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The Wells of Memory

One of the first travelers in a century to walk through the Hejaz desert of Saudi Arabia !aul Salo"ek
encounters a fabled "ast of caravans and "ilgrims of em"ires come and gone#
By Paul Salopek
Photograph by John Stanmeyer
There are thousands of wells in the old Hejaz# We walk to them#
Sometimes their water is sweet# More often it is salt# $t matters little# These wells which "ock the long%
disused caravan trails of Arabia are monuments to human survival# &ach concentrates a fine distillation
of the landsca"e# And the same a""lies to the "eo"le who drink from them# $n the Hejaz'the fabled
realm of a vanished kingdom of the Hashemites who once ruled the (ed Sea coast of Saudi Arabia'
there are bustling wells and lonesome wells# There are wells whose waters convey the chemistry of
sadness or joy# &ach re"resents a cosmos in a bucket# We take our bearings off them#
Wadi Wasit is a well of forgetting#
We reach it on a fiery day in August# We are halfway through a more than )**%mile foot journey "erha"s
the first made in generations from +eddah to +ordan# We rest in the dendrites of gray shade thrown by the
well,s two thorn trees# Here we meet the running man#
He arrives in a "icku" truck# !ortly mustachioed a -edouin camel herder he is friendly curious
talkative jittery# He mistakes us for treasure seekers# .Why else walk through the scorching desert/0 He
has come to sell artifacts#
12ook at this34 he says# He dis"lays a tin ring# The iron scabbard of a sword# A well%rubbed coin#
How old are these things/
The running man doesn,t know# Kadim jidn, he says5 6ery old# He shrugs#
The Hejaz'a crossroads where Arabia Africa and Asia meet and long tied by trade to &uro"e'is one
of the most storied corners of the ancient world# $t has seen millennia of wanderers# Stone Age "eo"le
hunted and fished their way north out of Africa through vanished savannas# !eo"le from some of
humankind,s first civilizations'Assyrians &gy"tians and 7abataeans'roamed through here trading
slaves for incense and gold# (omans invaded the Hejaz# .Thousands of the legionaries died of disease and
thirst#0 $slam was born here in the dark volcanic hills of Mecca and Medina# !ilgrims from Morocco or
8onstantino"le "robably drank from the well in Wadi Wasit# 2awrence of Arabia may have gul"ed its
water too# 7obody knows# 9adim jidn#
1Take it34 the running man says# He shoves his or"han finds at us# 1Take it for free34 -ut we decline to
buy his curiosities#
!acking our two camels to leave we s"ot him once again# He is running now's"rinting around the well#
He has removed his white robe# And he is running through the desert in his underwear circling the well
under the ruthless sun# He runs with abandon# Ali al Harbi my translator takes a "hotogra"h# Awad
Omran our camel handler guffaws# -ut $ cannot laugh# He is not mad the running man# Or drugged# Or
"laying some joke# He is lost $ think# As we all are when we abandon history# We don,t know where to
go# There is an abundance of "asts in the Hejaz# -ut $ have never been to a "lace more memory%less#
A small, bottomless well in the Hejaz5 a white "orcelain cu"#
$t holds dark rich coffee# $t sits ato" a "olished wooden table inside an elegant mansion in the "ort of
+eddah# Three articulate Hejazi women refill the cu" endlessly# They take turns talking wishing to correct
mis"erce"tions about Saudi Arabia5 that the kingdom is a homogenized society a culture flattened by its
famously austere brand of $slam a nation rendered dull by esca"ist consumerism and by "etrodollars# 7o#
Saudi Arabia they say is a rich human mosaic# $t enfolds many distinctive regions and cultures5 a Shiite
east a :emeni south a 2evantine north and a tribal -edouin stronghold in the center'the "uritanical
redoubt of the 7ajdis home of the ruling dynasty the House of Saud# The women insist moreover that
no region in Saudi Arabia remains more inde"endent more "roud than the realm that has guarded the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina since the tenth century'the vanished kingdom of the Hejaz# ;ully
inde"endent by the end of World War $ the Hejaz was anne<ed by the Al Saud dynasty only in =>?@# $t
remains a "lace of contradictions of com"le<ity of tensions between religion and geogra"hy# On the one
hand5 a sacred landsca"e its holy cities long forbidden to nonbelievers# On the other5 the most
cosmo"olitan and liberal corner of Saudi Arabia a melting "ot an entre"At and ne<us of migration
brightly checkered with influences from Asia Africa the 2evant and a hundred other "laces'the
8alifornia of Saudi Arabia#
2aila Abduljawad a cultural "reservationist5 1The Hejaz has attracted "ilgrims from every corner of the
$slamic world# How could this not rub off/ Our main dish is -ukhari rice from 8entral Asia3 Our folk
te<tiles are $ndian3 Our accents are &gy"tian3 We are more o"en to the world than the "eo"le from the
center#4
Salma Alireza a traditional embroiderer5 1The traditional dress for women in the Hejaz was not the
abaya4'the severe black robe im"osed by the ruling 7ajdis# 1Women here used to wear bright red and
blue dresses in "ublic# That was traditional# -ut life changed in the =>B*s# The oil money "oured in# We
modernized too fast# We lost so much in @* years34
(abya Alfadl a young marketing consultant5 1$s the Hejaz still different/ Take a look around#4
