Messi  of Arabia: A Bisht for the Best

Messi wearing a bisht

By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid
President, Asia Journalists Association

CAIRO: Football doesn’t only give its lessons from playing on the field, but also other lessons, revealed by the sport sociology that are not less important in playing outside the green rectangle.

The most important sporting event, in parallel with the Olympic Games, by which I mean the World Cup, seems more media sensational. It is an event that receives billions of viewers, and its expenditures are also $ billions – before and during the four weeks that witness the holding of 64 matches – starting with the group stage and ending with the final game.

In the hours following the closing ceremony, there was no talk of wonderful goals, missed opportunities, referees’ mistakes, players’ collapses, coaches’ failures, professionals’ mothers, retirement of losers and expelled.

All these became Much Ado About Nonsense, and went away, but one scene of the organizer of the FIFA Qatar 2022 World Cup; HH Emir Tamim, giving the Argentina captain Lionel Messi, the winner of this cup, a royal Bisht.

The Bisht is known in some spoken Arabic dialects as Mishlah, or in classical Arabic Abaa; a flowing outer gown worn over the garment.

The Bisht is usually worn for prestige on special occasions such as weddings, festivals such as Eids (Feasts), or for Friday prayers (and even funeral prayers)

I still remember that when I visited a family in the city of Al-Qusayr, near Homs, in beloved Syria, before the years of destruction, the host did not find anything more valuable than but his black Bisht with its golden frame, to gift me as if he had given me a crown.

Years before that, when I was a high school student, I received a photo card from my uncle wearing a Bisht, while he was working in Bahrain, symbolizing a great position he wanted to document.

As for my father, when he returned from Hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah, he never forgot to wear his Bisht – that he had bought from Makkah – when he went to pray in the mosque, especially on Fridays.

Thus, for me, wearing a Bisht was associated with honor, so what if such honor came from the Emir?

Emir Tamim placing a bisht on Messi

This flowing traditional Abaya distinguishes the wearer. People say that no fabric can distinguish a handmade Bisht; that is why the art of stitching a Bisht is a skill that is passed down from generation to generation.

Al-Ahsa region in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia has been home to the best Bisht tailors for more than 200 years and top producers in the Gulf countries since 1930.

So, it was no surprise, when I discovered that fine lenses of photographers spotted the brand of the Bisht presented by Sheikh Tamim for Messi, a sign of one of the most respected Bisht dealers in Qatar, Bisht Salem is from a family originally from Al-Ahsa, and they started their handcrafted Bisht business in Doha in the 1930s.

Commentators were divided on the most famous picture, a Bisht for the best Messi, between those who see the scene as spontaneous and instinctive, following the Arabization of the icons of the 2022 World Cup, or its logo, Laeeb, and in the stadiums, the most famous of which is the house in the form of a tent (Al Bayt Stadium), singing in Arabic, and ending with poetry, as if we were in front of Poetic Souq Waqif, a successor to the traditions of Souq Akaz in the Arabian Peninsula.

But others saw that it a prepared move, and that Messi – as an Arab lady writer published – did not agree until they gave him 50 million, to wear the Bisht! (She said specifically: Qatar initially offered $27 million, but Messi did not accept, and demanded $50 million)!

And if that “agreement” was secret and known only to the writer and the Palace, the price of the Bisht worn by the legendary star Messi was 4.500 Qatari Riyals.

Lawrence of Arabia was the most famous person from outside the Arab region in the twentieth century to wear the Arabian cloak, and today Messi of Arabia has become the most famous, especially since his image wearing his Bisht on Instagram, achieved more than 58 million likes in a span of hours.

The photo achieved its goals, and the Argentine fans, wearing the Deshdasha and Bisht, traveled to Buenos Aires, to celebrate with hundreds of thousands around an obelisk inspired by the Ancient Egyptian civilization, which lived for decades waiting for this moment, and so nothing remains of history but names, and only cultures can cross borders.

Argentinean newspapers welcomed the mantle, as an Arab tribute, similar to the gifting of the key to the city in Latin culture.