Al-Haddamah: Floods, Ecological Time, and the Modernization of Kuwait
By Rawan Alsaffar
June 2023
“How is it possible for people and places to change so entirely that they lose any connection with what they used to be? Can a man adapt to new things and new places without losing a part of himself?”[1]
Introduction
On 14 December 1934, a historic flood hit the town of Kuwait resulting in the destruction of hundreds of homes and the displacement of tens of thousands of inhabitants.[2] Nearly twenty years later, another flood occurred in 1954, which lasted 12 days but resulted in much less casualties.[3] Today, these floods are remembered by Kuwaitis as ‘The Destroyer’ (Al-Hadāmmah) events. They have been commemorated in national plays, songs and dance representing a collective mythology of the resilience of Kuwaitis in the face of atrocities.[4]
Drawing on the field of political ecology, this essay examines the underlying political structures that inform these natural disasters.[5] The severity of disasters is arguably a result of administrative and physical infrastructures that create an uneven terrain of vulnerabilities within the urban fabric. Based on this framing, what can these floods tell us about the infrastructure of the early Kuwaiti state and its politics? Furthermore, how have the transformations of the infrastructural landscape after the floods affected ecological and familial structures historically and what is their impact today?
This paper will also engage with several sociological theories of time.[6] A close analysis of the temporal aspects of these infrastructural transformations will reveal how they break the ecological cycles that have informed the livelihoods of Kuwaiti society and their family trades. In light of these historic transformations, I will explore how the two flood events are currently remembered and understood. Today, the state has moved away from a dependence on the ecological cycles of rain, yet ecological time persists within contemporary Kuwaiti social structures. This includes family and class structures, ecologically based trades, and political frameworks that were informed by the ecology of the early state. I am interested in tracing how the memory of these transformational floods has changed from grounded events to parables that reinforce the underlying politics and power structures of Kuwaiti families, their sense of time, and their imagination of the state.
The Year of the Flood(s)
In my research on the history of water in Kuwait, I have interviewed many Kuwaitis about their relationship to water. These conversations were conducted with a broad range of Kuwaitis from older generations that lived in the old city, to younger generations that grew up during a more recent period of urbanization of the state. These conversations almost inevitably came back to rain, its infrequency, and the memorable years in which its occurrence was a collective event.
In fact, there is one flood event that often comes up, ‘The Destroyer’ (Al-Haddāmah). This flood was remembered by those whom I spoke to as a catastrophic event that occurred early in the social and physical formation of the Kuwaiti state. There are few historical accounts of the flood in books on the history of Kuwait, yet it has been transcribed and retold as a colloquial narrative to generations of Kuwaitis.[7] This gap in literature is perhaps because the floods help to inform a collective myth about the upstanding morality of early inhabitants of Kuwait, but it does not serve the same purpose within an official state narrative.
When the flood is recalled in the minds of Kuwaitis I spoke to, these memories seem to lack contextual details of the event, like its duration and physical impact on the urban fabric. Al-Haddāmah is often referred to as one historical event, when it consists of two events that occurred twenty years apart. The first flood occurred in December 1934, and the second occurred in December 1954. The floods are not often remembered in regards to their exact date in history, but rather talked about like a parable to demonstrate the collective will and resilience of Kuwaitis in the face of atrocities.[8] In this way, the floods act as a mythology for the modernization of the early state and the creation of the idea of Kuwaiti citizens in the process.
In addition, Al-Haddāmah is one of many named years that Kuwaitis refer to in describing the cataclysmic transformation that Kuwait underwent when becoming a modern nation state. Other named years include but are not limited to: 1871- Al-Taba’a, the year in which Kuwaiti ships sank at sea due to a storm causing merchants and pearl divers to lose their livelihoods; 1912- Al-Tafḥa, the year of wealth and excess; and 1942- Al-Bitāqa, the year of ration cards.
The actual duration of the flood events ranged from hours to days, yet in my conversations the floods are often referred to as a summation of the year in which they occurred. These years are not only a marker of the events themselves but also a way to refer to the year as an entirety. This temporal index is reflected in the use of language to reference these years as societal or economic markers within a broader historical narrative of state formation. The events as annual markers allow citizens of the state to situate themselves within a collective state formation project. Today this provides citizens a national narrative beyond their contemporary familial structures.
Similar to English grammar, in Arabic the use of the word “the'' when referring to these events, acts as a definite article which creates a particularizing effect and signifies a singularity of these events in Kuwaiti history. This indicates that they are unique historical markers and represent a snapshot of societal conditions. If these events occurred often then “the” would not be used before describing them, since it would not be known which event in particular is being referred to. This might also be part of a tradition informed by early lunar Islamic calendars in which it was useful to link a year to a major event that took place, rather than the seasons.[9] With the flood, the use of definite articles removes them from the annual ecological cycles of rain and into the timeline of the social history of the state.
