Shihhi

The Shihhi are members of the Shihuh, an Arab tribe of the northern Hajar mountains and the Musandam peninsula, holding the country around the old port of Julfar. Their clans trace their arrival to a Yemeni migration around the year 200, while the Kumazarah branch keeps Kumzari, the only Iranian language native to the Arabian Peninsula.

In winter they lived in stone mountain villages, watering terraced fields and herding goats; in summer they descended to the coast for the date harvest and pearl fishing, carrying their long-handled jerz axe.

Julfar grew rich on Gulf and Indian Ocean commerce before the Portuguese overran it in the sixteenth century, and it was abandoned for nearby Ras Al Khaimah. Sheltered by their mountains, the Shihuh kept their independence, warred with the Al Qasimi sheikhs and leaned to the suzerainty of Muscat.