Souq Wagif - A Modern Nostalgia

  "You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition" Theodore Bikel.

For this blog I’m going to be talking about Souq Wagif in Doha. I will be explaining why and how was the Qatari government successful in blending aspects of modernity along with traditions.


Souq Wagif (The Standing Market) was once a place where Bedouins traded and bargained during weekends, and is a now a masterpiece of architecture, art and cultural heritage. Thousands of people from all around the region still visit Souq Wagif to purchase traditional goods such as spices, food, jewelry, clothes, perfumes and even falcons.

It was first built more than hundred years ago, however, it was renovated and rebuilt in 2004. The unique thing about how it was renovated is that they used traditional building material as well traditional Qatari architectural techniques.

They did that to preserve the authenticity of the Souq and its general appearance, although they have added more buildings for example, the Art Gallery and Center. The aspects of modernity were obvious for instance, Souq Wagif has three world class hotels, cafes and restaurants, both international and traditional Qatari food

I decided that if I were to find out how people really feel about the changes that were made, I have to ask those who directly effected. In this case it was the shop owners. I conducted an interview with two textiles shop owners.


Surprisingly, they both had different opinions regarding the Souq Wagif’s past and presence. The older shop owner preferred the old golden days, the younger one embraced modernity. They both agreed that modernity did make their lives easier.

Modernity is the result of industrialization, and different generations have different opinions regarding how negative or positive our post-tradition present is. Can modernity blend well with traditions? Of course, as they it gets the best of both worlds. Qatar’s economy is booming and even though our society is being restructured and modernized, our government is encouraging us to maintain our traditional values and rich cultural heritage.

In Souq Wagif, the old meets new, the past meets present and the locals meet foreigns as a result of globalization and Mcdonaldization in a sense.

P.S. The photos were included in the video.

Qatari Women: Family life vs. Work

Marriage in Qatar is a serious matter that is intertwined with honor. Women’s place is upheld in the Qatari society by protecting the women’s reputation and thus, protecting the family name.  The common ideology that was circled around in Qatar, until very recently, was that a woman must marry in order to fulfill her role in the society, and her role in leading a normal life.

Women’s role becomes institutionalized with in the nuclear family. A Qatari woman who wants to become successful has to prove herself successful in a family life before she is considered to be successful at work.

Women in Qatar have to take on the role of establishing a family and taking care of it. Any shortness in fulfilling that role means that something is wrong with the woman. Qatari women can never be breadwinners in the society, as the man has to provide for everything. Breadwinner is a term that describes the tradition of the man figure providing for his family. If the woman works then that’s her prerogative and she may choose to deal with her income however she’d like. She can spend it on her children or herself, but the children have to be living a well-provided life from the father’s income.  

Women take on the role of a working individual in order tofill their time. That in itself is seen as an accomplishment as instead of sitting home alone, women choose to fill their time by doing work. However, first and for most the work they do can be interrupted by any of a working mother’s children’s demands. If the child calls his mother to pick him up from school early, the mother has to dismiss her work and pick up her child. Therefor, Qatari women are on a constant working shift, from their real work hours to the second shift they have at home running the household.

The video I’m sharing for this blog is a statement about a happy Qatari woman. Analyzing it shows that there’s no husband in the picture, only kids. However, including kids indicates the presence of a husband at some point. The short film couldn’t have been done with out showing the complete life of the woman. The woman’s life is complete by having a perfect house life, indicated by the happiness of her children, and a perfect workspace.

"Modern Abaya"

The culture and traditions of the Middle East are wildly different than they are in the west. Due to the majority of the Middle East being Muslim, the differences of cultural behaviors and social norms are drastic. Women in the Middle East are held under certain expectations that they’re anticipated to follow. The cultural “norm” of how a Middle Eastern woman dresses and acts is considered to be very conservative. We’re expected to be “covering” ourselves from head to toe when we’re out in public or are around men; that however is partly due to religion. Nevertheless in the Gulf, that is considered part of their tradition, and not just for religious purposes. In the Gulf women are expected to wear the Abaya. The Abaya is a loose black robe that covers the women from their neck down to their toes. The original purpose of the Abaya is to cover up the woman, and be loose enough in order to hide the shape of her body, and not attract attention to her.

