the Arab world in the FIL ‘Sharjahlajara’

The Sharjah pavilion at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL Guadalajara) is packed. It has been like this practically every day since its opening, when a group of Emirati men performed Al-Ayyala, an ancient ritual of dance, sung poetry and drum music.

The emirate committee designed a pavilion with massive walls resembling groups of books and perimeter architecture with arabesque details. Two monumental portraits of Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, Emir of Sharjah, and Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and Emir of Abu Dhabi, stand out at the Guest of Honor stand, reflecting the proper protocol in Middle East, an unusual feature in the FIL.

They were wise enough to install chairs, armchairs, living spaces throughout the distribution, so that the public can take advantage of the pavilion as a rest area and, incidentally, take an interest in one of the many elements of the cultural range that Sharjah has brought to the the Jalisco capital or “Sharjahlajara”, as the Book Authority announced, which would rename this city with its presence.

Smell of essences and coffee

The pavilion smells like most spaces in the United Arab Emirates smell. They have brought all their culture and the smell traveled with them. It is a pleasant aroma, a combination of jasmine, sandalwood, spices. Perhaps it is a flavoring commonly used among the Emiratis or it is the mixture of the smells of those who inhabit the pavilion, between the perfumes that the delegation uses and the sandwiches and the Arabic coffee that are offered to the passing public, the latter, a symbol of hospitality and made with saffron, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, which is called qahwah and inscribed in 2015 on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

It is not strange to perceive this cluster of odors in any space with an Emirati presence. Arabs are said to use five times more perfumes and lotions than the rest of the world. Cairo, Sumer, Alexandria: the oldest traces of the cosmetic use of essences have been found in the remains of these ancient settlements.

Between women there are no barriers

The battoulah is a type of metallic mask, almost always golden and sometimes decorated with gemstones, that women professing Islam, especially in countries of the Persian Gulf, used to wear together with the veil or hijab to cover from the eyebrows to the tip. of the nose. It is now less common to see young women in the Arab world wearing this item, but in Sharjah it is still possible to see older women wearing the garment, hiding much of their face.

A group of artisans in the pavilion wear battoulah and hijab. They decorate small cloth dolls that, they explain, mothers usually make for their daughters with leftover dresses they make. They also make a kind of thick braids made of cotton that are used as decoration for the dishdasha, the tunic worn by men, to give greater formality, status, to whoever wears them. The cultural richness is in the subtleties.

They are also the ones who prepare and share the coffee with the people in a queue of curious people that does not stop growing. With fluent English they converse and share with Mexican women some of the traditional Emirati garments they display, allow them to touch them, wear them, including the battoulah, and take pictures, and embrace with them, there are no physical barriers between women.

“Al marash”, names one of them while pointing to a metallic, golden vase. It contains a floral essence that men and women like to perfume themselves with, she explains. It is from this container that part of the olfactory experiences that permeate the pavilion is added.

A cultural exchange

The emirate of Sharjah has brought several of its most important cultural and academic institutions to the FIL Guadalajara, including The House of Wisdom, a very modern cultural center and bookstore opened on the occasion of the appointment of Sharjah as Capital Mundial del Libro in 2019, which a few weeks ago inaugurated the interactive exhibition “Frida and me”, dedicated to the famous Mexican painter.

Also noteworthy is the presence of the Dr. Sultan Al Qasimi Center, a cultural venue named after the emir of Sharjah and which houses a collection of one and a half million historical and bibliographic objects. Some of them traveled with the delegation to show themselves to the Mexican public, including a collection of cartographic engravings on the Arabian peninsula from the 16th to the 19th century.

In front, a collection of historical calligraphy pieces is exhibited, another of the thousand-year-old prides of Arab culture and also included in the representative list of Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2021. Right there, two calligraphic artists serve the largest queue in the pavilion. With great detail, they write the names of each person with calligraphy.

On the other side of the pavilion, the 57 books by Emirati authors translated into Spanish are exhibited on the occasion of Sharjah’s presence as FIL’s Guest of Honor. And also a series of illustrated books that are the product of a collaboration between artists from both countries.

The book entitled “My tradition” is striking, an accordion book that represents the meeting of both cultures united by a thread, textile art. It is an accordion book that shows a Mexican textile artist at the far left and at the other end, the right, an Arab textile artist. It is worth remembering that texts and books in Arabic are read in reverse to what is done in the West. Hence, the position of both artisans makes much greater cultural sense. In the middle of the pages that separate both artisans, the artists illustrated the representative animals of each culture: a camel in front of a turkey, an antelope in front of a rabbit.

The presence of Sharjah in Mexico is not a clash of cultures, it is the communion of two ways of conceiving the world, one with the desire to open up to the world, both so different from each other but twinned with the imprint of a hug.

Did you know?

Around 4,000 Spanish words derive from Arabic, such as pillow, mason, oil, pottery, almanac, fulano, ojalá, orange, suitcase, watermelon, tamarind, puppeteer, carrot, talc, tarifa, tarima, zaino. The very name of Guadalajara, the FIL headquarters city, comes from the phrase Wādī al-Hijārah (وادي الحجارة), which means valley of stones or river among stones.

The Emirati flag comprises:

• 360 square meters of Arab culture in the FIL
• +200 people that make up the delegation
• 57 Emirati books translated into Spanish (5,300 copies at 150 pesos).

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx