Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

Cruising above the Empty Quarter

Books You Should Read, Oman, Photography, Saudi Arabia, Travel, Yemen


There is a spectacular photographic website devoted to a book by George Steinmetz, who took photographs across the fabled Empty Quarter of Arabia.

I became captivated by Arabia’s Empty Quarter as a young man when I read Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands. The Empty Quarter is larger than France without a single permanent point of water or human habitation. It’s both the world’s largest sand sea and one of the hottest places on earth, and has only been traversed a handful of times. I didn’t want to repeat Thesiger’s epic journeys many decades later, but when I discovered motorized paragliding I found a way to visualize this remote landscape in a new way. I made three paragliding trips into the sands, first for GEO in Saudi Arabia, and then returned two years later to go from Riyadh to Oman and Yemen for National Geographic, and finally made a personal trip to the southern most reaches of the U.A.E. to complete my field work. What I found was one of the most beautiful and unseen wilderness on earth. On its fringes I encountered elements the oil wealth that has forever changed Arabia, but I also found Bedouins still clinging to traditions, and offering up a level of hospitality that was truly humbling. This body of work would simply not have been possible without their kindness.

Empty Quarter is George’s second book, published by Harry N. Abrams. This is the most extensive compilation of photographs ever taken in the Arabian Desert. Measuring 9.5 x 13 inches, the book has 208 pages with 150 color photos and captions.

A Geography Lesson from 1879: #4: Arabia and Turkey

Anthropology/Sociology, Lithographs, Oman, Orientalism, Ottoman Empire, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen


In a previous post I continued a thread from an 1879 school geography text. At the time much of the Arab World was under the control, nominal at times, of the Ottoman Empire. This text divided the Ottoman holdings into those in Asia, discussed below, and those in Europe, to be given in a separate post.

1. Arabia is a great plateau, abounding in deserts, and possessing but few fertile districts, except along the coast. Its area is about 1,000,000 square miles.
2. The Climate is the dryest in the world, rain seldom falling anywhere, and the heat being intense, especially in the lowlands and deserts.
Arabia has been divided into three parts: – ARABIA FELIX, happy or fertile; ARABIA PETRAE, stony; and ARABIA DESERTA, desert. The fist of these divisions borders on the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea; the second lies on the northeastern shore of the Red Sea; and the third includes all of the central portion of the country. The cultivated tracts are generally near the mountains, from which rivers descend in the rainy season and thus enrich the soil. Numerous oases re found in the desert regions. Continue reading A Geography Lesson from 1879: #4: Arabia and Turkey →

Me and the Feminists

Egypt, Gender and Sexuality, Saudi Arabia

By Mona Eltahawy, The Jerusalem Report, November 24, 2010

I was 23 years old and I was interviewing an Egyptian feminist who had just taken over as editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine of the cooking-and-fashion variety, which she had vowed to turn into the go-to magazine for women’s rights.

I was excited to meet her because she was one of the real-life feminists that my recently returned-to-Egypt self loved to meet to help me turn theory into action. Ever since I’d discovered feminist journals on the bookshelves at my university in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the age of 19, I’d devoured all I could of the theory.

I had returned to Egypt at 21 hungry to put it into action. My first encounter with those essays was nothing short of terrifying. That’s how you know what you need – it scares the hell out of you because it encourages you to jump but you don’t know if you’ll ever land. Religious conservatism was suffocating me in Saudi Arabia and I was losing my mind. I didn’t care about landing. I was overdue for a jump.

So returning to Egypt at 21 after 14 years away was a chance to water that seed of feminism with the sustenance of real-life women who embodied it. I looked for them everywhere I could. Many of the older women practically adopted me, inviting me to their meetings, sending me their latest reports and alerting me ahead of important conferences they were holding. Continue reading Me and the Feminists →

Spiritual Malaria?

Ethics, Islamic Law, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi


by Nadeem F. Paracha, blog.dawn.com, July 1
 
A recent fatwa from a ‘Saudi Council of Muftis’ has this advice for fellow
Muslims: Do not say [or write] ‘mosque.’ Always say ‘masjid’ because mosque
may mean mosquito. Another myopic case of Saudi malaria perhaps?

Certainly. But that’s not all. The grand fatwa goes on to suggest that
Muslims should not write ‘Mecca’ but Makkah, because Mecca may mean ‘house
of wines.’ I am serious. But then so are the Muftis. They certainly need to
get a life.

But I’m not all that surprised by such fatwas that usually emanate from
Saudi Arabia. While vicious reactionary literature originating in
totalitarian puritanical Muslim states impact and mutate the political
bearings of various religious parties and groups in Pakistan, ‘social
fatwas’ like the one mentioned above also began appearing in the early 1980s
to influence the more apolitical sections of Muslim societies.