The link between these social histories and ecological cycles have been studied through familial systems in different regions across the Middle East. In particular, the book of British anthropologist Evan-Pritchard's entitled ‘Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People’ describes the political and familial systems of the Nuer people; a tribe of cattle pastoralists within the ecologically restricted climate of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. From this community, Pritchard observes that embedded within ecology are two structures of time that he describes as ecological time which can be understood as a reflection of the relations of people to the environment, and structural time which reflects their relations to each other.[10] Social systems (such as familial and class structures) are informed by ecological systems, but also partly exist within their own right. Larger periods of time are almost entirely structural because changes they relate to are changes in the relationships of social groups rather than the environment.[11] This means that ecological time is limited by ecological cycles, which are annual, and any understanding of time beyond that is inherently relying on social relations. The repetition of the seasonal cycles gives members of a community conceptual knowledge of what lies ahead, and they can organize their livelihoods accordingly. Structural changes are also fixed, as the phases of an individual's life within the social system are already presumed.
The flood events are both part of ecological time and structural time. They are part of a cyclical desert ecology which has informed the relations of Kuwaitis to this environment. They can also be understood within structural time as Kuwaitis link their own life and family timelines to these events. For instance, Kuwaitis often recall their birth year in relation to the floods by saying how many years before or after these events that they were born. Beyond the cycles of ecological time, this might be a way of evoking a “collective memory” that helps to situate Kuwaitis within the familial and class structures of the early state.[12]
In his explanation of the structure of time, Evan-Pritchard describes that “time is not thus a continuum but a constant structural relation between two points, the first and last persons in a line of agnatic descent.”[13] When speaking to my own family, I realized that Al-Haddāmah marked a specific genealogical time. My grandmother is said to have been born the year of the first flood, although early birth records are less certain and linking her birth with this year may have been an easy way to remember it. My mother was born the year of the second flood. In this way, the flood events create the timeframe of one familial generation. This genealogy acts as a marker of time relative to a state that transformed so rapidly between these two floods that many of its spatial and ecological patterns significantly shifted. The two floods represent different experiences of the early state and its social structure, and what it could provide to citizens in terms of infrastructure and social security. The following section details these changes and their impact on familial structures.
Rain and the Urban Fabric of the Early State
In 1899, a few decades before the first flood, Mubarak Al-Sabah, the Sheikh of Kuwait at the time, signed the -Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement- with Great Britain, making Kuwait a British protectorate.[14] This stabilized Kuwait's territorial boundaries, secured its trade routes through British protection and control, and established Al-Sabah as the recognized ruling family.[15] However, Al-Sabah shared power and decision-making with the influential merchant families due to a social pact created between them in 1752.[16] Al-Sabah oversaw the daily governance of the Kuwaiti territories, while merchants continued their overseas trade. In fact, the merchant families provided the ruling family with financial support to manage the town.[17] In lieu of taxation, merchant donations served as the main source of town revenue. The ruling family primarily focused on settling disputes, and fostering territorial expansion, but were not involved in any form of infrastructural development or internal urban governance.[18]
During this time, Kuwaitis shaped their spatial understanding of their communities and societal relations based on the rain and draught ecological cycles. Located in one of the most arid parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the state suffered from limited groundwater supplies and an inconsistent rain cycle.[19] This meant that the built environment including neighborhood structures and housing typologies needed to protect people from fluctuating weather conditions and to accommodate sudden outbursts of heavy rainfall.[20]
Most homes were built to accommodate the changes in climate throughout the year and the seasonal shifts in water availability with a variety of mechanisms for storage and collection. Roofs were sloped toward the street and an extended rain gutter (merzām) (fig 01) projected water away from the walls of the houses to prevent damage during heavy floods.[21] During the dry periods courtyards within homes contained multiple water storage systems including a brackish water well (jilīb), freshwater cisterns (ḥib) and a water collection tank (bircha) to maximize water collection capacities.[22]
Figure 1. Al-Hiji, Yacoub Y. Old Kuwaiti Home with the Merzam (Rain Gutter) Directed Away from the Wall of the House to Prevent Its Collapse. 2004. Photograph.
