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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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