Reactionary literature generated by the Saudi propaganda machine started
being distributed in Pakistan from 1979 onwards, mostly in the shape of
pamphlets and books.

Duly translated into Urdu, they glorify and propagate violent action (jihad)
not only against non-Muslims (or infidels) but also against those Muslims
who fail to follow the thorny dictates of a certain puritanical strain of
the faith. Continue reading Spiritual Malaria? →

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Saudi Arabia, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


The Amir [leader] of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Basir Nasir al-Wuhayshi (also transliterated, “Abu Baseer Nasir al-Wahayshi”), in front of a photograph of the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s holiest shrines, in Jerusalem. The text reads, “At al-Aqsa We Meet.”

Exploiting Grievances: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Executive Summary
THE PAPER IN A NUTSHELL

• Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been remarkably adept at exploiting the grievances of ordinary Yemenis. The group’s rhetoric, however, only goes so far and has not yet translated into a widespread base of support. In order to prevent AQAP from becoming more deeply entrenched, the Yemeni government must move swiftly to increase governmental visibility and improve the delivery of services at the local level. Failure to do so risks a growing al-Qaeda presence on the Arabian Peninsula with grave consequences for regional and international security.

VITAL STATISTICS
• Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the product of a merger between al-Qaeda’s Saudi and Yemeni branches.
• Estimates of the size of AQAP in Yemen vary from 300 to several thousand. The lower figure likely represents the number of active militants within the organization, while the larger figure includes supporters not actively involved in the group’s day-to-day operations.
• AQAP employs targeted messaging that is consistent with the core tenets of al-Qaeda’s ideology but infused with themes that resonate locally within Yemen.
• According to AQAP, Muslims are suffering at the hands of foreign powers that prop up illegitimate and corrupt local regimes that have failed to provide for their citizens. Continue reading Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula →

Ibn al-Mujâwir and the al-Huthi Rebellion

Architecture, Food and Drink, Huthis, Saudi Arabia, Travel, Yemen


Traditional buildings in Sa‘da, Yemen

Over the past few years a major civil war has been simmering, at times brewing over into neighboring Saudi Arabia, in the north of Yemen. It has been called the al-Huthi rebellion and much of the fighting took place around the historic town of Sa‘da, the main entry of the Zaydi imams in the 10th century C.E. The exquisite travel text of Ibn al-Mujâwir, penned and quilled in the early 13th century, has a brief account of the overall region. Here is what Ibn al-Mujâwir, as ably translated by G. Rex Smith, said:

A description of these areas. The [previous] informant, [al-Kirmani], informed me as follows: All these areas [are made up of] settlements similar in size to one another to a greater or lesser degree. Each settlement has its own people. Every Arab tribal group and even bedouin section is [represented] in a settlement. As a result of their behaving badly [towards others], no one can settle with them, either on a temporary or a permanent basis.

A stronghold of stone and plaster has been built in every settlement and everyone living in the settlement has a store in the stronghold in which he keeps all his possessions, taking only from it what he needs on a daily basis. the inhabitants of the settlement surround the stronghold on all four sides. Each settlement is ruled over by an old shaykh of some power, clever and intelligent. When he gives a ruling, no one else shares in, nor opposes, what he advises them to do and what judgement he gives. There is no other authority ruling over all those in these areas and they pay no tax, nor do they hand over any levy at all, except whatever one wishes. thus they are constantly fighting, one getting the better of another’s wealth and the relatives of Zayd taking the wealth of ‘Amr. They do this all the time.

Their crops are wheat and barley; their trees are vines, pomegranates and almonds. All [kinds] of fruits and choice things are to be found among them. Their food is ghee and honey and they [bask] in their God[-given] ease and security. They are tribes who go back to Qahtân and others in their family trees.

Quoted by Ibn al-Mujâwir in his early 13th century travel text, translated by G. Rex Smith, A Traveler in Thirteenth-Century Arabia: Ibn al-Mujâwir’s Târîkh al-Mustabsir (London: The Hakluyt Society, 2008), p. 65.

Tobacco and Toe Stepping

Afghanistan, Egypt, Folklore and Proverbs, India, Lebanon, Lithographs, Orientalism, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia

Kimball Tobacco Company Factory (1846-1905) in Rochester, New York, published a series of “Dancing Girls of the World.” These appear to be from the late 1880s. Several of these purport to depict women dancing in the Middle East. But it seems the artist had never actually seen ladies of the exotic harem. Take a peek for yourself.

Continue reading Tobacco and Toe Stepping →