The primary building materials of homes were sea rocks, mud bricks, and timber poles on rare occasions.[23] While these materials were easily accessible, without any reinforcing structures they were susceptible to annual ecological cycles and vulnerable to rain.[24] Wealthy families were able to build their homes from coral rocks which allowed for more protection from these cycles.[25] Repairing homes was a recurring task and this perpetuated gaps in inequity, as poorer residents were unable to repair their homes as frequently as the rich.[26]
More broadly, while neighborhoods were not explicitly divided according to class structures, merchants lived along the shore to have closer access to ports, creating the more affluent areas of the town.[27] Neighborhoods were divided into smaller areas of approximately ten houses called firjān. It was up to the firjān to settle their disputes and to manage their own infrastructure.[28] This was evident in the infrastructure of water drainage, where each firīj (singular of firjān) built its own drainage ditch (ḥofra) to capture rainwater and alleviate excess flooding (fig 02).[29] These ditches were variably susceptible to flooding depending on their frequency of maintenance which often depended on the wealth of the neighborhood.[30]
Figure 2. Depiction of a Hofra (Drainage ditch) that belonged to the Almahmeed family. It was built to capture rainwater primarily to prevent damage to surrounding buildings. Overflow from the Hofra would sometimes flood into the street. (Image source: Ayoub Hussein al-Ayoub. 2002. The Kuwaiti Heritage: In the Paintings of Ayoub Hussein Al-Ayoub. Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait.)
Ecological Time and the Economy of Water
Rain informed the way that Kuwaiti’s imagined their past and present as they reflected on previous seasons relative to water collected and prepared for future ones.[31] This anticipation of the rain and acknowledgement of its patterns led to the creation of songs to elicit the rain when it was late and to celebrate it when it arrived (fig 03). “Mother of Rain” (Um Al-Gaith) was a song and dance performed by young girls to elicit rain whenever it was delayed. Girls usually handmade dolls of scrap wood and old clothes and carried them from door to door while singing.[32] Songs like this have become a part of contemporary Kuwaiti popular culture, long after the need for rain, perhaps because of the significance that this water once had within society.
Figure 3. Ayoub, A. Hussein. (2). Representation of girls performing the Um Al Gaith (Mother of rain) song and dance. [Painting].
We can better understand the importance of this water through the economic structures that emerged in the early 20th century. With the expansion of the state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the population of Kuwait began to reach limitations in terms of livable resources such as water. In 1909 after particularly low rainfall, local merchants began importing freshwater from the nearby River of the Arabs (Shatt Al-‘Arab), located at the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris.[33] An economy of water emerged with ships bringing in a daily supply of freshwater that rivaled the existing brackish rainwater and artesian well supplies (fig 04).[34]
Figure 4. Jamal, Mohammed A. Special Ships Called Booms with Imported Water from Shatt Al-Arab River Arriving at Kuwaiti Shores. Photograph. Kuwait National Library, 2012.
Water became a family business with several families taking up the trade of importing and transporting it to people's homes.[35] For example, Al-Kindiri was the name given to a water carrier, because of the type of stick that he used to balance water buckets (fig 05).[36] However this was also the name of a group of people that originally lived along the coast of Iran.[37] This is one of many instances in which a family name and its heritage became part of an ecological occupation. In this way, water scarcity was part of the formation of familial structure in the early state linking family occupations to the sources of water needed for everyday livelihoods.
Figure 5. Al-Hiji, Yacoub Y. Alkindiri Carrying Water to People's Homes. 2004. Photograph. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
Evan-Pritchard describes the ecological cycle as one year, during which people performed activities and moved across the dichotomy of rain and drought.[38] For Kuwaiti people, ecological cycles informed occupations with many families basing their trade and labor on ecologically influenced practices such as pearl diving, ship building and water supply.[39] In this way, occupations reflected familial structures, and social strata were distinguished on the basis of occupation and its relative distribution of wealth. This meant that the four class structures that organized Kuwaiti society were both occupational and familial in nature.[40]
Though only making up the smallest faction of Kuwaiti society, merchants existed at the top of the class structure where they financially and politically managed the rest of society as their employers, creditors, and benefactors.[41] The middle stratum consisted of families that lived comfortable but subsistence lifestyles, with jobs ranging from professional occupations such as lawyers, teachers, and religious scholars, to shopkeepers and local craftsmen.[42] The lowest and most populous faction of Kuwaiti society consisted of laborers that worked in pearling and on merchant ships. They relied heavily on the credit-based systems of the merchant families to alleviate their poverty. [43]
The ruling family (Al-Sabah) occupied the same social class as the merchant elites.[44] This power structure greatly informed the hierarchy of governance in the process of early state formation, where merchants and the royal family controlled the projects of municipal development and the formation of government.[45] In this way, family structure was informed by ecological cycles, but also by class and power structures across society. Since Al-Sabah was both a family and a ruling power, their family hierarchy was a key part in the creation of these governance structures and the resulting structures of time. Evan-Pritchard describes that as time shifts from being ecological to entirely structural beyond the limits of an annual cycle, it increasingly requires social groups to inform the structure of time.[46]
Furthermore, while ecological time cycles were not socially controlled, their units and conceptualization were based on the activities of social relations and the significance of these natural changes to human activities.[47] Evans-Pritchard believed that the year was the largest ecological unit of time, after which time concepts ceased to be determined by ecological factors and became more informed by structural interrelations. For Kuwaitis, beyond the seasonal cycles of the year, points of reference in time were oriented according to the family, class, and religious groups. The modernization process led to many events that affected the Kuwaiti collective and impacted families as a result.[48]
The First Flood - Ecological Time and Early State Formation
The first flood event occurred on December 14th, 1934 (fig 06). It was a rapid flash flood in which 300 ml of rain fell on the city of Kuwait within one and a half hours. This resulted in the destruction of 500 homes and the displacement of 18,000 citizens that had to take shelter in schools, mosques, and government buildings.[49] The colloquial narratives of the flood describe a severe shortage of basic life needs for the residents of Kuwait, such as food and water. This resulted in the voluntary and collective actions of Kuwaitis to help each other by providing goods and services.[50] Historic accounts of the flood also describe the formation of a municipal committee to assess the damage caused by the rain, and to drain water from the streets of the city.[51]
Figure 6. Dickson, Violet. House destroyed during Al-Haddāmah Flood, 1934. Source: Kuna Archive.
