A VILLAGE that was once the hub of an age-old traditional craft in Bahrain has over the year witnessed the gradual decline of a skill that is rooted in the history of the nation.
Until not too long ago, Bani Jamra, in the northwest off Budaiya Highway, was a thriving centre of traditional fabric weaving.
The village, along with Abu Saiba in the north and Dar Kulaib in the west, used to hum with the noises of the cloth weavers and their looms.
The ancient profession was passed on from generation to generation and many families depended solely on it for their livelihood.
However, with the advent of modernisation, the looms have now fallen silent as mechanisation, rapid urbanisation, cheap alternatives and lucrative job opportunities seem to be driving the profession to extinction.
But three brothers in Bani Jamra have stood steadfast and are refusing to give up the age-old craft they inherited from their late father.
Mohammed Abdulredha Abdulrasool, aged 40, started weaving when he was 15 years old and even today he uses the same loom his father worked on for decades.
“Most of the villages in Bahrain were engaged in fabricating sails for traditional Bahraini dhows, but the villages of Bani Jamra and Abu Saiba were famous for weaving cloth fabrics,” Mr Abdulrasool the GDN.
“Abu Saiba residents were also mostly farmers, so the weaving has become almost extinct there now and can only be seen in Bani Jamra.
“My father was a weaver his whole life, but a lot has changed since his time.”
He said at one stage there were more than 50 looms in the village, one in almost every house.
“A hundred years ago, almost 75 per cent of the village would practise this craft,” he said.
“It was around 60 families in the village who were involved in the profession and would weave from their homes.”
Mr Abdulrasool remembers his family importing wool, cotton and silk from Iran and India to weave traditional clothing such as the ‘white thobe’ and ‘black bisht (cloak)’ for males and ‘abaya’ for females.
It met most of the clothing needs of the people but over the years mechanisation of the weaving technique impacted the craft negatively as machines incorporating nylon threads to create colourful and different designs were easier to mass produce as opposed to handmade fabrics.
“A traditional craftsman can weave five metres of a single coloured fabric in four to five hours, while machines take much less time and require minimal human involvement,” said Mr Abdulrasool.
He said the weaving process was previously much longer than it is now.
“We used to import only white threads, so then we would have to paint them in the different colours that we wanted.
“This made the process longer.
“Today, we have all the necessary tools, so our preparation time is shorter and the process easier.”
The weaving machines were considered highly complex manual tools and the process required mental and physical co-ordination.
Weavers also had to often juggle around thousands of threads to make cloth but, according to Mr Abdulrasool, many families depended solely on fabric weaving for their livelihood.
“The craft was the source of our livelihood, but once oil was discovered things changed.
“Like other craftsmen in Bahrain, a lot of the weavers moved on to more lucrative jobs.”
And, as the looms were made of wood, they would deteriorate over time and had to be disposed of.
Mr Abdulrasool also said close proximity to the fibres and cotton for long hours cause some weavers to develop asthma over the years.
His elder brother, 54-year-old Mohammed-Saleh Abdulredha Abdulrasool, has been weaving occasionally for the past 40 years but spent the last 15 years fully dedicated to his late father’s profession and has successfully passed the craft on to his son.
The factory they have been using for more than 20 years since 1990 consists of a single loom placed in the centre of a cramped room with no electricity on land that belongs to the government.
“We have been sharing the electricity meter with our neighbours and I have been paying him BD50 monthly for that,” said Mr Mohammed-Saleh.
He revealed that representatives from Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities inspected the land over a year ago with the avowed intention to develop it further but there has been no substantial follow-up since.
Mr Mohammed-Saleh is keen to pass on his skills to future generations but is unable to do so because of the scarcity of traditional looms.
“I have only one loom and for someone to learn the craft they have to practise while they are watching you at work and this requires several looms,” he said.
Heritage
The third brother, Jaffar Abdulredha Abdulrasool, aged 47, works at Al Jasra Handicrafts Centre.
Ahmed Ebrahim Hussain, in his 30s, who is employed at the centre, has been weaving for more than 17 years and has grown to love the detailed process involved in creating fabrics.
He said once upon a time there were scores of weaving factories but the only active factory left today is the one in Bani Jamra.
Factories were modest palm frond huts where the weaver and his family would spend their hours weaving an abundance of textiles to be sold in the local market and to be exported all over the GCC region.
Mr Hussain said materials used in the craft have changed over the years, as the weavers now use softer threads with different colours as opposed to his forefathers who had limited colours and resorted to painting the threads by hand.
“Village residents relied completely on the woven products in the past as a means to sustain their livelihood and clothing requirements, which is why there were many factories and also individuals weaving fabrics at home,” he said.
According to Mr Hussain, their woven products are now custom made to order and are mostly purchased by tourists as a Bahraini relic.
“The precise techniques required to operate the traditional loom are locked in our minds, and if we do not invest time and effort to pass on the craft the heritage will die with us,” he added.
Al Jasra Handicrafts Centre president Yasser Al Sayed said after talks with the craftsmen, plans are underway to restore Bani Jamra’s reputation as the hub of fabric weaving in Bahrain.
“We are now working on gathering all the statistics concerned with the fabric weaving profession,” he told the GDN.
“We are documenting all the elements to consolidate a full report which will allow us to further develop and revamp the industry.”
He said many have abandoned the craft because of the scarcity of the required raw materials and low economic returns in comparison to the effort necessary to produce fabrics.
Mr Al Sayed also said health problems, such as asthma, suffered by some of the weavers previously must have been because of the old materials using the weaving process.
However, nowadays these problems do not exist because all the materials are imported ready-to-use.
“Weavers were actually some of the healthiest craftsmen because the operation of the loom would require the movement of both the legs and arms simultaneously. So, it was like a form of exercise.”
Mr Al Sayed also revealed that discussions have been held as part of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority’s (BTEA) plans to reopen the traditional factories and preserve the heritage.
“We are working on importing large quantities of cotton threads from Egypt, such as the ones we used at our centre, and sell them at cost price to the weavers to encourage their return to traditional weaving,” said Mr Al Sayed.
“We are currently gathering all the necessary statistics about all the crafts to provide a full report to BTEA chief executive Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al Khalifa and Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed Al Zayani,” he added.
Also discussed were plans to develop a training centre in Bani Jamra to provide a location where craftsmen can pass on the knowledge and techniques to future generations.
Read the GDN next Sunday for the sixth instalment of this six-part series.
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