred, there are carved plaster decorations above the room entrance. These western rooms have their interior walls decorated with blind rectangular niches, round-headed and pointed blind arches, and geometric carved plaster screens (PI. 10). The roofing is similar to that of the upper room, except at the corners of this room, there are triangular plaster elements with circular, geometric motifs carved in the plaster (PI. 11): the same are found in the buildings of al-Jubayl. At the north end of one of these western rooms there are two short balustrades with an open passage-way between (PI. 12). I take it that these balustrades cut off the place where visitors sat from the place where coffee was prepared: appropriately there are decorative incised dalla (coffee pots) in the plaster (P113 ) .

At the north-eastern extremity of Bayt Jãsim b. c Abd al-Wahhãb, there is a round tower with raked walls and merlon-like crenellations . This tower is the only architectural justification for the building being described as a fortification, although the lower wall surfaces to seaward have small regular apertures, more suitable for ventilation and for defence, than for lighting. More warlike is a corroded cannon barrel in the ruins at the southern end of the eastern portico bordering the courtyard.

The family of Jãsim b. c Abd al-Wahhab were of some importance at the end of the 19th century. Lorimer mentions one Muhammad, ^possibly Jãsim' s brother, in 1888, two years or so after the house "at Darin was built (1908, i, lb, 988). According to Lorimer, Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahhãb was a local leader on Tãrut , for when the Ottoman Wall of Basra, Nafidh Pãsha, visited al-Qatìf in February 1888, he sought Muhammad's assistance in suppressing the piracy which was plaguing the area. Either Muhammad was unable or was reluctant to prevent piracy, for by April and May of 1888, raids on shipping were resumed. A few years later, Darin appears as a centre of piracy: cAmayr raiders from Hãlat Darin, a part of Darin, attacked a pearling boat near al-Bahrayn in August 1899 (Lorimer, 1908, i , lb , 990). In August 1900, Darin pirates again attacked Bahrayni pearlers near Ra's Tanürah. Turkish government authority at Darin and elsewhere in the area seems to have been entirely nominal: the fortifications and cannon of Bayt Jasim b. c Abd al-Wahhãb underline the effective independence enjoyed by the towns and villages of Tãrút island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Al-Dammãm

Al-Dammãm has only been developed in the middle decades of this century and it is of little architectural interest. There was a castle there until the beginning of the oil industry when it was destroyed (Winder 1965, pl. facing 234). The castle was built against one wall of an extensive rectangular enclosure: the main fortification was a great rectangular tower, but there were also round corner towers. This castle was built by a chief of the al-Jalähimah section of the al-cUtub, Rahman



21

t. Jabir b. c Adhbi, famous as a Gulf pirate and as a poet: he died in late 1826. Lorimer (ibid. , ii, 1538) has left the following description of the fortress:

"There are the remains of a considerable fort built by the notorious fAtbi, Rahmah-bin-Jabir : it stood on an island on the shore reef nearly joined to the mainland. Remains of a smaller fort, containing a good spring of water and of a village, which was occupied by Rahmah f s Al Bu Samait and Salutah followers, are visible on the adjoining shore. The old guns still lie neglected in their former positions. There are no date gardens. The channels through the reef by which native boats approach the place are shallow and probably not practicable except at high water."

Al-cUqayr

Al-cUqayr (or al-cUjayr) was formerly the main port for al-Hasã and for Najd. Today it is of very reduced importance, whereas the ports and towns to the north have acquired enhanced significance. Lorimer ( ibid. , ii, 1453-4) has given the following account of al-rUqayr at the turn of the century :

"The only buildings at 'Oqair are a fort and a large Khan or caravanserai which closely adjoin one another. The fort is an old, dilapidated building with bastions at the corners. The Khan is a spacious enclosure 150 yards long by 80 broad; it consists of a wall 16 feet high which has sheds on 3 of the inner sides with a parapet 3J feet above them: the entrances to the enclosure are in the centres of the front and rear faces. The Khan contains 3 shops and all travellers passing through 'Oqair lodge in it. The ordinary water supply of the place is from sand pits at a spot called Abu Zahrnul J^j+2j a short distance south-west of the fort: if better water is required it is fetched from the wells of Suwäd in Biyadh."

Al-Etasä

The al-Hasã (or al-Ahsã) oasis, with its capital al-Hufüf, is the main ancient site of settlement in eastern Saudi Arabia: several accounts of the area have been published (Palgrave 1865, i-i ; Philby 1922; Mackie 1924, 189-207; Vidal 1955). By the time that I first visited the oasis of al-Hasä in 1973 and again in 1974, very little traditional architecture survived intact, as the town had undergone extensive rebuilding in recent years, Lorimer (ibid. , ii, 644) estimated the total sedentary population of the oasis as a whole as about 67,000 at the turn of the century, of whom 25,000 lived in al-Hufuf and 8,500 lived in al-Mubarraz^ the second town of the al-Hasã oasis: in the oasis as a whole, the Shi'i were in the majority (about 'two-thirds of the total population) but in al-Hufuf _and al-Mubarraz there was a Sunnï majority. Philby, who visited al-Hufuf in 1917, corroborates these numbers, giving 30,000 as the number of inhabitants of al-Hufuf, which he reckons to have been the largest city in the hands of the Sa'udi state; he says that there were about 6,000 houses in al-Hufuf (Philby 1922, ii, 27). Vidal (1955, 17) reckons the population of al-Hufüf as 60,000 by 1955 and 158,000 in the al-Hasã oasis as a whole.