While the flood has an overarching narrative as an event of collective action, the extent of the damages that occurred were arguably because of the existing infrastructural inequities within the town from the quality of materials used for homes to the unequal maintenance of neighborhoods and access to infrastructure like drainage. These technological and governmental limitations meant that Kuwaiti society was heavily reliant on the ecology of the region to provide stability within the urban fabric.
Ecological time and the resulting cycles of rain were the underlying physical and metabolic fabric of the flood event. This ecological time shaped the family structures that informed the way that the city infrastructure was built and the way the ruling and merchant class responded to the flood thereafter.[52] Since the governance structures of Kuwait were also family structures, we can begin to see how family hierarchies informed infrastructural development of the state. In 1934, the year of the first flood, Ahmad Al Jaber Al-Sabah, the ruler of Kuwait at the time, had just signed the state’s first oil concession agreement.[53] He made the decision to sign this agreement in the name of the Al-Sabah family, so that any royalties from early oil findings went directly to his family and were distributed among them.[54] This happened in a year where Kuwaitis were impacted by the economic effects of the great depression, a trade embargo with Najd because of land disputes,[55] and the collapse of the pearl industry due to the rise of Japanese pearl farming. Despite these economic hardships, Ahmad Al Jaber Al-Sabah continued to levy taxes on all Kuwaitis.[56]
In 1938, tensions began to rise between the ruling family and merchants over taxation, corruption, unfair municipal elections, and the Sheikh’s lack of involvement in the city.[57]
Calls for the formation of an elected council (majlis) emerged, which advocated for popular political representation in Kuwait’s government.[58] In June, Trenchard Fowle, the political resident of Britian in the Persian Gulf, wrote to Ahmed Al-Jaber, advising him to be sympathetic to the council idea in hopes that it would alleviate civil unrest (fig 07). Ahmed Al-Jaber finally agreed to the establishment of the council in July. The movement, which was comprised of the 150 most powerful families, asked for more government funding for public projects, and a larger share of the oil concessions. Historic accounts reflect that Ahmed Al-Jaber did not like the extension of council demands to oil concessions leading him to dissolving the Majlis in March 1939, creating a rift between the merchants and the ruling family.[59] At this point, oil revenue had also made the ruling family financially independent. Nonetheless, merchant families continued to fund public projects and in 1939, they established the Kuwait Water Company to organize, transport, and store water that was imported into the Kuwaiti harbor.[60] During Ahmed Al-Jaber’s reign, there was a clear distinction between the idea of welfare and development through water infrastructure that is heralded by the merchant class, and the project of oil which was constricted as a family affair.
Figure 7. Letter from Trenchard Fowl, Political Resident in the Persian Guld, to Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, dated 18 June 1938. British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/R/15/1/468, in Qatar Digital Library <archive/81055/vdc_100023666188.0x00006b> [accessed 17 April 2023].
Furthermore, in the years after the flood until the end of Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s reign, the ruling family only invested a minimal amount of funding into development projects. Within this absence of funding, Kuwaiti merchant families took on the role of establishing a municipality which oversaw the provision of early zoning and street planning, road improvements and city-wide drainage systems.[61] These development projects instituted by the merchant families helped to foment them as an equal political force to the ruling family in the state.
