Page 165 - UAE Truncal States
P. 165

Chapter Four

                  haunting certain trees, water holes, water courses, and the date gar­
                  dens.35 Likewise the practising of cauterization as a treatment against
                  almost any kind ol illness was considered, like circumcision,30 to
                  be the natural thing to do. But nowhere did superstitions or relics of
                  pre-Islamic tribal rites and healing practices encroach on Islam to
                  the extent of overshadowing it.37

                  Art in religion
                  The meagre resources available to the people of the country in earlier
                  limes did not allow them much scope for artistic creativity. The
                  materials commonly used in other parts of the world for artistic
                  expression such as in sculpture, painting and architecture do not
                  naturally occur locally; another limitation was that in Islam the
                  portrayal of human and animal forms is not permitted. The Trucial
                  States did not bring forth many works of Islamic art; paying
                  reverence to God by embellishing a mosque or copying a religious
                  book usually had to remain very simple. Although there were no
                  beautifully-illuminated manuscripts produced locally, there were
                  some people—in one reported case in as remote an area as the
                  Llwa—who copied by hand religious tracts which were not other­
                  wise available. Some of the local traditional poetry is about religion,
                  but the majority of poems described historical incidents, battles, or
                  the generosity of shaikhs, or they were moulded on the pattern of
                  classical beduin love poetry.38
                    Music for dances, played on variously sized drums, tambourines,
                  cymbals, and flutes, did not form part of religious ceremonies, but it
                  was enjoyed at weddings or in honour of an important guest and on
                  the Islamic feast days. During the month of the Prophet’s birthday,
                  Rabf al Awwal, people gathered to perform or watch ol maulicl, a
                  religious recital: two rows of up to twenty men each kneel opposite
                  each other. The men on one side wear their sufrah (white head cloths)
                  also called ghutrah, wound round their heads, and are generally
                  people from the less well-to-do groups of the community or of slave
                  origin; they perform in unison a ritual which includes movement of
                  the right hand, bending their heads to the floor and rising to an
                  upright kneeling position. Those on the other side all have large,
                  shallow drums in their right hands and wear their traditional white
                  sufrah with the 'aqal (the black twisted rope). One drummer recites
                  in the traditional fashion in a forceful voice, without taking a breath
                  until the end of the line or even of the paragraph is reached. When the

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