Zubarah

Zubarah

Zubarah, Qatar

The name 'Zubarah' is derived from the Arabic word for sand mounds. It was presumably given this name due its abundance of sand and stony hillocks. During the early Islamic period, trade and commerce boomed in northern Qatar. Settlements began to appear on the coast, primarily between the towns of Zubarah and Umm al-Ma'a. A village dating back to the Islamic period was discovered near the town.Zubarah is a district located on the north western coast of the Qatar peninsula in the Madinat ash Shamal municipality, about 105 km from the Qatari capital of Doha. It was founded by merchants from Kuwait in the mid 18th century. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. It was once a successful center of global trade and pearl fishing positioned midway between the Strait of Hormuz and the west arm of the Persian Gulf. It is one of the most extensive and best preserved examples of an 18th–19th century settlement in the region. The layout and urban fabric of the settlement has been preserved in a manner unlike any other settlements in the Persian Gulf, providing an insight into the urban life, spatial organization, and the social and economic history of the Gulf before the discovery of oil and gas in the 20th century. Covering an area of circa 400 hectares (60 hectares inside the outer town wall), Zubarah is Qatar’s most substantial archaeological site. The site comprises the fortified town with a later inner and an earlier outer wall, a harbour, a sea canal, two screening walls, Qal'at Murair (Murair fort), and the more recent Zubarah Fort.

Between September 1627 and April 1628, a Portuguese naval squadron led by D. Goncalo da Silveira set a number of neighboring coastal villages ablaze. Zubarah's settlement and growth during this period is attributed to the dislodging of people from these adjacent settlements. The main settlers of the town were from the Al Musallam tribe, who derive from the Bani Khalid of Arabia. The Al Musallam were influential in Qatar and had even ruled the country as early as 1555 according to Ottoman records. They eventually became tributary to the other branches of Bani Khalid as the latter expanded their domain eastwards in the first half of the eighteenth century. There remains some uncertainty over the earliest mention of Zubarah in written documents. Qatar's Memorial, a 1986 Arabic history book, alleges that a functional self-governing town existed before the arrival of the Utub. It supported this claim by invoking two purported historical documents, but they were later discovered to be forgeries produced by Qatar in an attempt to gain leverage over Bahrain in their long-standing dispute over the sovereignty of the town.

Most sources assert that Zubarah rose to prominence only after people of the Utub tribe from Kuwait settled at Zubarah in the second half of the eighteenth century, possibly in 1762 or 1766, helping to build a large town characterized by a safe harbour. It soon emerged as one of the principal emporiums and pearl trading centres of the Persian Gulf.

Relations between the Al Khalifa branch of the Utub and the dominant and ruling tribe of Al Musallam gradually declined. This culminated in the former's refusal to pay taxes. They also expanded their settlements, and constructed walls and a fort called Qal'at Murair (Murair Castle), which was completed by 1768. In addition to Qal'at Murair, there existed other forts and towers in the town which were built by previous settlers.

The town was eventually monopolized by the Al Khalifa after they had effectually driven out the Al Musallam. Under their jurisdiction, the town developed trade links with India, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait. Many goods were transported through its ports, including dates, spices and metals. The town soon became a favorite transit point for traders after the Al Khalifa abolished trade taxes. The town's prosperity further increased after the 1775–76 Persian occupation of Basra when merchants and other refugees fleeing from Basra settled in Zubarah. Merchants from nearby settlements migrated to Zubarah en masse during the 1770s due to the prevalence of attacks and the plague in the Persian Gulf region.

Communal life

Zubarah was at that time a well-organised town, with many of the streets running at right angles to one another and some neighbourhoods built according to a strict grid pattern. This layout suggests that the town was laid out and built as part of a major event, although seemingly constructed in closely dated stages. An estimate of the population at the height of the town has been calculated to a maximum number of between 6,000 and 9,000 people.

Most of the settler's dietary requirements were fulfilled from the consumption of livestock animals. Remnants of sheep, goat, birds, fish and gazelle were among the waste collected from the palatial compounds. The wealthiest members of the community consumed mainly livestock, whereas the poorer residents relied on fish as their primary source of protein. Social, economic and political activity was most likely centered in the souq. The discovery of numerous ceramic tobacco pipe bowls indicate a reluctant acceptance and growing social addiction to smoking tobacco. Coffee pots, mainly of Chinese origin, were used by Zubarah's inhabitants to drink Arabic coffee.

Economic history

Zubarah was primarily an emporium and pearling settlement that capitalized on its proximity to pearl beds, possession of a large harbour and its central position on the Gulf routes. Its economy depended on the pearl diving season, which took place during the long summer months. Pearling would draw Bedouin from the interior of Qatar as well as the people from all over the Persian Gulf to dive, trade and safeguard the town from attack while the town’s men were at sea. Boats from Zubarah would sail out to the pearl beds found all along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, from Bahrain to the United Arab Emirates. The trips lasted several weeks at a time. Men would work in pairs to harvest mollusks potentially hiding pearls inside them. A man would dive for about a minute and the other remained on the ship to pull the diver back to safety with his harvest. The archaeological evidence for pearling on site comes primarily from the tools used by the divers such, as pearl boxes, diving weights, and small measuring weights used during trading.

Global trade

Zubarah was the focal point of an extensive regional trade network during its peak in the late eighteenth century. Until the introduction of the cultured pearl in the early 1900s, the trade in pearls constituted the Persian Gulf’s most important industry, employing up to a third of the male population in the region. Zubarah, being one of the focal pearling and trading towns, contributed to the geopolitical, social, and cultural trajectories of Gulf history which shape the region today. Ceramics, coins, and the remains of foodstuffs from the excavations attest to Zubarah’s far reaching trade and economic links in the late 18th century, with material deriving from eastern Asia, Persia, the Ottoman Empire, Africa, Europe, and the Persian Gulf. Diving weights and other material culture show how closely the connection between the daily life in the town and the pearl fishing and trading were. The discovery of coffee cups and tobacco pipes in the excavations reveal the growing importance of these commodities all over the Persian Gulf during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The etching of a merchant’s dhow, the traditional wooden boat of Arabia, found incised into the plaster in a room of a courtyard building, details how intimately the town's inhabitants associated their daily lives with long-distance maritime trade and commerce. Date trade also had an important role in the local economy.

Marketplace

A complex array of small storage rooms have been identified as part of the souq (market) of Zubarah. The wide variety of trade objects that have been found in the rooms points towards the area's classification as a place of trade. The souq would have been the centre of the town and of its economy. Various commodities, including ironsmithing, were sold at this souq.

Historical architecture

The architecture consisted mainly of courtyard houses, a traditional form of Arabic architecture which can be found throughout the Middle East. A series of small rooms were organized around a large central courtyard, where the majority of daily activity took place. Typically, a portico opened out onto the courtyard on the south side, which offered shelter from the sun. The houses of Zubarah were constructed from soft local stone, or from limestone quarried from the northern settlement of Freiha. The stone was then protected by a thick gypsum plaster coating. Features such as doorways and niches were decorated with geometric stucco designs. Housing units were accessible by a doorway and a bent corridor, in order to avert unauthorized viewing into the household, and to prevent sand from blowing into the house. Traces of what seems to be tent placements and/or palm-leaf and palm-matt huts found near the beach may be associated with transient members of the Zubaran society. It is likely that these interim dwellings housed the people who were the primary producers of Zubarah’s wealth: the pearl fishers and mariners who harvested the pearl banks each season.

The most impressive and colossal of the building complexes measures 110 m by 100 m in size and is commonly referred to as 'the palace'. This structure follows the same form as the domestic architecture seen elsewhere in Zubarah, but on a much larger scale. Nine interconnected compounds, each comprising a courtyard surrounded by a range of rooms, made up the interior of this structure. Plaster stucco decoration was used to embellish internal entrances and rooms. The discovery of internal staircases indicates that the compounds were multi-storeyed. The nine compounds of the complex were enclosed by a high circuit wall with circular towers at the four corners, each of which were capable of supporting a small cannon. The size and visual dominance of the palatial compound suggests that it was occupied by a family of wealthy and powerful sheikhs who were community leaders in the social and economic life of the town.

Fortifications

Protection of the town and its peoples' wealth was a clear priority. A large wall was built in the late-18th-century town and its bay in a 2.5 km arc from shore to shore. The wall was defended by 22 semi-circular towers placed at regular intervals. It was faced by parapet with a walkway, most likely to provide leverage for gunners. Access to the town was limited to a few defended gateways from the landside, or via its harbour. There was no sea wall, but a stout fort defended the main landing area on the sandy beach. In spite of its defensive fortifications, Zubarah was attacked on several occasions. In addition to two major attacks carried out at the behest of Nasr Al-Madhkur in 1778, and 1782, the residents of the town were engaged in a war with the Banu Kaab of Khuzestan during the late eighteenth century.