Hugh Naylor
- Last Updated: April 14. 2010 11:55PM UAE / April 14. 2010 7:55PM GMT
Saleh al Harthi, who works as a policeman in Abu Dhabi, enjoys a stay at his Shamkha desert home, with his granddaughters Rawan, five, and Leila, three. Stephen Lock / The National
ABU DHABI // Saleh al Harthi prefers the tranquil comforts of his sleepy desert settlement to the hustle and bustle of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Here in Shamkha, a villa community on the outskirts of the capital occupied primarily by Emiratis and other Gulf Arabs, he and his neighbours can walk together to a nearby mosque for Friday prayers. In the sizzling heat of the day, he and his family can lounge in a Bedouin tent, decked out with a television, air conditioner and trays serving fresh camel milk, pitched in front of his villa’s entrance.
Abandoning this lifestyle, in which English is rarely spoken and neighbours know each other intimately in these wide open spaces, for the city is out of the question, said Mr al Harthi, a Saudi who works as a policeman in Abu Dhabi.
Mr al Harthi, who was born in the southern outpost of Najran, Saudi Arabia, more than 50 years ago, said: “I can’t live there; my life is in the desert. Outside the city, Shamkha, Bani Yas, there’s no traffic.”
As Dubai and Abu Dhabi attract cosmopolitan populations into their urban high-rises and freehold villa compounds, some Emiratis and other Gulf Arabs, such as Mr al Harthi, are gravitating to far-flung havens.
They are not moving en masse to Dubai to capitalise on low rents and modern flats, as foreign nationals have. Most are opting instead for these vast expanses of sand dunes punctuated by the occasional palm grove, where they feel their ancestors’ borderless roots are most firmly planted.
“The bedouin … we want sand,” said Mohammed Meqbali, 56, a retired army officer who has lived in his six-room Al Falah villa since 2002.
In Al Falah, just across the road from Shamkha, Mr Meqbali spends his evenings watching his two sons play football in the empty streets with his neighbours. At weekends, instead of Dubai’s mega-malls, he and his family enjoy barbecues in the desert with his brother in Al Ain.
“I go to Dubai once a year, maybe two times, but there’s so much traffic,” said Mr Meqbali, who is wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, and sitting cross-legged in a majlis adorned with sand-coloured cushions.
“We go to Al Ain, Jebel Hafeet. There’s not a lot of traffic. It’s better; you’re happier when you go there. The souls of the Bedouin are the sand, the desert.”
A preference for desert communities over burgeoning urban dwellings is the result of what Prof Aqil Khazim, who teaches urban sociology at UAE University, calls the “push-pull factor”.
Free housing in rural areas provided by the Government does the pulling. “Then you have the push factor,” he said. “Many locals are moving out from the middle of the town, from crowded areas becoming crowded by non-locals.”
The Government, he said, prefers building its villa communities for Emiratis in rural areas because the extra space allows for extended families to move together, thereby retaining their sense of community.
“They move together in different areas,” he said. “For example, if you’re from one area, they take into consideration your tribal influence, your roots, your family.”
He said cultural differences in the newly built freehold properties, such as those in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, also play a part. “Culture does play a role here, because you don’t have a local community there,” he said. “In these areas, there is no community. It’s communities – you have so many different cultures in the area, and it’s become very multicultural.”
Many Emiratis are put off by the relative scarcity of community mosques in Dubai’s freehold properties. Malls and shopping centres may have small places of worship, but they are bereft of the stand-alone gathering places defined by towering minarets and crowds of worshippers flooding the streets on Friday mornings.
“Every Friday we go to the mosque together,” said Mr al Harthi, whose mosque is less than a quarter of a mile from his house. “Sometimes I walk with my family there. If it’s hot, we drive.”
On The Palm Jumeirah, with a projected population of about 70,000, a spokesman confirmed that there was only one “operational” mosque.
In Jumeirah Lakes Towers, a development overseen by Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, another spokesperson said: “There is currently one Juma/Friday prayer mosque … this is in addition to the two planned mosques. It is not a stand-alone facility and was not built as a statutory requirement, but rather as a community initiative undertaken by the sub-developer.”
Dubai Properties and Emaar, the Middle East’s largest property developer, did not respond to several requests about the issue. And there has been confusion among these developers as to what entity was charged with providing regulation on mosques in freehold properties.
Regardless, for Abdullah, a lack of such traditional amenities as mosques in freehold properties is part of the reason why he chose Al Falah when he left Abu Dhabi five years ago.
“This our life – we are from the desert,” said Abdullah, declining to give his last name because he was employed by Abu Dhabi Police. He lives in a villa with his wife and six children. “We don’t accept the tall buildings. It’s better than Abu Dhabi. Here, the weather is clear; there is parking for my car. I can sleep at night because it’s quiet.”
“At night,” he added, “sometimes, I put my chair here in the front of my house and just sit. We can freely walk the land.”