The Second Flood and State Transformation
طق يا مطر طق بيتنا جديد ومرزامنا حديد…طق يا مطر طق يا مطر طق
“Fall, oh rain, fall, our house is brand new, and our rain drainage is made of steel…fall, fall, oh rain!”[62]
This Kuwaiti folklore song has historically been sung when it rains and is also often used in popular culture and national commemoration (fig 08). It summons the blessings of rain, whilst acknowledging the new metal gutters that allow the household to be protected from rainfall.[63] While it is difficult to date this song, the metal drain mentioned could be the material evidence of the modernization of the state. This arguably signals a departure from the ecological cycles and fragility of the homes of the early state. As Kuwaiti homes modernized their materiality made them more resilient to the ecological cycles. Evans-Pritchard argues that these structural changes can impact significantly familial structures by removing people from their surrounding ecological cycles. [64] How did the impacts of modernization and separation from the ecological cycles change Kuwaiti family structures?
Figure 8. A performance of “Fall, oh rain, fall” for Kuwait national day 1986. “ طق يا مطر طق بيتنا يديد مرزامنا حديد / حفل وزارة التربية الكويت والزمن الجمييل.” Kuwait Ministry of Education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRtSgGCTYUk. Accessed 17 April 2023.
With the reign of Sheikh ‘Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah in 1950, Kuwait began to see major changes in the infrastructure of the state.[65] Al-Sabah initiated a rapid modernization process which included welfare programs and the first master plan proposed in 1952 (fig 09). New neighborhoods were built, including new houses, roads, draining systems, and a desalination power station.[66] New social welfare programs insured the material well-being of Kuwaiti citizens and power shifted from the Merchant families back to the state and the royal family.[67]
Figure 9. Minoprio, Spenceley and MacFarlane. The First Kuwaiti Master Plan Proposal in 1952. Drawing. Kuwait Municipality Archives.
When the second flood event occurred in December 1954, it was much longer in duration than the first, with 12 days of continuous rain.[68] Many homes were destroyed and 11 people were sent to hospital for critical injuries.[69] However, even though this flood was more severe, the infrastructure of the city had developed, including changes in the materiality of homes from mud to concrete masonry units. Several new neighborhoods had also been developed with modern homes and drainage systems to accommodate the excess rain.[70] In addition, Kuwaitis were able to seek shelter in newly built state sanctioned schools. Abdullah Al-Salem also created a flood “reconstruction committee” which was assigned the task of assisting citizens after the flood, helping to rebuild their homes, and providing compensation for any damages.[71]
When comparing the two flood events, we can see that even though the second flood was more severe, it was not as catastrophic because of the physical and governance infrastructures established by the state. These new infrastructures not only limited the amount of damage that the flood caused but also the structures of time, by making citizens more resilient to the floods and thus further removed from ecological time. Homes were no longer as susceptible to destructive damages, Kuwaitis did not rely on the rain for their water resources, and family trades were not as reliant on ecological cycles. [72] This disconnection of the family and structural time from ecological time allowed for the expansion of family lineage to endure challenges from ecological cycles.
Today, the class and familial structures that these ecological cycles produced remain. The merchant and royal family still maintain their status and power within a broader societal framework, and families are still remembered by their ecological trades. Yet seasonal ecological cycles do not present the same risks to Kuwaiti society today in the same way that they once did.[73] When floods occur today, they might create temporary damages to the urban fabric, but they do not significantly impact the social structures of time.
The Flood as a Myth
In remembrance of the flood events today, their details of significance are constantly shifting such as their impact on the city and Kuwaiti families. This could be because in revisiting narratives of the past, we are approaching them in a new or altered state ourselves.[74] If memories are reconstructed to fit the framework of the present, then this remembrance is as much a reflection on the way groups within Kuwaiti society view themselves today, as it is a reflection on the past. The memory of Al-Haddāmah is both a reflection of how Kuwaiti social relations are thought to have been and how that reflects a conceptual idea about society today.
Evans-Pritchard argues that as time passes, the specificity of events fade beyond the limits of historical time, but this is highly dependent on the size of the groups that name the events and conceptualize them.[75] The structural system of time is also mediated between the selection of points of significance to groups that represent a common history. For Kuwaiti society, the recollection of the flood events has different levels of specificity and interpretation depending on the size of the collective that recalls them. This recollection acts as a marker of family history and genealogy within one family, and as a means through which other family hierarchies and lines of ascent can be determined.
Beyond the family, the recollection of the flood defines a specific sense of citizenship. In 1957, the state's first census revealed that non-Kuwaitis made up 45 percent of the resident population.[76] This caused the introduction of a new law in 1959 that narrowed the ability to gain citizenship, defining citizens as families that settled in Kuwait by 1920.[77] This law solidified the idea of citizens as those that experienced the changes of the early state, without allowing for the transformation of the meaning of citizenship thereafter.
