Sharjah1: Seascape Urbanism in a Khaliji2 Port City
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SHARJAH 791 Sharjah1: Seascape Urbanism in a Khaliji2 Port City SAMIA RAB American University of Sharjah INTRODUCTION Land and its physical attributes have been central to discourse on architecture and urbanism. Ground- ed constructs used to examine and explain urban history are utilized to consequently shape cities. Though there is vast literature on the centrality of an oceanic perspective to our understanding of cul- tures, it remains abstract and related to the idea of the ocean.3 This paper examines the Emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates as an exem- plary port settlement located on the eastern shore Al Khalij. It illustrates Sharjah’s urban continuities (nodes4) shaped by transient commerce and trans- forming navigational conditions of the ocean. It thus subverts the grounded constructs of “place- Figure 1: Map of Al Khalij, showing Lorimer’s pearl banks making” and “landscape urbanism” by presenting in 1915, with major towns and sites. (Source: Carter, R. the case of Sharjah as an example of “seascape”5 2005) urbanism facilitating interactions between the des- component and the Arab component coexisted in ert and the ocean. Al Khalij, though not without conflicts. Merchants, lenders, divers, and labor force from all across Located on the shore of an important oceanic cor- the region inhabited these settlements. While the 6 ridor , Sharjah developed from a small fishing vil- Safavid Empire ruled over mainland Persia, it did lage to an urban settlement in the early nineteenth not form a capable naval power and relied on the century through dialectic of urbanism triggered by shayukhs (leaders of seafaring families of Arab lin- the British intervention in Al Khalij. eage), who acted as the guarantor of the politi- cal unity of the kingdom7 and maintained linkages The development of Khaliji port settlements in between the port settlements on both sides of Al the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Khalij. During the 13th and 17th centuries, their was mostly due to the fact that the South Ara- fluid mobility transformed the Indian Ocean into bian coasts were, like the Red Sea, littered with an “Arab-Islamic Lake”8, followed by persistent and reefs and shoals which made navigation very dif- eventually successful European attempts to break ficult. WhileKhaliji ports benefitted from the lucra- the Muslim hold on the maritime commerce. Post- tive Indian Ocean trade, they facilitated exchange European interventions in Al Khalij transformed its of material, human and capital flows. The Persian multi-cultural, global and oceanic orientation, in- 792 WHERE DO YOU STAND troducing the notion of defined nation-states and urbanization and urbanism in the Middle East, the rapid modernization. Arab World, and possibly the rest of the Muslim World.”16 Cities located on both sides of Al Khalij Cities like Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Ras al Khai- are quite distinct from traditional “madinas” of the ma, Kuwait, Doha and Bahrain are now exhibiting a Arab-Islamic world17, but many scholars use the desire to modernize by facilitating the emergence of framework of “Arab-Islamic city” while studying massive urban projects. Architecture and urbanism new emerging “modernities” in eastern Arabia.18 are being directed by the official construction of a national-religious (Arab-Muslim) identity. While his- While most “madinas” that formed the basis for torians may consider the notion of “Islamic urban- theories of Islamic urbanism were typically devel- ism” part of the Orientalist cliché, urban designers oped as, and actively participated in, trading ac- and architects still utilize this outdated framework tivities across land, port cities were established by to analyze and regenerate cities in the eastern edge merchants whose lives primarily relied on cross- of the Arabian Peninsula, affirming an essentialist ing and travelling between the shores of Al Khalij. Arab-Muslim cultural identity, pursuing “Orientalism While inhabitants of most “madinas”, even when in reverse”.9 As cities grow and evolve at an unprec- they were situated on a river, considered the water edented pace in the Arabian Peninsula, it is impor- as a vulnerable edge of the settlement requiring tant to investigate local histories of cities to realign forts and towers for protection, most port cities in development processes with important historical eastern Arabia considered Al Khalij as a “friendly” continuities between modern and pre-modern ur- zone and, in contrast, heavily protected the desert banisms.10 New frameworks are needed that under- edge. As the case of Sharjah reveals, the European stand the evolution, and guide the development, of presence in Al Khalij from 1400-1800 reinforced these port cities, revealing and enhancing their role this aspect of urban form as the British agents in linking local, regional, national, and global net- posted in the region allowed the construction of works of space, economy and society.11 defences