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Handsome men in their flowing dishdashas and embroidered skull caps and turbans, potter around the stalls looking for a good bargain. Rows and rows of shops display pottery of all shapes and sizes, made from clay baked in the fierce Omani sun — water containers, urns, cups, utensils and incense burners. Visitors walk through the souk drooling at metal-studded dowry chests and chunky silver fashioned into rings, anklets and necklaces. The traditional Omani dagger with intricate filigree work, called khanjar is a popular souvenir. Nizwa is a medieval city in Oman, located just 165 km from the capital Muscat. Nizwa was the capital of Oman in the 6th and 7th centuries — and one of the first towns to receive Muslim emissaries. It was ruled by the Ibadhi sect of Islam (most Omanis belong to their sect). The city still has a majestic fort which looks straight out of a foreign legion movie. Gracing the skyline are also some of Oman’s oldest mosques. For a long time Nizwa was at the crossroads of important caravan routes that linked the interiors with the port of Muscat. Nizwa, with its pastel
pinkish houses and mud coloured forts as well as domes and minarets,
looks like an Arabian night fantasy. Nizwa Fort was for many years an
impregnable fortress, with its adobe walls a burnished golden in the
intense afternoon heat. A guide informs that the lovely colour of the
fort is because of the material used called sarooj — soil is
formed into bricks, which are covered in earth, and baked with palm
logs for fuel, then crumbled into powdery cement. The fort
is among the oldest in Oman — it was built by Imam Sultan bin Saif
bin Malik Al Ya’arubi, who was famous for driving the Portuguese
from Oman in 1650. The 30-metre high walls were built to withstand the
barrage of mortar in ancient times. Today, the fort houses a museum
that gives a compressed peek into Oman’s chequered history. Sixty
rulers had lived here and ruled Nizwa. The presiding Imams and Walis
held meetings and dispensed justice.
Nizwa was for long considered the intellectual capital of Oman, where scientists, scholars and writers lived. It was also home to skilled artisans working in silver, copper and leather. One of the main reasons for Nizwa’s prosperity is the ingenious falaj systems — a network of man-made subterranean channels that taps into underground water.
The Nizwa Fort has been artfully built over a subterranean stream so that it could survive a long siege with underground cellars for stockpiling food and supplies. For an entrance fee of just 500 baisas, one can walk back several centuries in time. Nizwa Fort is replete with fiendish contraptions to ward off attackers — there are secret shafts, false doors and metal spikes as well as listening holes in the floor covered by carpets. The most notorious
methods used here were large ‘murder holes’ where the defenders
would pour boiling dates’ juice or oil down the slots and scald the
enemy forever. Stairs were interrupted by gaping pits covered by
wooden planks which used to be raised when there was an intruder
approaching. Besides all these, Nizwa Fort used to have 480 gun ports,
24 cannons and niches for more than a hundred armed guards.
We explore the fort which is a maze of rooms, halls, sprawling terraces and narrow staircases. The piece de resistance is the 115 feet high tower. The fort has old date-storage rooms at the castle where dates were stacked in huge piles and their syrup was collected in jars. "Dates were the perfect siege food", says a guide Abdul. These were nutritious and their hot juice acted as a weapon against intruders. From the serrated battlements we see silvery green groves, the distant mauve silhouette of craggy mountains and the sprawling plains. A historical overload has to be offset by the pleasures of retail therapy...In the protective shade of the fort is the Nizwa souk, a melange of old and modern buildings, with different areas earmarked for different produce — ranging from goats and pigs to fruits, vegetables, fish and meat. Our guide Abdul Rasool walks us through the souk, pointing out rich Omani halwa in buckets, made from rose water, saffron, eggs, sugar, corn flour and fat. The halwa-making process is a laborious one, with the dedicated chef stirring the gigantic pot of bubbling, sticky concoction for up to three hours and most chefs are reluctant to reveal their secret recipes. We sniff rose water made by heating Omani rose petals, alfalfa grass used to feed cattle and the fiery local tipple of Omani arrack. Big sacks of dates lie carelessly, beside wizened old men and women. More than 40 varieties of dates are sold Nizwa. Abdul leads us to a stall to taste the highly prized yellow khalas — the last date of the season — one bite and you are hooked. All over the souk are sold packets of the local fragrance — frankincense which is burnt to purify the air and act as a disinfectant. An enjoyable fact is that that there is no aggressive marketing or invitation to buy anything. On Friday there is the weekly livestock auction when goats and calves are paraded around a ring with buyers shouting out prices like a noisy auction house! Visitors can rest their tired traveller’s feet and perk up the energy levels with mud coloured kahwa — black Omani coffee with cardamom. As one watches an almost Biblical scene unfold before the eyes, that could be from a millennia before, with women with kohl-lined eyes beneath veils, perky children playing tag and bearded men haggling at stalls one realises that’s it really easy to time travel in Nizwa.
Visual symphony
Photos: Reuters/David Gray
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Fact
file
Visitors look at a
photograph projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House during a
display showcasing photographs taken by members of the public
depicting their daily lives. According to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, Australia's population is about to tick past the 23
million mark as the country continues to grow at the fastest rate in
the developed world.