Evan-Pritchard argues that beyond historical time, local events are incorporated into a “complex of myth.”[78] These historic events have a position within social structures, but no exact position in historical time. These myths become a means of understanding larger ideas of social significance rather than interrelations of structural segments, in this way they lose their structural stratification.[79] Beyond tradition, pure myth acts to flatten events so that they are always seen in the same time perspective, regardless of their distance. Time begins to shift beyond the annual cycle into a conceptualization of social structure. This means that points of reference into the past are not a means of locating historic time, but rather a method of projecting relations between people and groups. It is a means of reinforcing the structures of present relationships by looking backwards since “relationships must be explained in terms of the past.”[80]
In the case of Al-Haddāmah, the flood events are removed from their exact position in historical time, which is not commonly known, and the details of the flood events are not well understood. However, the flood is a means by which Kuwaitis can understand certain ideas of social significance such as the collective will of Kuwaitis in the face of atrocities, or perhaps the fragility of the early state. The floods also provide a way for Kuwaitis to reflect on their own familial lineages and locate their family origins within early Kuwaiti society. They can reflect on where they lived, and their social and economic conditions at the time of the flood. The flood provides materiality in the form of its impact on the urban fabric in a measurable way, unlike other points of reference in the modernization process.
The Al-Haddāmah event lives on in generations beyond the ecological and structural time of the early state. This could be because as Kuwait became a state, it was increasingly defined by its relationship to outside forces such as the Ottomans, and the British, and their conceptions of time. Furthermore, the reliance on imports from Shatt Al-Arab meant that the stability of the early state was heavily dependent on external territories. As a result, Al-Haddāmah has become an opportunity to capture a localized experience that can only be recollected by citizens of the state as members of an increasingly closed society.
Since the Al-Haddāmah events, the material interventions of the state such as the construction of infrastructure projects and the discovery of oil, have moved the subjects of the state from ecological to social structures in terms of time that is centralized by the state. Al-Haddāmah, like other annual events, defined the years of early state formation, however, this typology of time has ceased to exist. This could be because the infrastructure of the state has removed its subjects from the reliance on seasonal cycles to incorporate them into a singular and universal time framework.
For Kuwaiti families there remains a collective capacity to remember, with each family having its own memories which it commemorates as a representation of its collective ideas. In this way, memories serve as landmarks which coexist as images and notions of the imagined past.[81] The memory of the flood is a story told that reflects on family origins within a modernizing state. It might also be that the flood events and their uneven effects reflected the class structure in Kuwaiti society at the time. By remembering the events, Kuwaitis can identify their own family histories and their origins and class within society. For my own family, the flood acts as a genealogical marker and allows us to reflect on the changing relationship that my family has had with the state.
Figure 10. Timeline of early state formation. Created by the author.
Notes
[1] Abd al-Rahman Munif, Cities of Salt, 1st Vintage International ed. trans. Peter Theroux (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 134.
[2] Abdullah S. Almozain, Tārykh wa Amjād [History and Glories] (Kuwait, n.d.); Maryam Nayef Abdulkarim, Khawātir Kūytiyah min al-Mādy wa al-Hadir [Kuwaiti Thoughts From the Past to the Present] (Kuwait, 2014); Hamad Mohammed Al-Saedan, Mawsū`at al-Kūayt [The Encyclopedia of Kuwait] (Kuwait: Kuwait Foundation For The Advancement Of Science, 1992).
[3] Essa Ramadan “What Do You Know about the Year of Al-Haddamah - Good Morning Kuwait,” YouTube, May 24, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBu3dIE5dfE.
[4] Haitham Boodai “Al Hadama,” IMDb, August 21, 2009. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15128404/; Hassan Busheer, “Alwawi Play,” YouTube, May 16, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQJ7-87-pwo; “Documentary about the Year of Al-Haddamah,” YouTube, April 19, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-t2eLSRZT8.
[5] Neil Smith, “Social Politics Decide What Events Become Disasters,” At Issue: Are Natural Disasters Increasing?, 2010; Neil Smith, Uneven Development : Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space (New York, NY: B. Blackwell, 1984); Maria Kaika, “Constructing Scarcity and Sensationalising Water Politics: 170 Days That Shook Athens,” Antipode 35, no. 5 (2003): 919–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2003.00365.x; Diana K. Davis, The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2016); Nikhil Anand, Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai, Hydraulic City (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017).
