Threads of tradition

UAE national women in Khor Fakkan urge the young to learn the nuances of a dying art

Elderly UAE national women in Khor Fakkan have been urging young girls to pick up the threads of traditional handicrafts. They claim the art is dying because local women are no longer interested in reviving it.

In the past, women would devote a bulk of their time to domestic chores like cooking food for the family. In their spare time, these women would busy themselves with making dresses for everyday use and other items.

One such item was the burqua, a piece of special fabric or leather which only married women used to wear at the time to cover their faces.

Mariam Ali Ahmed Saeed, a 55-year-old national woman who has been making traditional handicrafts at the Khor Fakkan Social Development Centre for the past 17 years, said: "We make burqua from a special kind of fabric or thin leather which we used to get from Indian traders who came to Dubai on business."

She said women at the time would get this fabric in the shape of big sheets. A woman specialising in this trade used to cut the sheet in the form of a face mask, covering the mouth and part of the nose.

She said: "Women in our time were not allowed to put on the face cover until they got married, while girls who were single put nothing on their faces. These days, married women do not wear the burqua anymore, and you can see it only on the faces of elderly women."