The building material in al-Hufuf is cut limestone, although today it is being replaced by concrete. The limestone walls were sometimes surfaced with mud on the exterior surfaces of buildings : interiors seem to have been covered with hard white plaster. Lorimer (1908, ii, 652) says that the houses of the al-Hasã oasis were mainly built of sun-dried bricks and mud: this seems at odds with Vidal' s observation that there were indeed some mud-brick houses and barastis, but the majority of buildings were of limestone and coated with mud-plaster (1955, 24-5, 79-80). Vidal is the more reliable for he was able to examine the architecture of the



22

oasis carefully before so much was destroyed.

In recent years, al-Hufiïf has lost most of the city walls mentioned by Philby (1922, i, 27ff.), Mackie (1924, 200) and Vidal (1955, 79-80; Figs. 11,12,13). Separate walls divided the city into the district of al-Kut and the districts of al-Na'athil and al-Rifa'ah. Only a little of the al-Kut wall survives on the northern side, built of limestone and plastered with mud. Forming a great rectangular salient is the Qasr cAbid defended by round and rectangular towers. Slaves were formally kept here, and in recent times it has served as a prison: by 1973 it was disused. Nearby, inside the line of the Küt wall is another very large rectangular fortification, Qasr Ibrahim or Qasr al-Qubbah :it is of the same building materials as Qasr cAbid and it has great round towers. Inside this fortress is an Ottoman mosque whose architectural form is unique in eastern or central Arabia. It is rectangular in ground plan with a dome and an arched portico: the minaret is the customary, pencil-shaped Ottoman type, although more bulky than Turkish minarets elsewhere. While the mosque is obviously an Ottoman import, there may be some local influence in the lobed arches of the portico (Philby 1922, i , pl. facing 22, pl. facing 30; Vidal 1955, figs. 12, 15). In 1975, the Qasr Ibrahim and the mosque, which is known as thé mosque of Ibrahim Pasha[ was occupied by the army. Philby (1922, i 27), Mackie (1924, 197), Rihani (1928, 99) and Vidal (1955, 88-9) all refer to the name of this mosque and the fact that the Ibrahim of the title is often, but inaccurately, regarded as Ibrahim b. Muhammad *AlI who conquered the Sa* udì Imam of Najd in 1818. There is a possibility that the mosque dates from the first Ottoman domination of al-Hasã, and that Ibrahim was an early governor. In 1534 the Ottoman Sultan Sulaymãn the Magnificent received the homage of eastern Arabian chieftains at Baghdad, so the mosque may be dated any time after this event. There was another Ottoman-style mosque in al-Hufuf which Mackie photographed (1924, pl. facing 196, 198), but it had vanished by 1973.

Near the Qasr Ibrahim is the palace of the late governor, *Abd Allah b. Jiluwl: it is a structure of fairly recent date but it is built in the local eastern style with pointed and lobed arches. There are few other buildings in al-Hufuf which are of note, although there is the occasional building with a rawshan, the wooden screen that I have already mentioned on the coast : there were a number of half-demolished houses in 1975 whose interior walls had curved and rectangular recesses like the houses on the coast. In the centre of al-Hufuf was a large patrician house of several storeys, built around an open courtyard: the entrance had a fine carved door. On the edge of al-Mubarraz there was a very large rectangular fortress called Qasr Sahüd.

Conclusion

It is a curious fact that in the area of eastern Saudi Arabia which I have discussed, there is no Bad Gir extant and the local people say that the wind-tower is not a part of the local architectural tradition. Only on Tärüt island was a wind-tower mentioned and it was said to have been built by a family either called Durbass or Bin cAlï, originating on al-Bafrrayn, and living as immigrants on Tãrut . They clearly brought the Bahraynl device of a wind-tower with them. Rather than the wind-towers which form such a part of the urban skyline on al-Bahrayn and in Dubai, the architecture of the Saudi coast seems to ensure as much ventilation as possible in the structure of a house, especially in the upper storey rooms. This is evident in the houses which I have shown at al-Qatïf and on Tãrut, at Darin. In hot weather people move from the enclosed lower rooms of the building to the more open upper rooms of a two-storey house. Other architectural features associated with keeping cool with the help of the breeze are the bur afra and the dichcha: the bur afra is a low platform in the open air where people sit in the evening, using it as an out- doors reception place. The dichcha is a low bench, built as part of the



23

house, and running along an outside wall, so that people can sit in the open air. Before air-conditioning, the only way air could be moved around inside a building in this area was by means of rectangular straw fans, shaped like small flags on sticks.

