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The Past - Traditions


Life in the Oasis

The cash, which flowed ever more freely into the Trucial States, resulting almost exclusively from the pearling industry, had a great impact on the entire society, bringing important changes to the hinterland, too. For the bedouin family, who had managed to wrest from the sandy desert the means to survive, a date garden watered by a flowing stream was the height of luxury. Thus, when individual families had accumulated surplus wealth, they turned their attention to the villages in the Al Ain area, the nearest oasis, where several age-old aflaj brought underground water from springs near the mountains to the fertile soil in the plain. This oasis is already mentioned by the name of Taw'am in the early days of Islam, and prehistoric finds from the area point to it having been a centre of settled civilization for several thousand years.
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