[6] E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1969); Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
[7] Abdullah s. Almozain, Tārykh wa Amjād [History and Glories]; Maryam Nayef Abdulkarim, Khawātir Kūytiyah min al-Mādy wa al-Hadir [Kuwaiti Thoughts From the Past to the Present]; Hamad Mohammed Al-Saedan, Mawsū`at al-Kūayt [The Encyclopedia of Kuwait].
[8]“Short Documentary about Al-Haddamah,” YouTube, April 19, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-t2eLSRZT8.
[9] Sherrard Beaumont Burnaby, Elements of the Jewish and Muhammadan Calendars (London: G. Bell & sons, 1901), 376.
[10] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 94.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992).
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ahmad M. Abu-Hakima, “Agreement of 23 January 1899 with Ruler of Kuwait,” in The Modern History of Kuwait, 1750-1965, (London: Luzac & Co., 1983).
[15] Nelida Fuccaro, Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
[16] Farah Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2016), 22.
[17] Arnold B. Kemball, “Memoranda on the Resources, Localities, and Relations of the Tribes Inhabiting the Arabian Shores of the Persian Gulf (1845).” Reprinted in Arabian Gulf Intelligence: Selection from the Records of the Bombay Government, New Series, No. XXIV, 1856, edited by R. Hughes Thomas. (Cambridge, UK: Oleander Press, 1986), 109.
[18] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 29.
[19] Ronald B Lewcock, Traditional Architecture in Kuwait and the Northern Gulf (London: Art and Archaeology Research Papers, 1979), 3.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Yousef A.M. Al Haroun, “Perceptions of the Courtyard in Kuwait: Between Tradition and Modernity,” Journal of Arabian Studies 9, no. 2 (2019): 182–208, https://doi.org/10.1080/21534764.2019.1770422.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Lewcock, Traditional Architecture in Kuwait and the Northern Gulf, 3.
[24] Muneera Al-Rabi'aa, “Kuwaiti Architecture - from Simple Mud Houses to Modernism,” KUNA, accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2684945&language=en.
[25] Ibid
[26] Lewcock, Traditional Architecture in Kuwait and the Northern Gulf, 3.
[27] Abdullah Y Alghunaim,Ma`ālim Madynat al-Kūayt al-Qadyma [Landmarks of Old Kuwait] - Fourth Volume. (Kuwait: Kuwait Center for Research and Studies, 2022).
[28] C. Stanley G. Mylrea, “Kuwait Before Oil.” Unpublished memoirs, 1945–1951.
[29] Alghunaim, Ma`ālim Madynat al-Kūayt al-Qadyma [Landmarks of Old Kuwait].
[30] Ibid.
[31] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 94. .
[32] “The Kuwaiti Rain Songs of Yore,” Kuwait Times, October 25, 2018. https://www.kuwaittimes.com/the-kuwaiti-rain-songs-of-yore/.
[33] Carola Hein, ed., Oil Spaces : Exploring the Global Petroleumscape (New York: Routledge, 2021), 161.
[34] Yacoub Yusuf Al-Hijji, Kuwait and the Sea: A Brief Economic History. (London: Arabian Publishing Ltd, 2010).
[35] Carola Hein, 161.
[36] Mohamad A. Jamal, The Old Crafts, Trades, and Commercial Activities in Kuwait (Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2009).
[37] Ibid.
[38] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 95.
[39] Felix Jones, “Extracts from a Report on the Harbour of Grane (or Koweit) and the Island of Pheleechi, in the Persian Gulf (1839).” Reprinted in Arabian Gulf Intelligence: Selection from the Records of the Bombay Government, New Series, No. XXIV, 1856, edited by R. Hughes Thomas. Cambridge, (UK: Oleander Press, 1986), 52; Pelly, Lewis. “Recent Tour Round the Northern Portion of the Persian Gulf.” In Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. Volume 17, January 1863–December 1864. (Bombay: Education Society’s Press, 1865), 73.
[40] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 27.
[41] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 28.
[42] John G. Lorimer, The Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia. Volume 2, Geographical and Statistical. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing, 1908. Reprinted by Gerrards Cross, (UK: Archive Editions, 1986), 1054.
[43] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 28.
[44] Mary Ann Tétreault, Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).
[45] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 28.
[46] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 94.
[47] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 102.
[48] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 104.
[49] “Memorable Rainfalls In Kuwait’s History,” KUNA,accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1213899&language=en; “Thekra Sant Al-Haddāmah Fī al-Kūayt Qabl 69 ‘Aman,” [The Memory of the Year Al-Haddamah 69 years ago] KUNA, accessed May 1, 2023. December 8, 2003. https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1388496&language=ar.
[50] Abdullah s. Almozain, Tārykh wa Amjād [History and Glories]; Maryam Nayef Abdulkarim, Khawātir Kūytiyah min al-Mādy wa al-Hadir [Kuwaiti Thoughts From the Past to the Present]; Hamad Mohammed Al-Saedan, Mawsū`at al-Kūayt [The Encyclopedia of Kuwait].
