Shihuh

The Shihuh are the mountain tribe of the Musandam peninsula at the Strait of Hormuz, living on both sides of the border between Oman's Musandam governorate and the UAE emirates of Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah. Their genealogists trace them to Malik bin Fahm of the Azd through al-Laqit bin al-Harith, and link the name to shuḥḥ, 'stinginess', from a refusal to pay zakat after the Prophet's death that ended in the battle of Dibba; the ethnographer Walter Dostal read 'Shihuh' instead as a name for the region's way of life, and 19th-century visitors noted Persian-descended sections in Khasab. The two main sections are the Bani Hadiyah and the Bani Shitayr. The Kumzari at the tip of the peninsula, who speak an Iranian language, belong to the Bani Shitayr confederacy but form their own people; the Dhahuri (Dhahuriyin), Habus and Bani Shamili share the Shihhi dialect and the nadba call and are counted with the Shihuh here. A hereditary sheikh of the Shihuh and Kumzari is recognised by the Sultan. Shihhi Arabic (about 38,000 speakers in 2020), also called Musandam Arabic, is a little-documented cluster of village dialects with features found in no other Arabic, and other Arabs struggle to follow it. The tribe ruled Musandam's mountains until British and Trucial Oman Scouts forces brought them under the sultan in 1970-71; around 1900 it numbered some 21,500, two-thirds on the coast.

Traditionally the Shihuh farmed terraced mountain fields in winter, storing rainwater in stone cisterns, and moved down to the date oases of Khasab, Dibba and the Batinah in summer for the harvest, fishing and, formerly, pearling; summer in the oases is also the wedding season. They kept goats for trade. Their bayt al-qufl ('house of the lock') is a one-room stone house of red mountain rock with a cedar-and-acacia roof, a sleeping room dug a metre below ground for warmth, and a cedar door with two locks; families left them locked with their goods in summer, and many keep them for winter visits. Men carry the jerz, a small axe on a long handle, a symbol of the tribe. The nadba is a tribal call in which a lead singer (nadib) with a powerful voice, one hand raised and one ear covered, is answered by a semicircle of men with wordless cries and the tribe's name; it greets guests, is sung at weddings and feasts, and was once a war cry. Hospitality centres on whole roasted animals.

The Shihuh are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i school, unlike Oman's Ibadi majority. Mosque prayer, Ramadan and the two Eids order community life, and summer weddings in the oases are major religious and social gatherings. No study of folk practice among them was found.

No Scripture, JESUS Film or audio exists in Shihhi Arabic. Literate Shihuh read Standard Arabic, in which Scripture and media are available. No believers or outreach are known.