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A fortified tower-house in Wādī Jirdān (Wāḥidī Sultanate)—II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
Sacrifices of animals at the various stages in the construction of a house are already reported from the country of the Subbaihah, Daw'an, and Tarīm. Ibn al-Mujāwir even records in the Middle Ages that when a road was being built between Mafālīs and Ta'izz, about 425/1033–4 up a mountain pass (naqīl) with 360 bends (malwīy), a head of cattle (rās baqar) was slaughtered at each bend as a sacrifice (fidyah); he calls a bend f rkah.
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- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1975 , pp. 276 - 295
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1975
References
1 cf. ‘Building and builders in Ḥaḍramawt’, Le Muséon, LXII, 3–4, 1949, 277.Google Scholar
2 Descriptio Arabiae meridionalis … Ta'rīẖ al-mustabṣir, ed. Löfgren, O., Leiden, 1951–1954, 150.Google Scholar
3 Al-Amthāl wa-'l-aqwāl al-Ḥaḍramīyah, MS in Ḥaidarābād, India, 66.Google Scholar
4 This practice has already been discussed. Cf. ‘Building and builders’, 278.
5 Arabica, v, 245.
6 Sheba's daughters, London, 1939, 326, 328.Google Scholar
7 ‘Das vorislamische Südarabien ’, map in Wissmann, H. von and Höfner, Maria, Beiträge zur historischen Geographie des vorislamischen Südarabien, Mainz and Wiesbaden, 1952.Google Scholar
8 op. cit., 330.
9 Mijba is no doubt equivalent to the majbā ‘octroi’ of Gloss. Dat., 261, and Landberg, loc. cit., speaks of muṣsrā ‘alā kull wiqrah/wuqrah ’un muṣrā sur chaque charge lourde’. The muṣrā varies, but the Qu'aiṭī Weights and Measures Decree of 26 January 1943, fixed the muṣrā there at 3½ lb. But might it not be masrah, in the sense of a payment for being allowed to depart? Cf. Arabica, v, 100, the Amir of Ḥarib in Landberg's day, taking a migbā of an eighth of a riyāl on every camel entering Ḥarib except from those of the inhabitants of the town itself.
For pictures of the mouth of the mine taken on our trip there see Doe, D. B., Southern Arabia, London, 1970, figs. 99 and 100.Google Scholar
10 MöCller, D. H., Al-Hamdânîs Geographie der arabischen Halbinsel, Leiden, 1884–1891, I, 201. Cf. Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-ghābah, Cairo, 1285–6/1868–9, i, 45; Qāsim b. Sallām, Kitāb al-amwāl, Cairo, n.d., 275, no. 683 where al-Māzinī is incorrectly read for al-Ma'ribi; al-Ṣūli, Adab alkuttāb, Cairo, 1341/1922–3, 311, to be corrected by the above; A. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in Islam, i, 76 (Yaḥyā b. Ādam), II, 35 (Qudāmah b. Ja'far); al-Balādhuri, trans.Google ScholarHitti, P. K., The origins of the Islamic state, Beirut, 1966, 111.Google Scholar
11 Arḍ al-buṭūlāt wa ‘l-amjād, Cairo, 1964.Google Scholar
12 C. Beckingham, F. and Serjeant, R. B., ‘A journey by two Jesuits from Dhufār to San'ā in 1590’, Geographical Journal, cxv, 4–6, 1950, 206; Arabica, v, 100.Google Scholar
13 ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Gargarah [sic], Arḍu-nā al-ṭaiyibah, hādha ’l-Jaṇūb, Beirut, 1967, 21.Google Scholar
14 This is the form of the name as given in Bowen, R. LeBaron and Albright, F. P., Archaeological discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, 1958, 35–6, but Philby calls it Aiyadin and Girgirah al-Abāyim.Google Scholar
15 Hamīdullāh, M., Majmū'at al-wathā'iq al-siyāsīyah, third ed., Beirut, 1969, 204, from various texts in MS.Google Scholar
16 Serjeant, R. B., ‘Forms of plea, a Ṧāfi'ī manual from al-Ṧiḥr’, Rivista degliStudi Orientali, xxx, 1–2, 1955, 9.Google Scholar
17 Notably Muḥ. b. al-Shaikh ‘Abdullāh b. Aḥmad Bā Sawdān, Taḥṣil al-maqṣūd fī mā fuliba min ta'rīf ṣiyagh al-'uqūd, photocopy of Tarīm MS in R. B. Serjeant's possession, 8. (This wellknown scholar, a Daw'anī from al-Khuraibah, flourished from 1206/1791–2 to 1281/1864–5, cf. ’Abdullāh… b. Ḥāmid al-Saqqāf, Tāri kh al-shu‘ al-Ḥaḍramīyīn, Cairo, 1353/1934–5-, III, 196, which omits Taḥṣīl from the afore-going title, while Abü Bakr b. Aḥmad b. ’Abdullāh al-Khaṭib al-Anṣārī al-Tarīmī, al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah fi masā'il al-aḥwāl al-wāqi'ah, Cairo, 1960, 48, merely entitles it Ṣiyagh al-'uqūd.) SaiyidMuḥsin b. Ja'far b. ‘Alawi Bū Numaiy, Tahil alda'āwī fī raf’ al-shakāwī, al-Mukallā 1954.
