Alshaikh Family
Eighteen photographs spanning roughly forty-five years, from a studio portrait in the 1930s to a neighbourhood football team in 1978. The thread running through them is my grandfather, Abdullah Alshaikh, and his brother Mohammed — their house, their shop, and the places their business took them.
This section shows part of my family history. My grandfather and his brother were orphaned by the 1930s, and their father died while visiting his daughter in Dubai.
The title Alshaikh can mean different things in Arabic, but in the context of my family it designated them by their titles as members of a former ruling family. So rather than being called Abdullah Alshaikh or Khalid Alshaikh, it was Alshaikh Abdullah or Alshaikh Khalid — a practice that still survives among some of the ruling families in the Gulf. By the 1970s, however, they had taken the honorific and made it the family name.
Genetically, my paternal line is J1, which is common among Arab and Semitic populations in the Middle East and is distinct from J2, which is more common in the Levant and Persia. The sub-haplogroup is J1 M11522, which originated in Mesopotamia a few thousand years ago and is common among a section of the Abbasids who fled the Mongol invasion. It is also found in parts of Arabia, among some Iraqis, and in at least two cases in Morocco and Portugal.
Back to the Shaikhs. Their father Zainal left Bahrain for Saudi Arabia with the Dawasir tribe in 1923, but kept travelling between the island of Darin in the Eastern Province, where he lived, Dubai, his base of trade, and Kuwait. He went to British India for medical treatment, then returned to Dubai to see his daughter as soon as he heard that a conflict between Dubai and Abu Dhabi had begun. He was buried there. Abdullah and his brother Mohammed were left orphaned, and moved to Khobar to open a tailor’s shop, which in 1961 became another shop — Riyadh Store.
You might wonder why I have not shared pictures of the women in my family. Personally I would like to, but the social stigma is stronger; they would not want photographs of themselves on the internet. But stay tuned.
The brothers
The earliest picture in the archive. My grandfather Abdullah is on the left, his brother Mohammed on the right.
The old house, Khobar
My grandfather’s house in Khobar, built around 1971 — one of the first in the city to be built from natural stone.
Riyadh Store — King Khaled Street, Khobar
Established 1961 and run by my grandfather with his brother Mohammed. It began selling a bit of everything; by the 1980s it had turned to Japanese toys. It closed for good in 2004, when the family decided to sell.
Egypt
Business trips. Four photographs, dates uncertain.
Lebanon
Several trips to Lebanon, including the ruins at Baalbek.
Hajj
My grandfather on pilgrimage.
Family
Two more from the archive.
If you can identify anyone unnamed here, or correct a date, I would like to hear from you.
