Page 161 - Truncal States to UAE_Neat

Chapter Four

economic polilical and cultural aspects, the communities living in the
Trucinl Stales were all moulded by the same Islamic “system of
life".20 In the following paragraphs an attempt is made to trace the
many manifestations of this Islamic basis of society through the
institutions, customs and ways of life of the people who lived in
Trucial Oman before the changes due to outside influences following
the discovery of oil.

4 The Muslim system of life on this coast
during the first half of the 20th century

In and around the mosques

The mosque
There is no ecclesiastical hierarchy in Islam and no administrative
and canonised authority such as “The Church". The many mosques
in the Trucial States were not linked together under any regional
supervisory body, but were places of worship built by and for small
communities. It was customary for leading families in a settled
population to build mosques near their family compound for their
own use in daily prayers and for the use of the neighbourhood.
Whenever a mosque was built, some other property (waqf) was
attached to it which brought in a regular income to pay for its
maintenance. In the villages of the Buraimi area and in other
predominantly agricultural settlements of the Trucial States this
property consisted of a date garden or two. In the towns it was
usually a row of shops in the suq, rented to merchants. The income
was used to pay for someone to clean the mosque regularly, to
replenish the water containers if there was no running water nearby,
and in the case of a larger mosque to pay a salary to the person who
led the prayers.
Every larger population centre had a main mosque where people
from the whole town congregated on Friday for the midday prayer
and the address of an imam. The “Friday mosques" were not usually
built by a Ruler nor by the community as a whole but by individuals.
In Abu Dhabi the old “Friday mosque" was built by the richest pearl
merchant and boat owner, Ahmad bin Khalaf al Otaibah, who also
built a small mosque near his large family compound by the sea.
Mosques in the Trucial Stales were built in different styles and
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