Page 53 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

Bayt al-Mu ’ayyad 43
used for dancers at all, would only have accommodated very small
numbers.

Architectural origins of Bayt al-Mu’ayyad. The types of room
which comprise Bayt al-Mu’ayyad are little more than cube-like
chambers, linked up to form blocks and wings according to the
needs and the financial resources of the builder or owner. The
cube-shaped module appears to have existed not only on al-
Baforayn but also appears, I understand, in Qatar, and formerly in
the Sa‘udl town of Jubayl, virtually lost by Ramadan 1394/Octo­
ber 1974, thanks to industrialisation (Plate 13): the smaller and
simpler houses of Jubayl have the basic elements of Bayt al-
Mu’ayyad and the other Samahlj houses with the walls consisting
of rectangular piers, recessed panels, horizontal beams, all of coral
aggregate, and plastered, and with level wooden roofs. At Jubayl,
however, most of the buildings were single storeyed structures, and
even where they were of two storeys, never extended horizontally
to attain the dimensions of Bayt al-Mu’ayyad and the neigh­
bouring Samahlj houses.
Although the basic elements of the Samahlj houses are paral­
leled on al-Babrayn, at Jubayl and elsewhere on the eastern
Arabian coast, structures of dimensions comparable to those of
Bayt al-Mu’ayyad and its neighbours are less common: however,
on Tarut, at Darin, the house of Jasim b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab, to
which I have already referred (Plate 12), is of similar scale. It is
roughly of the same date as the Samahlj group of houses, with AH
1302 (ad 1884-5) carved in wood with an accompanying Arabic
inscription on the lintel of the eastern entrance to the enclosure.
Like the Samahlj buildings, the house of Jasim b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab
is a great enclosure with the rooms distributed around an open
central courtyard: the ground-floor rooms are lit through the
entrance to each, while the rooms of the upper storey are lit by
numerous windows. The plaster ornament of geometric motifs
which covers the wall surfaces of each room recalls that of the
Samahlj group of houses. By contrast with the houses at Samahlj,
however, the house of Jasim b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab presents a
markedly military aspect with a crenellated tower and a corroded
cannon barrel lying in the rubble.
The plaster panels of Bayt al-Mu’ayyad (Plates 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and
11) are within a repertoire which prevails elsewhere in Samahlj, in
al-Mubarraq and al-Manamah, and across the water in al-Qatlf
where a few ruined houses with fine plaster survived in 1973.
Plaster panels of closely related design appear in the lower storey
and upper storey rooms of the house of Jasim b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab