Musaibat

Musaibat (Arabic: ديرة المسيبات, romanized: Dīrt l-Msībāt) is a small agricultural and livestock village, located in the northeast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in the Hajar Mountains, Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.

The village has about 20 houses, huts and stone cabins; corrals and terraces supported by dry stone walls, without mortar, which allow water and soil to be retained, destined for pastures and other agricultural uses; pipelines to collect runoff water; sheepfolds; and some other constructions in ruins.

[4] To the southeast is the semi-abandoned village of Yinainir, and to the west the current village of Lahsa, on the banks of the Wadi Jib, from which Musaibat is accessed following a well-defined donkey trail, which town inhabitants use daily to transfer food and other merchandise, generally on the back of donkeys.

[6] The name of this village was not recorded in the documentation and maps produced between 1950 and 1960 by the British Arabist, cartographer, military officer and diplomat Julian F. Walker during the work he carried out to establish borders between the then called Trucial States, later completed by the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom, on 1:100,000 scale maps published in 1971.

Nonetheless, historical references to this place, and its name, have been preserved through the meticulous studies and publications carried out by the British anthropologist William Lancaster.