e 3 a s h i g R E F L E C T I O N S

Rumors, Myths and Urban Legends

There were few Urban legends circulating Neseem. I do not recall all of them but I can remember a few about the village elder, Kaabi. Weather these were spread out as a propaganda to ascertain his political leadership over the other more simple and uneducated inhabitants is beyond me. It certainly is well known that superstition and religion can both be exploited for political purposes. I was too young to know at the time.

It was rumoured that once an other villager appeared distressed at Asr prayer in the mosque. When asked what the matter was, he explained that he attempted to withdraw a sum of a AED 100,000 from the bank that day but was unable to as the bank closed too soon. Kaabi slipped his hand in the pocket of his casual kandoura and pulled it out with a AED 100,000. Bemused, other people in the mosque asked why he walks about with this sort of money in his pocket. His reply was that he needed “the change” for emergencies such as this.

The final amount of money was probably much less than the reported 100k. I suspect that he even had to go home to get this money from a safe or something rather than pull it out of no where (remember those were times where the biggest note was AED 500 rather than 1000). In any case, the story illustrates his financial sovereignty over his peers.

This man was once reported by local newspapers as the person who has most children in UAE. I do not think anyone knew for sure how many he had but most of the village inhabitants were related to him. Legend has it that before having so many children, he had only two. He was once working with them in his farm quite far from where they lived. Night came upon them before they could finish and go home. Hungry now, they could see a fire in the distance and hear the sound of drums. “It must be a wedding” he told his two sons before sending them towards it to get some food. They took quite long and the father was worried. The lights then dimmed in the distance and and the sounds gradually disspeared into the night. He went after them but when he got to the place where the party was, all he could see were teeth and finger nails - those of his children. They were never seen again.

He looked for them, asked people but resolved only to grieve and despair of their return. He then went on a mission to marry, have children and divorce his wives. The cycle produced the reportedly largest family in UAE with an estimate of over a 100 children.

The story (myth?) goes that when the first son of these marriages grew up to learn of his two older brothers, he went on his own mission to find them and spared no effort. He got to a man who was known for his dealings in witchcraft who told him that his brothers are both still alive, enslaved by a tribe of Jinn to work day and night in the underworld. They are only allowed to come up to the surface once a year by their masters. No one knows when or where. No one except one man. A master in witchcraft who lives in the high mountains of Nazwa of Oman. There is a peril though attached to seeking his help for he can eat your heart and liver or give you as a sacrifice to the demons he deals with. Needless to say, the matter was left at that.

True or fiction? These stories circulated Neseem in the 80’s. To add to his mystique, Kaabi asked to be buried under a lone tree in the middle of no where miles away from the closest graveyard. This man was plugged in to the machinery of the human psyche.

PS:This post is dedicated to the current and old inhabitants of Neseem.