Masafi مسافي
Masafi Fort
Masafi
Coordinates:25°18′48″N56°9′46″E / 25.31333°N 56.16278°E /25.31333; 56.16278
Country	United Arab Emirates
Emirate	Ras Al Khaimah,Fujairah
Area
• Total	24.25 km2 (9.36 sq mi)
Elevation	567 m (1,860 ft)
Population  (2017-07-01)
• Total	7,637[1]
Time zone	UTC+4

Masafi (Arabic:مسافي) is avillage located on the edge of theHajar Mountains in theUnited Arab Emirates.It sits at the inland entrance of theWadi Ham, which runs down toFujairah City. The border between the emirates ofFujairah andRas Al Khaimah runs through the town, which houses a barracks used by theUnited Arab Emirates Armed Forces.

Before the construction of theSharjah toKalba road and the 'truck road' betweenDibba and the 311 highway atRas al-Khaimah, the road through Masafi was the only route from the interior to the East Coast of the UAE. The road from the inland town ofDhaid splits at Masafi, leading to Dibba to the north andFujairah City to the south.^[2] The road connecting Masafi, Fujairah and Dibba was constructed in the 1960s by theTrucial Oman Scouts.^[3]

A number of excavations point to Bronze Age habitation in Masafi,^[4] as well as a thriving Iron Age settlement with a sophisticated system of irrigation and water resource management,^[5] which appears to have been abandoned during theIron Age III period at approximately 600 BCE.^[6]

There is evidence of ritual and community development during the Iron Age at Masafi, as well as of a snake cult which is also seen in many other Iron Age settlements across the UAE, includingSaruq Al Hadid,Muweilah, nearbyBithnah,Ed-Dur,Tell Abraq,Rumailah and Qusais.^[7]

Masafi has a recently restored (2012) stone and adobe fort, smaller but architecturally similar to the nearbyAl Bithnah Fort, also restored as part of the same project. The fort encloses an exceptional example of afalaj, an underground waterway constructed to channel water from the mountains to the oasis towns of the interior.^[8]

At the turn of the 20th century, Masafi was a village of some 50 houses, with the villagers being split between theSharqiyin andMazari tribes,^[9] with some 30 cattle, 350 sheep and 5,000 date palms.^[10]

Masafi was the site of a rough airstrip used by the Trucial Oman Scouts.^[11]

Masafi is a branded producer ofbottled water, juices and other consumer goods such astissue paper. The company's 250,000 m² bottling plant is located in the northern part of the town, part of Ras Al Khaimah. Capable of producing 90,000 bottles an hour, the plant produced, until 2017, the only bottled water in the UAE labelled as mineral water,^[12] changing its branding to identify as 'Deep Earth Water'.^[13]

In 1980, the company was the sponsor of the first Masafi Car Rally, a popular annual event no longer held.^[14]

Located some 5 km West of Masafi (on the Dhaid Road), the Masafi Friday Market (Souk Al Juma'a) is actually open week-round and has become a popular tourist destination, consisting of a number of permanent and semi-permanent stalls selling toys, souvenirs, plants, carpets and rugs, pots and fruit and vegetables.^[15][16] The market grew around a number of farmers and other vendors using the presence of speed bumps on the road slowing traffic to sell vegetables and accessories from the backs of their trucks and expanded over time to form the present township.^[17]

Much of one side of the market (on the Masafi/Dhaid carriageway) was destroyed by fire on 30 May 2015.^[18]

• Masafi Club

• Populated places in the Emirate of Fujairah
• Villages in the United Arab Emirates
• Populated places in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah
• Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates

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