In the media, Muslim Arab women are often portrayed as very conservative, veiled, and regularly, if they’re from the Gulf, wearing Abaya’s. However, what are also portrayed in the media are ideas of urbanization and modernization. In the recent years, due to the globalization and modernization theories, traditions and cultures in the Middle East are being thrown out the window. For the purposes of being “modern” and transitioning into urbanization, cultures and traditions that we once followed for essential reasons are being forgotten or drastically changed. The Abaya that was once supposed to serve the purpose of covering a woman up and concealing the shape of her body is now turned into a fashion statement. That may be due to the fact that the women here feel alienated from themselves. Marx’s theory of alienation helps us understand that. It basically states that due to the social structure and social class stratification enforced on us by society, we eventually begin to feel detached from our work, from our life activities, from ourselves, and from the people around us. We can use this theory and apply it to the situation here. Because the women are forced to wear the Abaya and look like every other woman around them, they’re beginning to feel invisible. They can’t express their personalities through fashion; they can’t stand out. This makes them feel alienated from themselves and from society, and I believe that this may be one of the reasons for the invention of the “modern Abaya”.

A variety of designers have turned the Abaya into beautifully designed dresses. I cannot deny that the art and thought put into designing those items of clothing is spectacular, but they’re not Abaya’s. Many new designers have come up with “modern Abaya” collections, a few Arab’s and a few westerners. The students of VCU in Qatar have come up with a project called the “Abaya Project” where they all contribute their beautiful designs of modern Abaya’s.

Here are some examples to demonstrate my explanations of today's modern Abaya.

The following video highlights a Modern Abaya Exhibition held in Katara’s Art Center here in Doha, displaying their beautiful designs.



I do agree that these new designs are very inventive, and can allow a woman to highlight her beauty whilst still being conservative. It allows them to express themselves and present their personalities through fashion. But going back to our original values, cultures and traditions, this is defying the purpose of the Abaya and hence defying our cultures and traditions.

Qatari Families losing Its Ties

Qatar has changed over the past couple of years. It changed in terms of its traditions and the development of the country. Some might argue that this change is positive and some might argue that its not. However, if we look at the family links of Qatar today and Qatar 60 years back, the change is quite vast. In the olden days of Qatar, all Qatari family members lived close by, they all lived in the same street, and their houses were stuck to each other. In cohen’s reading, he mentions that the modernization had resulted in the separation of family ties in East England. This also happened in Qatar, the families are not as close as they were. You rarely find families in Qatar that live next to each other or are in the same area. There are some today, in compounds but they usually separate when they get married. This is a generational conflict, because the way the older generation was raised is different than how people of today are raised due to the family ties. Personally, I have some cousins that I barely know. However, my parents for example their cousins are very close to them, they all lived next to each other, and were 24/7 with each other. This issue also causes the weakening of historical and cultural continuity. This is because it disperses the family ties in the Qatari culture and the parent culture itself. For example, one of the people I interviewed in Khretiyat area, said that because of the new highway and the modernization of Qatar, her family had to disperse. She now has family near Villagio, Landmark and Al-Khor. Another Qatari female said that she feels like she is not close to her family the way her parents are towards her grandparents. She talks about how she was not raised around her family and cousins the way her parents and grandparents lived. She showed me some pictures, of how different their lives were. You can tell that its very diverse now because when i went around West Bay, there were Qatari families living with Western neighbours. This never really would've happened years back. You can tell the difference of the people from the neighbourhood how its being more dispersed and different than how it was before. From Past knowledge, it is clear that subcultures are formed in reaction to social or economic or political changes. In this case, Qatar’s development and modernization has broken family ties

. We can use Cohen’s argument that the modernization has resulted in the loss of family relations.

Abayas In Qatar

The recent readings we had this time were so broad that it made it difficult to decide what to write about. However, words such hegemony, material culture and cultural relativism stood out to me when I started to apply those terms to real life situations here in Qatar. We are not passive when it comes to the media. We, humans, tend to critically analyze and interpret what we see, read and hear. In this case, abaya trends and fashion in Qatar emphasize this theory because most women here are using abayas as a way to resist and protest against the old traditional culture. At the same time, they’re conforming the culture by resisting western influence. In order to observe and have a better understanding, I decided to take a walk in Landmark Mall and observe abaya stores and women wearing abaya.

First of all, we should keep in mind that wearing an abaya is symbolic of the Qatari material culture. By material culture, I mean everything that is part of our construct within our physical environment, basically, anything that we can touch. While walking through an abaya store, I noticed how most women bought what was either advertised through the media outlets such as posters and magazines, or custom made abayas that had some touches of western fashion. This goes back to my point, women here are resisting the western influence, but simultaneously protesting against traditional and simple culture of wearing a black abaya. In other words, abayas have become a form of expression and cultural relativism.

