Traditional UAE Poetry

Our culture enjoys a strong tradition of music and dance, both of which played a vital role in people's lives. Songs were composed to accompany different tasks, from hauling water at the well, to diving for pearl oysters out in the Gulf. In the latter case a professional song-leader was kept on the pearling dhows whose job was to rally the men to work through music and song. The naha'an , as this person was known, would launch into chanting the song and all the sailors would join in as they worked simultaneaously. Each song had a rhythm for a particular task and, like the sea-chants of western sailors, the music became an inspiration for good teamwork.

NABATI poetry is the spoken words which always been the superior art form of the tribal people, who lacked the raw materials used elsewhere for more tangible forms of artistic expression.