looking onto the desert but not the sea.19 Studying urban continuities and evolving local The traditional “madina” in the Islamic world that identities necessitates documenting the histories of have inspired large corpus of academic literature pre-modern urbanisms in a regional setting. This (Fez, Damascus, Allepo, etc.) originated as “Polis”20 line of inquiry counters the generally held percep- and their growth continued some aspects of pre-Is- tion that the modern (westernizing) state has in- lamic conceptions of “Islamic urbanism”.21 In con- troduced urban development in traditional or “Is- trast, most Khaliji port cities were urbanized due lamic cities”.12 It requires revealing and comparing to mercantile activities along the water edge and distinct phases of urbanisms within their regional in most cases had their “backs” to the desert. The and historical settings, as opposed to underscoring eastern Arabian port cities historically do not have their role in “colonial”13 or “post-colonial” worlds.14 the origination, configuration or management sys- tem of the traditional “madina”. Since port settle- Since the notion of “modern urbanism” is usually ments in eastern Arabia were settled by migrant contrasted with the concept of “Islamic urbanism,”15 communities escaping droughts, poverty or tyran- change in urban forms of cities in the Islamic world nical rule, ownership rights, and control of space is seen as detrimental to their traditional built envi- were very fluid. ronment. While the former is conceptualized as an outcome of shift in the mode of economy (industri- The process of land demarcation and subdivision in alization), the later is seen to be guided mainly by the early formation of “madinas”22 is quite distinct religious doctrines, Sharia law, environmental or from the process undertaken for allocating land privacy concerns. There is a fundamental problem to public and private uses in port cities of eastern in imposing the existing frameworks of “urbanism” Arabia. The allocation of public land to private indi- (modern, Islamic, colonial, post-colonial, or global) viduals preceded the consideration for the layout of to study or to conserve cities in Al Khalij. “Islamic public right-of-ways. Moreover, merchant patrons urbanism” has been introduced as a relevant cate- financed and developed their own and their son’s gory within urban geography because “the concept houses, mosques, and provided “public” services of the ‘Islamic city’ was fundamental in theorizing for the population.23 SHARJAH 793 The courtyard house form, though fairly consistent The name of the city in Arabic is Al Sharqah, mean- with typical house forms across the Arabian Penin- ing “to the east”. As early as the second - cen- sula, is distinguishable in its context and placement. tury AD its location appears in a map drawn by While in the dry desert environment the courtyard the Greek geographer Ptolemy, which indicates the houses are usually built tight up to each other with settlement of Sarcoa, where Sharjah can now be shared walls and fewer exposed facades to the found.27 In 1490 AD, the famous Arab navigator, street, the pre-modern urban structure of Khaliji Ahmad Ibn Majid, mentioned Sharjah as he navi- port cities responds to the extremely hot and mostly gated Al Khalij waters.28 At the time, the sheltered humid climatic conditions, which dictated the ne- creek along Sharjah’s shore provided a safe an- cessity of mostly free standing houses with lanes chorage for a fishing settlement that harvested around all four sides. The narrow, high walled alley- pearl in the summer months.29 ways between houses are particularly appropriate in the hot and humid coastal desert climate, through The oldest modern map reference to Sharjah is funnelling of cooling breezes from the sea. 24 on a nautical chart in the first edition of Thorn- ton’s “English Pilot” in 1703, where it appears as Though it has been recognized that existing mod- “Sharedje”30. Since then, the settlement continued els on spatial and functional evolution of port cities to grow close to the edge of the water with the out- are mainly derived from European and American er limits defined by a wall, the mid-length of which cases, attempts thus far have introduced evidence provided the site for a fort. By early 19th century, from an Asian perspective, focusing on the particu- Sharjah had evolved from a small fishing village lar case of global hub port cities such as Hong Kong to a permanent settlement. The continuous port and Singapore.25 The unique historical develop- activity generated a linear pattern in the initial ur- ment of pre-modern urbanism in Al Khalij is in the ban form, with the internal market district (souqs) ‘blind spot’ of academic literature.26 By examining spread along the creek through almost the entire a port settlement on the eastern coast of the Ara- length of the settlement. A gated protective wall bian Peninsula (the Emirate of Sharjah), this paper comprised the defined outer limit of the settlement attempts to develop a working typology of Khaliji distinguishing it from the hinterland.