[51] Ibid.
[52] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 94.
[53] Archibald H. Chrisholm, The First Kuwait Oil Concession Agreement: A Record of the Negotiations, 1911-1934 (London: CASS, 1975).
[54] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 33.
[55] After World War 1 a war broke out between Kuwait and Najd because Ibn Saud wanted to annex part of Kuwait. This led to the Uqair protocol where the boundaries of Kuwait and Najd were set (without any Kuwaiti representation). After the protocol, conflict resumed, and Ibn Saud imposed a trade blockade against Kuwait for 14 years from 1923 until 1937.
[56] “Kuwait Intelligence Summary: April 16–30, 1936,” Political Diaries, vol. 12. 84.
[57] John Hayhurst, “Kuwait’s Majlis Movement: National and Regional Developments Brought into Focus”, Qatar Digital Library. Accessed 17 April, 2023. Kuwait’s Majlis Movement: National and Regional Developments Brought into Focus | Qatar Digital Library (qdl.qa).
[58] Crystal, Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State, 55.
[59] Hayhurst, “Kuwait’s Majlis Movement: National and Regional Developments Brought into Focus”,
[60] Tom Groome Temperley, “Kuwait's Water Supply,” Journal - American Water Works Association 57, no. 4 (1965): pp. 416-422, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1965.tb01418.x. 419.; Yūsuf ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Tūrky, Lamahāt Min Mādy Al-Kūayt [Glances from Kuwait’s Past], (Kuwait [s.n.], 1997), 54.
[61] Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life, 34.
[62] “Fall, Oh Rain, Fall - A Celebration Hosted by the Ministry of Education,” YouTube, November 21, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRtSgGCTYUk.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 107.
[65] Gwilym Roberts and David Fowler, Built by Oil, 1st ed. (Concord, MA: Ithaca Press, 1995), 104.
[66] Paul Edward Case, “Boom Time in Kuwait,” National Geographic Magazine, December 1952, 777. Accessed May 1, 2018, https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/17338.
[67] Ricardo Camacho, Pan-Arab Modernism 1968-2018 : The History of Architectural Practice in the Middle East, Al-Ḥadāthah Al-’Arabīyah 1968-2018: Tārīkh al-Mumārasah al-Miʻmārīyah Fī al-Sharq al-Awsaṭ (New York: Actar Publishers, 2021), 139.
[68] While the volume of rain from the flood was not recorded, the duration of rain and how it is described in historical records indicated that it was more severe than the first flood.
[69] Abdullah s. Almozain, Tārykh wa Amjād [History and Glories]; Maryam Nayef Abdulkarim, Khawātir Kūytiyah min al-Mādy wa al-Hadir [Kuwaiti Thoughts From the Past to the Present]; Hamad Mohammed Al-Saedan, Mawsū`at al-Kūayt [The Encyclopedia of Kuwait]; Essa Ramadan, “Matha Ta’rif ‘An Sant Sant Al-Haddāmah Al-Thaniyah 1954 - Sabah Al-Kahir Ya Kūayt,” [What Do You Know about the Year of Al-Haddamah] Good Morning Kuwait,” YouTube, May 24, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBu3dIE5dfE.
[70] Crystal, Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State, 92.
[71] Sarah Al-Mukhaizim, “Alhaddamah and Altabaa - Unforgetable Events,” KUNA, November 9, 2017, https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2659711&language=ar.
[72] Abdullah s. Almozain; Maryam Nayef Abdulkarim; Hamad Mohammed Al-Saedan; Ramadan, Essa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBu3dIE5dfE.
[73] It is important to note that ecological vulnerability from water still persists to some extent today but impacts Kuwaiti citizens and non-citizens differently.
[74] Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 60.
[75] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 105.
[76] Kuwait Ministry of Planning. Annual Statistical Abstract. 1966, 27.
[77] Kuwait Amiri Decree No. 15 of 1959, Kuwait Nationality Law, Article 1.
[78] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 107.
[79] Evans-Pritchard, Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, 108.
[80] Ibid.
[81] Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 61.
Author
Rawan Alsaffar is a Landscape Architect pursuing her Doctor of Design degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her work lies at the intersection of landscape, infrastructure and ecology. In particular, her current research focuses on the role of desalination infrastructure in the creation of environmental imaginaries of water and energy in arid landscapes. In practice, Rawan has focused on designing future climate scenarios for coastal and arid environments globally including the US, Middle East and Southeast Asia. This includes an exploration of aesthetic, political and environmental narratives of energy and infrastructure and their histories.