Another factor I noticed was the ideology behind wearing an abaya. By ideology, I mean the system of concepts and relationships by accepting its causes and effects. In other words, wearing an abaya is embedded within the Qatari culture and society if you don’t wear it, you will be looked at as either foreign or just different. It seems to be part of the social norm to wear an abaya. From what I observed tonight, most young women in their teenage years were wearing fancy abayas, whereas older women were wearing more simple and elegant abayas.

Before walking out of Landmark Mall, I noticed a group of young women wearing fancy abayas with westernized designs that looked almost like dresses. In sociological terms, that could be a possible hegemony. Yes, women here are resisting western influence, but the West has already used its power to cause voluntary consent, as it seems the natural order of things. Some abaya wearers tend to wear the abaya just because of the societal norms and for the respect of the elderly. One of the girls i talked to said, "I only wear it cause of my father. I take off my abaya when i leave the country. I design most of my abayas from most fashion trends in Europe, i guess that is a way for me to express my taste in fashion." All in all, we should keep in mind that “Culture” is socially constructed.

The link between food and culture

Every country has its traditional food. Like any other country, Qatar has certain types of food that represent the culture of the country. However, some of these types of food originated from other countries and then brought up in Doha. There are a several main dishes shared in Doha and amongst the Gulf countries as well which shows the cultural levelling amongst these countries. The main dish that is cooked in Doha is The Thibeeha, which is known to be a symbol for celebrations or occasions. This dish is composed of rice and herbs with meat. The Thibeeha is a very important aspect of our culture and beliefs, since it is to show respect for the guests. Welcoming a guest in the Qatari society is very important.

As a tradition, Arabic coffee must be served with dates. Dates are also part of the Muslim culture, and the production season of dates usually increases during Ramadan, which is the holy month in Islam. This is due to the reason that when its time to break our fast, we have to have at least one date before starting to eat.

There’s a cultural diffusion in Qatar when it comes to food. Food companies have been brought from all over the world to Doha, providing all types of food available. There is a wider selection where one can choose from. For example: Chinese, Lebanese, Moroccan, Indian, American, French and many other types of food. These range of different types of food allows Qatar to have selections and options for tourists to choose when they visit Qatar for the first time.

There are a few norms

when it comes to eating in Qatar. For example in gatherings, the youngsters should always allow the elders to sit first on the dining table and serve them anything they would request. This shows respect for the eldest. There are certain types of food in Doha that are preferably eaten using the hands. Fish and crabs for example are eaten using the hands. However, not everyone follows this rule but this is how most Qatari citizens eat fish and crabs.

Souq Wagif

Visiting the city of Doha would not be completed unless one sits in one of the coffee shops at Souq Waqif and enjoys the tranquility that the place possesses. Souq Waqif is one of the best and favored destinations for many citizens and visitors, because it offers a genuine cultural atmosphere that is inspired through the ancient-looking buildings. The souq provides the visitors with the appealing sense of the Arabic and Islamic civilizations that are remarkably outstanding on the detailed and mesmerizing designs. The whole concept of having a distinguished design of the souq’s buildings is to identify the visitors with the story of Qatar back in the days when houses were built from clay, and notice the major transformation that occurred over the years. With the availability of traditional stores, visitors experience the old shopping habits that revolved around Qataris and merchandise.






‘Wagif’ in Arabic means standing in a rigid position, but this name was not the very first name that was used to call this souq. It was known as Souq Almakbarah, which means cemetery souq. Previously, there used to be a cemetery that was right in front of Souq Wagif, but it was then taken over to build a parking area for the visitors, and that was when the name changed to ‘Wagif’. One of the outstanding features of the souq, is the first hotel built in Doha that was named ‘BismAllah’ when it first was built. The hotel consists of 15 rooms and a restaurant next to the reception area.





Aside from the hotel, there is ‘Asheerij Café’ that serves traditional coffee and dishes such as Harees, algeemta, madrooba and bajela. This café has an open space right on its second floor for visitors to enjoy shisha in the fresh air. Also, it attracts people to come in by hosting various khaliji musicals to rise up the traditional atmosphere.





What I personally like about Souq Wagif is the diverse atmosphere that is built when citizens and tourists come together. A group of foreign people can sit in a traditional coffee shop and discuss an entirely different culture. This sort of interaction remarks the fondness that occurs between two totally different cultures that are brought together for amusement and relaxation.