A new hall in the "Women's Museum" celebrates the biography of an Emirati pioneer

Ausha bint Hussain bin Lootah ... "a woman from Dubai" preceded her era

• Rafia Ghobash: I was surprised by the amount of papers my mother kept.

  Photography: Patrick Castillo

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"A woman from Dubai" ... is the title of the hall that the founder and director of the Women's Museum, Dr. Rafia Ghobash, chose to document the biography and contributions of Emirati women, this time represented by her mother, Ausha bint Hussein bin Nasser Lootah, who was a defining model in the history of Dubai women. And the path of the bright Emirati woman during the sixties

Ousha bint Hussein was distinguished by her influential presence and societal contributions, which were manifested at a very early age after her upbringing at the hands of a father who was famous for intelligence and broad-mindedness, and her example of her grandmother Rafia bint Thani bin Qatami, who also had a great role in shaping her personality, after she strengthened her self-confidence At the age of 14, I assigned her to manage the family's home, which numbered about 100, because of her ability to manage affairs, good behavior in them, mental acuity and personal strength, which Ousha bint Hussein combined with a touch of compassion and a high human sense.

Luminous history

The tour around the “Woman from Dubai” hall at the Women's Museum accompanies the visitor to a long list of documents and papers that Dr. Rafia Ghobash carefully arranged and in very precise classifications, making the viewer stand not only observing and following the most delicate matters, but also captivated by the magic of the details that she was keen on The late Emirati pioneer in preserving, documenting, writing and clarifying it remarkably, as Ousha bint Hussein did not neglect to keep her official correspondence, whether to the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, which dates back to October 24, 1966, or to the sheikhs of the Emirates, or the office of the Egyptian President The late Gamal Abdel Nasser, and a number of other influential figures.

While on the opposite side of the hall, some details of the prominent economic and social role that Ousha bint Hussein played in her time, some of its features embodied in her distinguished relationship with women of that period, and her defense of their rights, which proactively announced her progressive bets on the fields of Empowerment of women »and her awareness of its value in achieving the social renaissance of her country, which she started not only by opening up to her society in all forms and practices, but with a bundle of enlightened ideas in which she was the first to open up to the other, and set out to discover it with the experiences of traveling to Lebanon by land, and passing through several countries from Saudi Arabia, through Kuwait, Iraq, and Syria, and even Lebanon, accompanied by family and assistants, to be the first Emirati woman to go through this experience at that time.

Contributors

Dr. Rafia Ghobash, since her inception of the Women's Museum in Dubai, and recounting the stories of his most influential historical figures, does not hide her eagerness to activate her mother's presence in the museum by displaying some of her outstanding contributions, alongside Dubai women in the sixties, considering that «the opening of this new hall today is within The six halls of the Women’s Museum in Dubai constitute an attempt to get close to the details of this exceptional woman’s life that preceded her age, and inform us about her contributions and the path of her life, and thus distancing itself from the “personalization” in which the images of the mother were constantly present in the heart and memory of the daughter.

At the time when the book "A Woman Before Her Age", which was finally released, came as a basic and encouraging motive for the opening of this hall, after a delay of about eight years, as Dr. Rafia asserts: “I thought that I would write about my mother, but I wrote about Dubai society in the sixties. And I lived with this woman that I do not know how to describe her, leaving her contemporary with the task of talking about her, as she was really a woman ahead of her time and time. She respected her culture and religion and led us to adhere to him and his values, stressing good manners, helping others, and recognizing what is known in all her messages.

She added, "The book took me on a trip to Dubai in the sixties, with intense female presence, but I did not overlook the presence of the man in their lives, and when I put (a bisht) my father, who is the wife of Mrs. Ousha, I would like to confirm that these roles did not come out of nowhere."

Schools of Ethics

Describing the experience of establishing the new hall that embraced the memories of the late and her economic, social and humanitarian achievements, Dr. Rafia said: “I was surprised by the amount of papers my mother kept, as there was a huge amount of messages that centered around her correspondence with her children, her suffering, their separation and her constant direction to them, psychologically and morally, What struck me most was a sentence from a story that she wrote about three pages about her life, in which she said: I am not a student in modern schools or a bearer of degrees, but she is experienced, and I would like to make it clear to the new generation that every person must first have good morals, be generous to manners, and be young with kind words. In order to win the hearts of the worshipers, because nothing is possessed by a person but good morals and good manners.

And she continued: "I have not forgotten anything from my mother's history, and I have learned more to re-read her letters again."

Inspirational role model

On the importance of this achievement “A Woman from Dubai”, which is being added today to the Emirati cultural scene, Dr. Rafia emphasized that the hall sheds light on another source of culture, which is the functioning of ordinary people in the UAE society, like other societies.

She explained: “There are personalities who left clear imprints in their social and economic surroundings, and therefore the people of culture should, today, not ignore the study of these biographies, get acquainted with them, pay attention to them and follow the sources of knowledge in them, and include them in the school curricula, for example, because when the child is identified in an age group Determined to this type of influential personalities, he can find in the history of his fathers and grandfathers what can be emulated and recognized to glimpse the internal strengths that made these models, and the ways to challenge them to the surrounding circumstances, and their ability to then participate and contribute to the cultural and societal scene in general.

gold market

The Women's Museum is located in Dubai, in the Gold Souk area in Deira, on the site of an old house known as the “House of Girls”, and it was called this name by the people of the neighborhood in the forties of the last century, because the women who lived in it did not marry, so the name was consistent with the idea of ​​the project Cultural documentary, which includes six main halls, including a hall bearing the name of Diwan Ousha bint Khalifa Al-Suwaidi (Girl of the Arabs). It is considered an icon of the museum because of the poems of the late Emirati poet, as well as a group of small halls and corners that are concerned with the history of women in the Emirates and their present , And everything related to the aspects of her life from the thought, culture, arts, literature, heritage, history, style and rituals of her daily life.

Rafia Ghobash:

"(The hall) sheds light on another source of culture, which is the functioning of ordinary people in the UAE society."

"There are personalities who left clear fingerprints in their surroundings, and the people of culture today should not ignore them."

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