Flowing Beyond Territory: How an Omani Falaj Wove Trade, Faith, and Cooperation

Majid Labbaf Khaneiki

Assistant Professor

UNESCO Chair on Aflaj Studies and Socio-Hydrology

University of Nizwa

In northern Oman, where the Hajar Mountains descend toward the Gulf of Oman, water has never been just a matter of survival. It has been a currency, a connector, and a quiet architect of social harmony. Few places illustrate this better than the village of Al-Wāsiṭ, whose ancient falaj irrigation system once stitched together farmers, nomads, traders, and travelers across territory, tribe, and landscape.

Al-Wāsiṭ sits, quite literally, “in the middle.” Its name reflects both geography and function. Positioned between the coast and the interior, along a historic trading route linking Muscat and Barka to Jabal Akhdar, the village emerged as a hub where people and goods converged. Rainfall here is scarce—barely 100 to 150 millimeters a year—and summers are punishingly hot. Yet for centuries, Al-Wāsiṭ sustained agriculture, commerce, and social life through a falaj known as Al-Zāʿamī.

The falaj, a gently sloping underground water channel, does not merely irrigate fields. It organizes society. In Al-Wāsiṭ, five tribes—Al-Fulaytī, Al-Rashīdī, Al-Maʿwalī, Al-Kindī, and Al Bū Saʿīdī—gathered around this shared water source. With the exception of the pastoralist Al-Rashīdī, they relied primarily on farming. The falaj allowed them to coexist, cooperate, and prosper without rigid territorial boundaries.

A fragile source, carefully shared

Al-Zāʿamī begins in the territory of the neighboring village of Ḥabrāʾ, drawing its water from shallow groundwater and from seepage originating in another falaj upstream. Its flow is modest and highly variable, swelling after winter rains and shrinking in dry years. At peak discharge, excess water spills out through an emergency outlet to protect the tunnel from collapse.

Because water is scarce, it is never divided by volume. Instead, it is divided by time. The falaj’s entire flow is allocated in a weekly irrigation cycle, from Saturday to Friday, broken into 336 time shares known as athar, each lasting 30 minutes. Farmers take turns directing the full flow to their fields, one after another, according to the number of shares they own.

Some households control dozens of athar; others hold only a fraction. The richest shareholder commands 70 shares, while the poorest has less than two. Land ownership does not automatically come with water rights. Water can be bought, sold, or rented independently, creating a lively local water market that responds sharply to rainfall. In dry years, water prices rise while land values fall. This inequality could easily have fueled conflict. Instead, it gave rise to one of the most important institutions in Omani water culture: waqf.

Charity as infrastructure

Waqf, or charitable endowment, is a religiously inspired practice through which individuals—often the wealthy—donate assets for public benefit. In Al-Wāsiṭ, waqf water accounts for about a quarter of all falaj shares. These endowed shares are not symbolic. They are practical tools that keep the system running and the community together.

Some waqf water is auctioned once a week, generating cash for falaj repairs. Some irrigates endowed palm groves, whose harvests fund mosques, religious schools, burial shrouds for the poor, and routine maintenance. Some flows freely to serve travelers and their animals—those passing through who are essential to turning local surplus into trade. In this way, waqf softens inequality without erasing it. It redistributes resources, reduces social tension, and channels wealth into shared infrastructure. More importantly, it extends cooperation beyond the village boundary.

Water on the move

Perhaps the most striking feature of Al-Wāsiṭ’s falaj system is a 12-kilometer water canal that once stretched more than twice that length. Lined with traditional lime mortar, this shallow channel carried falaj water northward toward the coastal town of Barka. Along its course lay seven pools—some roofed, some open—where water collected between irrigation cycles.

Travelers and pack animals followed this canal like a lifeline. The final pool near Barka even functioned as a public bath. According to local memory, the canal was endowed in the 19th century by a woman from the Al Bū Saʿīdī tribe, one of three sisters who each donated wealth for public good: one built a mosque, another funded its upkeep, and the third created a waterway for travelers.

The canal transformed mobility. For traders, it made long journeys safer and more predictable. For the Al-Rashīdī nomads, it was revolutionary. Unlike wells or springs that anchor grazing to a single point, the canal created a linear water source. Goat herds could range farther, forming multiple grazing circuits along its length. In time, the Al-Rashīdī expanded their herds, increased their income, and eventually purchased a quarter of Al-Wāsiṭ’s palm groves. This was not charity in the narrow sense. It was mutual benefit. Nomads supplied farmers with manure and animal products; farmers provided fodder and crops. Water made the exchange possible.

A network, not a village

Behind this system lay a complex web of cooperation. The canal and pools were maintained by a paid caretaker, the bīdār, whose salary came from revenues generated by endowed palm groves in both Al-Wāsiṭ and Ḥabrāʾ. These groves, in turn, were irrigated by three different falaj systems: Al-Zāʿamī, Al-Zawardī, and Abū Halfah.

Each falaj had its own custodian, or wakīl, responsible for ensuring that water shares reached the endowed groves on time. Water from one village financed infrastructure in another. Profits from agriculture sustained trade routes. Trade generated surplus, which was reinvested into water systems elsewhere. The result was a hydro-economic network that ignored tribal borders and village territories. The falaj’s effectiveness depended not on isolation but on circulation—of water, goods, labor, and capital.

Water versus walls

This reality challenges common assumptions about tribal societies. In Oman, tribal identity has often been associated with territoriality and exclusivity. Yet the falaj economy tells a different story. Its logic rewards openness. Palm groves thrive when dates are exported in bulk. Export requires roads. Roads require water for caravans. Water, in turn, is secured through cooperation and shared investment. Over time, this system produced what might be called a form of premodern capitalism: surplus generation, reinvestment, infrastructure building, and cross-regional trade—long before modern markets or state planning. But this delicate balance is now unraveling.

A system under threat

Since the 1970s, rapid urbanization and the spread of motorized pumps have transformed Oman’s plains. As groundwater levels fall, falaj flows weaken or disappear. With them go the markets, the canals, the pools, and the habits of cooperation they sustained. What once functioned as an integrated system is breaking into disconnected parts, replaced by a modernity that treats water as an individual commodity rather than a shared foundation.

This is not just an environmental issue. It is a social one. The falaj of Al-Zāʿamī shows that water systems can dissolve boundaries rather than enforce them, that charity can function as infrastructure, and that cooperation can emerge even within strongly tribal settings. The lesson is clear but fragile. For centuries, communities like Al-Wāsiṭ built sustainable economies by aligning ecology, culture, and exchange. Preserving what remains of these systems—and learning from them—may be as important as drilling the next well. Water, after all, has always flowed best when it connects rather than divides.