18 For this author see R. B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian coast, Oxford, 1963, 28. The cases discussed are taken from a photocopy of the Mukallā MS of his al-Fatāwā al-'Adanīyah, fols. 215a, 218b.
19 cf. al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 99, and Bū Numaiy, op. cit., 12.
20 See n. 18, above.
21 A kuwwah can also be an aperture above a door or window.
22 cf. R. B. Serjeant, ‘A Judeo-Arab house-deed from Ḥabbān’. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1953, 3–4, p. 127. Cf. Bū Numaiy, op. cit., 13.
23 Al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 95.
24 op. cit., 187b.
25 cf. pt. I of this article, BSOAS, xxxviii, 1, 1975, p. 19, n. 51. In Tarīm manzil seemed the ordinary word for a room.
26 So rendered after a phrase in the Judaeo-Arab house-deed.
27 Landberg, Ḥaḍramoût, renders makhzan as magasin.
28 This is assumed, though without authority of an informant, to be the plural of the Jirdān word ḥājī ‘ barrier’; see pt. I of this article, p. 21.
29 op. cit., fol. 188a. The marāfiq of a dwelling fit to be provided for a wife comprise a roof (saṭḥ), lavatory (tahārah), stairs (dirij), and kitchen (maṭbakh) (op. cit., 170).
30 This word seems unknown, and Bā Maṭraf suggests reading wuṣūr, plur. of waṣar (another plur. being āṣār which he calls a yard (sāḥah) for harvesting grain crops.
31 op. cit., 7.
32 In Ḥaḍramawt north and south are najdī and baḥri respectively, in Yemen (cf. Tarji’ al-aṭyār, 46) qiblah and ‘Adan. Cf. Bā Sawdān, op. cit., 8, defining a property; as parts of a house to be sold with it he adds, 
33 Al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 245.
34 Ḥajāw is presumably the plural of ḥijwah, reported also by Landberg,Ḥaḍramoût, 360, as ḥujwah/ḥajwah. At Tarīm it was described as dir; equivalent to dawr and dāyir (though the two latter appear to be the name of the wall applied to the enclosure as a whole), and to the waṣar of Daw'an, the common word for a threshing-floor, but perhaps in Daw'an it may sometimes be enclosed by a wall (?). Cf. al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 95, khushm dl-ḥijwah, the corner of the court, 254, where ḥijwah is defined as al-fanā‘ al-amāmi al-muḥawwaṭ: al-tābi’ li l-bait, and 257 for a brief reference to dir‘ Cf. ’Alawi b. Ṭāhir, al-Shāmil, Singapore, 1359/1940, 190, 
Ḥiywah/ḥaywah would be Ḥaḍramī pronunciation for ḥijwah and jurn or jarīn is a threshingfloor.
35 Rathjens, Carl and Goitein, S. D., Jewish domestic architecture in San'a, Yemen (Oriental Notes and Studies, No. 7), Israel Oriental Society, 1957, 6. This is, of course, a very different type of dwelling from our ḥuṣn, but it might have affinities with non-tribal domestic buildings in such places as Mocha or al-Shiḥr were these to be studied.Google Scholar
36 Al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 101.
37 cf. Serjeant, R. B., ‘The cemeteries of Tarīm’, Le Muséon, LXII, 1–2, 1949, 151.Google Scholar
38 Guillaume, A. (tr.), The life of Muhammad, London, 1955, 229.Google Scholar
39 Al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb al-ashrāf, ed. Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh, Cairo, 1959-, I, 168.Google Scholar
40 cf. Serjeant, R. B., ‘Some irrigation systems in Ḥaḍramawt’, BSOAS, xxvii, 11, 1964, 54.Google Scholar
41 In the Yemen a skilled craftsman in building or carpentry is called usṭā (Tarjī' al-aṭyār, 300). According to Syed Hamood Hason, Arabic simplified, [India ?], 1919, 397, 582, in Aden a mason is usṭah/wusṭāh (asaṭīyah).
