Category Archives: Salalah
Michael the Mechanic of Sinaya, Salalah, Dhofar, Oman
Michael the Mechanic of Sinaya, Salalah
Do you know this man? He’s a very well known personality in Salalah, Oman. Ask any seasoned Jeep owner there and almost without fail they will have met him at some stage! I had a Jeep when I lived in Salalah – I think he’s fixing the cooling system on it in this photo! – and I got to know him well and trust him and his judgement on many things, but especially mechanical!
He started work in Salalah in about 1977, I think, and has many stories to tell from his time in Salalah over the years!
I left Salalah in 2005, and haven’t had any news of him since then. I’d be interested to know any new news. In fact, let me know and I’ll let you all know!
Khamis the Sailor of Auqad (Awqad) – Salalah, Dhofar (Oman)
Ruins of Khamis's Palace, Salalah
In 1930, Bertram Thomas (Wazir to Sultan Taimur bin Faisal of Oman) visited Salalah and referred to a number of personalities of the day who had gathered in a large house in central Salalah in his honour. On one occasion I mentioned to a close friend from Salalah about the book by Thomas. He said he had read the Arabic translation of it but hadn’t seen the English version. I showed him my copy, especially the part where he referred to well-known men from Salalah Thomas had met. My friend was very interested in this piece of local history and asked me to photocopy the relevant pages so that he could go through them with his father. A few days later after he had showed them to his father, he excitedly phoned me and said he had some news. I couldn’t wait to meet him!
My friend was particularly interested in a person whom Thomas refers to as “A sailor, one Khamis of Auqad”.
“How many Khamises were there in Awqad in your father’s time?” he had asked his father.
“Only one. Why?”, his father replied.
“I’ve been reading a book about an Englishman who visited Salalah in 1930. He refers to a sailor called Khamis of Awqad.”
“That’s your grandfather,” his father said.
“What?” my friend exclaimed, “but I thought he was a trader.”
“Well, he was, but before that, he was a sailor. He visited India and some other countries.”
My friend was flabbergasted by this revelation. It confirmed that the Khamis mentioned by Bertram Thomas was, in fact, his grandfather. Reading on…
“Khamis, a free man, yet was the father of a slave-born child, for he had taken to wife another’s slave woman, so by local canons the child belonged to her owner. The three hundred dollars he had paid for the woman was the price of her hand, not of her freedom, and he was now engaged in paying a further five hundred dollars to her master, to buy the freedom of his own offspring.” [from Thomas, B. S. (1932). Arabia Felix: Across the Empty Quarter of Arabia. Jonathan Cape: London. Page 19]
Again the facts were accurate. Exactly the same information, including the amount paid, had been handed down to my friend by his grandmother, confirming Thomas’ reliability as a biographer.
Port Salalah from Donkey’s Head (Dhofar, Oman)
© Ross Hayden. Port Salalah from Donkey's Head
Travelling west from Port Salalah along the cliff top you come to this amazing vantage point – about 500 metres short of Donkey’s Head. Here you can look back towards Port Salalah – about 6 km in a direct line – but in the foreground you can see a sheer cliff where I parked my Jeep Cherokee. I guess it’s at least 100 metres down to the surface of the Arabian Sea. Down in the bay is a small open fishing boat.
