Page 25 - Arabian Studies (II)

Oath-taking and Vows in Oman 15

A few days later ‘AIT Musallam recorded a conversation with a
Southern Mehri, Salih ‘Amir, principally in order to contrast the
Northern and Southern dialects of the language, but also touching on
a number of points of cultural interest. On the subject of visiting the
tombs of saints, the dialogue ran as follows:

A. In your parts do they still have tombs they visit and believe in?
B. Yes, we had people who used to visit tombs, but nowadays
nobody does. ... i 3
They would visit them and read the Fatihah (el-feth) over them, or
give praise.
A. Do people call them, for example, prophets (nebyV) or saints
(we/ye’)?
B. Some used to call them saints but not nowadays. In earlier
times but not now.
A. We want (to hear about) earlier times.
B. In earlier times we had tombs, but not all were saints. Those
were the well-known tombs on which they made vows. They also
made these vows to God — (vows such as): If He gives me a son, he
will bring and slaughter a sacrificial animal at the tomb of so and
so, or perform some charitable act, or will make an offering of so
much money.
A. And do they leave the money there?
B. At that tomb.
A. Does he believe it helps him?
B. The tomb would have servants (xedddmet) at it and guardians
(\mekbin), and people who make it their special business.14 They
would make coffee there if ground coffee had been offered, or
rice if it had been offered. But not now, not these days.

No doubt the decline in tomb-visiting is a reflection of government
policy, but it is also possible that educated people feel that the cult
of the veneration of saints is not in accord with the dictates of Islam
as the most orthodox interpret them.
Vows are still very much part of the popular consciousness, even if
their legal and religious significance is rapidly decreasing. The heroes
or anti-heroes of popular stories frequently make the most exagger­
ated vows which they fulfil with an obsessive precision at someone
else’s expense.
No one, to the best of my knowledge, has studied the social role
of the folk-tale in the culture of Dhofar, but one of its functions is
undoubtedly the classic one of catharsis. The heroes of the stories are
seldom admirable: the kind of tricks and immorality that Ba Nuwas
gets up to would earn a real person the severest of disapprobation, or