The architecture of eastern Saudi Arabia has clear parallels with other parts of the Gulf. At Samãhij on al-Muharraq island, p-1-Bahrayn, there is a group of houses built on a palatial scale by mem! er s of the al-Jalãhima family between 1881 and 1895 (King 1977). Although the distribution of the rooms of these buildings around the open courtyards is more regular than the arrangement of the rooms of Bayt Jasim b. cAbd al- Wahhãb, and although less fortified in appearance than the latter, the al-Bahrayn group of buildings have very similarly designed rooms and carved plaster decoration. Other buildings of similar design to those at Darin and Samãhjih exist at cArad on al-Bahrayn ( cIsa al- 'Ardi, communication, Samán jih, 20.10.73: also Lorimer 1908, ii, 1267) and at Zallãq also on al Bahrayn (Professor R.B. Serjeant, communication, al-fUlä, 30.4.77). I was assured on al-Bahrayn that the Bahraynïs themselves had made the plaster decoration there', as well as the buildings: if so, the question arises as to whether these Bahraynïs travelled in the whole area working on buildings or whether there were groups of men in each locality with a shared architectural and carved plaster geometric panel repertoire. It is the repetition of certain carved plaster designs in several places that seems to indicate that the same workmen moved about in the area. As for the basic module of the Bayt Jãsim b. cAbd al-Wahhäb at Darin, and the related buildings at Samãhij, it seems to be simply the small cube-shaped building which we see at al-Jubayl built one next to the other to create a line of rooms, or one on top of the other to make a two-storey building. The courtyard houses at al-Qatlf and at al-Hufuf, rising three storeys, are in a different architectural tradition , "and suggest instead the great patrician houses and palaces of Muscat in cUman. The rectangular and arched recesses in the internal walls of buildings in eastern Arabia are encountered throughout the Gulf region and even in Isfahan. The carved doors of eastern Saudi Arabia have affinity with the doors of Muscat, but I have never seen any doors in Saudi Arabia of the quality of those in 'Umän itself.

To conclude, I wish to record some terms applied to buildings and their accessories in eastern Saudi Arabia: while rooms are normally called ghurfah, the term banjala or bangala is also used. Rooms reserved for the use of women are called maq< ad, while a room on the upper floor of a house where the owner retires privately is called kinjiyya. The word darlsh is applied to a window, while benches in houses are termed madda and fraslr .

************

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dickson, H.R.P. 1951 The Arab of the Desert. London. 1968 Kuwait and her neighbours. London.

King, G.R.D. 1977 'Bayt al-Mufayyad: a late 19th century house on al- Bahrayn', J.Arabian Studies 4.

Lorimer, J.G. 1908-15 Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia. Calcutta.

Mackie, J.B. 1924 'Hasa: an Arabian Oasis', Geographical J. 63, 189-207.

The Naval Handbook: Iraq and the Persian Gulf. 1944. London.



24

Palgrave, W.G. 1865 Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-63), London and Cambridge.

Philby, H. St.J. 1922 The heart of Arabia. London.

Rihani, A. 1928 Ibn Sa'oad of Arabia» London.

Vidal, F.S. 1955 The Oasis of al-Hasa. Dhahran.

Winder, R. Bayly 1965 Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century. London.

Plate 1: Map of Eastern Arabia.

' таЕ GULF

'A1-Jubayl

SafwãÛ^ J /Zur al-Qatïfi<bSanâbis TARÜT

' SayhâtA110"1-11 w~al ^л w~al -Dammara

"^ al-Zahrãn • 4 al-Khubar Samãhij

' Д ( ô Khamis f 'j al-Zallâqï j

Вп-Qayq у Ч

JAL-BAHRAYN

e 4'> tá [ al-cUqayrî e

)>&S>V

îßal-Mubarraz 'řv / ^

V'îr ' } Dukhãn / al-Hufuf ' '

al-lťuqayyaqa EASTERN ARABIA С QATAR

1:500,000 f }



2

3

4

PI. 2: Mosque, al-Jubayl, Saudi Arabia.

P1.3: Blocks of houses, al-Qatif, Saudi Arabia.

PI. 4: Ruined- house, al-Qatif , Saudi Arabia.



26

5

6

7

PI. 5: Seaward side, Bayt Jãsim b.cAbd al-Wahhãb , Darin, Saudi Arabia.

PI. 6: Column from the upper floor room, Bayt Jãsim b. Abd al-Wahliâb.

PI. 7: Upper storey rooms, Bayt Jãsim b.cAbd al-Wahhãb, Darin.



27

8

9

10 PI. 8: Wooden roof, Bayt Jasim b.cAbd al-Wahhãb , Darin.

PI. 9: Ground floor rooms, west side of the courtyard of Bayt Jãsim b.cAbd al-Wahhãb, Darin.

PI. 10: Ground floor room, interior, Bayt Jãsim b.cAbd al-Wahhãb.



28

12

11 13

PI. 11: Corner of ceiling in the ground floor room, Bayt Jasim b. Abd al-Y/ahhäb, Darin.

PI. 12: Balustrade, ground floor room, Bayt Jãsim b.CAbd al-Wahtiab .

PI. 13: Detail of the balustrade, ground floor room, Bayt Jasim b. Abd al-Wahhãb, Darin.



proceedings of the eleventh seminar for arabian studies held at st. john's college, oxford on...

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