Baharia, Wahati

The Wahati ('people of the oasis') are the native inhabitants of Bahariya Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert. They descend from the oasis's ancient people, whose Greco-Roman tombs and churches still come out of the ground, mixed with Bedouin from the Libyan side and the north coast and with settlers from the Nile Valley; the oasis was largely Christian until the late Middle Ages and is now Muslim. They speak an oasis Arabic dialect with Bedouin features, which television is drawing towards Cairene. The Wahati see themselves as distinct from both Nile Valley Egyptians and the Bedouin; families are grouped by village (Bawiti and Qasr, Mandisha, Zabu, Aguz, Harra, El Heiz), and village sheikhs are said to keep family record books. Egypt records no ethnicity, and since the 1970s road and the iron mines, newcomers from the Nile Valley have settled among them.

Weddings are the high point of Wahati social life, with the simsimiyya lyre, flutes and drums and songs in the oasis dialect. Women's traditional dress is the magaddil, named for its striped embroidery, worn with silver jewellery. Houses were built of mud brick around palm groves watered by springs and wells. Date palms, olives, guavas and mangos are grown in the gardens. Village sheikhs are said to keep family histories.

The Wahati are Sunni Muslims; Islam orders the day, the fast and the feasts. Beliefs about saints, jinn, the evil eye and healing are likely to persist, as across rural Egypt, but no recent description of them was found. The oasis was a Coptic Christian centre into the Middle Ages, and the Copts living there now are recent arrivals from the Nile Valley.

The Wahati read Standard Arabic and understand Egyptian Arabic, which has the full Bible, the JESUS film and audio resources; Joshua Project lists Scripture portions in the Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic it assigns them. No Wahati believers or outreach are documented. Coptic newcomers from the Nile Valley live in the oasis. The oasis's isolation, close-knit families and the cost of leaving Islam are the main barriers.