Birkat Al-Mawz

Birkat Al-Mawz owes its existence to water. Falaj Al Khatmeen draws from Wadi Muaydin, the gorge that cuts into the mountain behind the village, and carries it in stone-lined channels through terraced gardens on the slope below. The system belongs to the tradition of aflaj engineering that has watered the Omani interior since about AD 500, using only gravity, and the channel is one of five Omani aflaj inscribed together by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2006. The village name, 'pool of bananas', records what that water grew.

The settlement was a stronghold of the Bani Riyam, one of the powerful tribes of the interior, and its position at the only practicable route onto Jebel Akhdar gave it strategic weight far beyond its size. Bait Al Redidah, the mud-brick fort at the foot of the old quarter, was built to control the falaj and the entrance to the mountain, and the tight lanes of tall houses above it were planned for defence as much as for shade.

In the 1950s the imamate of the interior and the sultan's government came into open conflict, and the rebellion's last stand was made on Jebel Akhdar, directly above the village; British special forces stormed the plateau in 1959 by climbing from the wadis. From the 1970s families moved out of the old quarter into concrete houses on flatter ground, leaving the mud-brick village to collapse, and the fort was restored as a heritage site as tourism reached the interior.

Village life here follows the pattern of the Omani interior, where Ibadi Islam, tribal affiliation and the management of water organise the community. The falaj is the clearest example: shares of the flow are measured in time rather than volume, allocated by agreements that predate living memory, and administered by a warden who keeps the roster and collects contributions for repairs. Drinking water is taken from the head of the channel, washing is done further down, and gardens are irrigated last.

Dress and manners are traditional and reserved. Men wear the white dishdasha with a kuma cap or wrapped massar, and the khanjar at Eid and on the national day; women cover their hair and dress modestly, and visitors are expected to do the same. Greetings are exchanged at length before anything else; a stranger walking through the gardens will usually be greeted and, often enough, invited for coffee.

The village sits at the boundary between two worlds. Below is the plain, with its date palms and market towns; above is Jebel Akhdar, where terraced villages grow pomegranates, walnuts, apricots and the roses distilled into rosewater in family stills each spring. Many households in Birkat Al-Mawz have relatives on the mountain, and the two economies have always been linked by the same path that now carries four-wheel-drive traffic.

Most residents of the village and the smaller settlements around it live in modern houses spread along the road rather than in the old quarter. Incomes come from government work, jobs in Nizwa and Muscat, farming, and a growing amount of tourism: guesthouses in restored buildings, guides, and the trade in fuel, food and vehicle checks for everyone heading up the mountain.

The day is shaped by heat and prayer. Work in the gardens is done early and late, with the middle of the day spent indoors or under the palms, and Friday is given to prayers and family. The falaj sets its own timetable, with irrigation turns falling at fixed hours of the day and night regardless of convenience. Maintaining the channels — clearing silt, repairing walls, sharing costs — is a recurring collective task.

The crops are dates above all, with bananas, limes, mangoes and fodder grown beneath the palms, sold at stalls along the road and in Nizwa's souq. Falling groundwater, the cost of maintaining old channels and the loss of the mud-brick quarter to weather are the standing concerns of the village, along with the traffic that the mountain road now brings through it.

Cooking here is that of the Omani interior, built on rice, slow-cooked meat and the produce of the gardens. Majboos — rice cooked with chicken, mutton or goat, onion, dried lime and a mix of spices — is the dish of any substantial meal. Shuwa, meat rubbed with spice paste, wrapped and buried for a day or more in an earth oven, is made communally for Eid, and harees, wheat and meat beaten to a smooth porridge, belongs to Ramadan.

The gardens supply the rest. Dates of many varieties are eaten fresh in late summer, dried for the rest of the year and pressed for syrup; bananas grown under the palms are small and sweet; limes are dried into loomi for cooking, and mangoes ripen in the heat. From the terraces above come pomegranates, apricots, walnuts and figs, and rosewater from the spring distillation, which is used in sweets and sprinkled on guests at celebrations.

Hospitality is fixed in form: kahwa, coffee poured light and scented with cardamom and sometimes rosewater, served in small cups with dates and with Omani halwa, a sticky preserve of sugar, saffron, rosewater and nuts, eaten from a shared dish. Bread is rukhal, spread thin over a hot dome and eaten with honey from the mountain hives, eggs or curry. Anything more elaborate is eaten in Nizwa, where the choice of restaurants and market stalls is far wider.