42 Aḥmad b.Ḥasan … al-Ḥaddād, al-Fawā'id …, fols. 103b-104a, MS described in BSOAS, XIII, 2, 1950, 296–7.Google Scholar
43 This word does not figure in the Arabic lexicons consulted.
44 Dāyir, a wall, synonyms ḥāyil and sitrah, for which last see al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 257, and glossary, below. Tarjī' al-aṭyār, 424, gives a plural, dawā'ir.
45 ‘Alawi b. Ṭāhir, al-Shamil, 227.
46 ibid.,96.
47 ibid., 213.
48 ibid., 227.
49 Al-Fatāwā al-nāfi'ah, 274.
50 This word is not known to us, but the sense appears to be so.
51 We lived in al-Muḥaiḍarah in 1947 (R. B. S.).
52 cf. R. B. Serjeant, Prose and poetry from Ḥaḍramawt, London, 1951, 8. Since this article was written Werner Diem's wide-ranging and instructive article ‘Untersuchungen zu Technik u. Terminologie der arabisch-islamischen Türschlösser’, Der Islam, L, 1, 1973, 98–156, with drawings of locks, has appeared.
53 cf.Landberg, Ḥaḍramoût, 635, ‘verrou en bois ’.
54 cf. Serjeant, R. B., ‘Recent marriage legislation from al-Mukallā with notes on marriage customs’, BSOAS, xxv, 3, 1962, 487.Google Scholar
55 cf. part I of this article, BSOAS, xxxviii, 1, 1975, p. 4, n. 20.Google Scholar
56 Al-Amthāl wa 'l-aqwāl al-Ḥaḍramīyah, 145.
57 Ḥaḍramoût, 350. Any wood is suitable for making a key.
58 The distinctive style of northern mud architecture can be perceived in Khalil Abou el- Nasr's ‘ Architecture in Asir ’, Middle East Forum (Beirut), April 1962, 29–32.
59 Tarjī‘ al-aṭyār, 424; a qaṣabah is a nawbah mudawwarah.
62 Data in R. B. Serjeant, ‘Building and builders’, are not repeated though complementary to this study. A more general article, Doe, D. B., ‘Home is a husn’, The Architect and Building News, vi, 3, 1970, 26–32,Google Scholar may also be consulted, but we were unable to see Kasdorff, K., Haus und Hauswesen im alten Arabien (bis zur Zeit des Chalifen Othman), Halle, 1914, apparently a dissertation of 71 pp.Google Scholar
63 cf. al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makkah, in Wüstenfeld, F., Geschiclde und Beschreibung der Stadt Mekka, Leipzig, 1858, 88–9. The church wall built by Abrahah al-Ḥabashī in Ṣan‘ā’ was ṣquare in plan (murabba‘ mustawī al-tarbī’) whereas the site, called Ghmrqat al-Qalīs, of the ancient church in the old town shown today is a shallow circular pit (ghurqah). Abrahah's church was 60 dhirā‘ high. Its raised area (kibs, lit. ’earth placed on an area to level it‘, etc.) inside was 10 dhirā’ high, and it was approached by marble steps. There was a wall surrounding the church, presumably forming an enceinte, 100 dhirā’ from it. This description reminds one of the circular wall at the Ma'rib temple. The wall was constructed of stones called in the Yemen jurūb, carved/ painted (? manqūshah) fitted into each other (muṭbaqah) so that a needle could not enter between them, stuck close together (ṁuṭabbaqah), 20 dhird’ in height. Between (the courses of ?) jurūb stones he put triangular stones like a camel's hump (sharaf), entering into each other, of red, white, yellow, and black stone, and sāsam wood between each course (sāf), round of head (rās), thick of timber, like a man's side, protruding from the building. The jurūb appear to have had the shape (fig. 3 (a)), and the courses of coloured stone seem to have the shape (fig. 3 (b)). Over this a marble frieze was placed, carved, and projecting a dhirā‘ beyond the building, and 2 dhirā’ in height. Over this was set shining black stone from Nuqum mountain, then shining yellow stone, and on top of all, white stone (perhaps that called balaq). These and many other details correspond closely to north Yemenite architecture as seen today.Google Scholar
64 Ḥaḍramoût, 394 f. Cf. L. W. C. van den Berg, Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes, Batavia, 1880, or 1969 reprint, 62 f.