And it,s true# The women sit at the table unveiled# They wear casual Western clothing5 blouses and
trousers# .Such a meeting would be difficult to arrange in the Saudi ca"ital (iyadh where gender
segregation and tribal ways remain so strict that a man will not utter his mother,s name in "ublic#0 The
house where we chat is sleekly designed chic minimalist global in decor# And outside in +eddah,s
streets there are art galleries cafCs "romenades museums'the cultural hub of Saudi Arabia#
1A sense of cultural identity has "ersisted in the Hejaz for a thousand years# $t develo"ed its own music
its cuisine its own folktales4 Abduljawad tells me# She turns her cu" in her hands# 1We are taking our
first baby ste"s to rescue a small "art of this#4
These women are daughters of a feminine city# Arab folk tradition holds that the biblical &ve was buried
in +eddah now a modern s"rawling industrial "ort# &ve,s tomb'?** yards long sha"ed like a reclining
figure'was crowned by an 1ancient and lofty dome4 according to the Moorish traveler $bn +ubayr# $t is
gone marked today by a barren concrete cemetery# Wahhabi clerics who abhor shrines as idolatrous
likely razed it nearly a century ago# -ut again no one can remember#
More than 300 miles north of +eddah near a dry well called Al Amarah we sto" walking# We look u"
from our tired feet# A car a""roaches across a "lain of glistening salt# $t is a Toyota Hi2u< the iron camel
of the modern -edouin#
This is an event# Traversing western Saudi Arabia on foot today is lonelier than it was one or two
generations ago when the black tents of -edouin were still "egged to the brittle hide of the desert# The
famous nomads of the Hejaz'the -alawi the Harb the +uhayna'have resettled in towns in suburbs in
offices in army barracks# Modern Saudi Arabia is heavily urbanized .matching the Dnited States in this
res"ect0#
:et a few diehards remain#
One ste"s from the truck# He is a graybeard in a stained gray thobe, the classic robe of Saudi men# He
brings us a gift# 1$t is our way4 says the old man who calls himself Abu Saleh# He swee"s a callused
hand at the surrounding desert# 1We welcome all travelers#4
7o other soul is visible on the horizon# Abu Saleh leaves us with a sim"le goodbye# His gift5 a small well
of kindness'a dented steel bowl full of camel,s milk#
Built of necessity, the wells in the old Hejaz have faded softened eroded into objects of beauty and
contem"lation#
The earliest of these watering stations were established "recisely one day,s walk a"art by the 8ali"h
Dmar in A#E# BFG# 1A traveler is the "erson worthiest of receiving "rotection4 he declared before
"ioneering the most so"histicated rest%sto" system in the ancient world5 way"oints on the "ilgrims, trails
to Mecca serviced by forts cisterns guesthouses date groves hos"itals canals even distance markers#
We trudge the same trails'ribbons of desert burnished by countless shuffling camels by numberless
sandaled feet# Scholars from Timbuktu drank from these wells# So did merchants from S"ain seeking
frankincense# So did sun%boiled =>th%century &uro"ean e<"lorers who rambled the Hejaz disguised as
"ilgrims# One who didn,t "ose was a blustery &nglishman named 8harles M# Eoughty# He announced
himself to everyone as a 8hristian an infidel and walked with a knife u" his sleeve# .Of one caravan
swollen with =**** animals and B*** "eo"le he wrote5 1The length of the slow%footed multitude of
men and cattle is near two miles and the width some hundred yards in the o"en "lains#40
7orth of the city of Al Wajh we un"ack our two camels at a well utterly ignored by the s"eeding traffic of
a su"erhighway# This well called Al Antar was rendered obsolete a century ago by steamshi"s# $t is made
absurd today by the "ilgrims hurtling overhead in -oeing )))s# $ bend over the well,s li"# A dam" air
breathes u" from its darkness cooling my cheeks# $ hear from somewhere far below the calls of startled
songbirds# $ think5 Arabia is like the American West# $t is a landsca"e of terrible absences#
If the e!a" still inspires romance in the non%Muslim world it is due to its long caravan of foreign
chroniclers#
There is the =>th%century Swiss "olymath +ohann 2udwig -urckhardt who traveled to the religious core
of $slam as a "au"er'a 1reduced &gy"tian gentleman4'and never made it home# .He died of dysentery
and was buried with Muslim rites in 8airo#0 There is the brilliant and "om"ous &nglishman (ichard
;rancis -urton who if he can be believed actually touched the 9aaba the holiest of holies'a massive
cube of volcanic stone in Mecca toward which all Muslims must "ray# These &uro"eans witnessed a
world locked in time# They found (ed Sea towns built of shining white coral blocks their arched doors
and window shutters "ainted sea green and dazzling nomad blue# They "assed through walled cities
whose tall gates creaked shut at dusk# They gallo"ed camels between fortified oases with wild%haired
men the -edouin whom they found harshly admirable# .-urton5 1We had another fight before we got to
Mecca and a s"lendid camel in front of me was shot through the heart#40 This literary Hejaz if it ever
truly e<isted has long since disa""eared under American%style suburbs and stri" malls# :et outside the old
"ilgrim,s "ort of Al Wajh we stumble u"on the ghost of one of the most famous of these Orientalists#
Workmen are cleaning out a well#
The well lies within the high rock walls of Al Hurayb fortress built I** years ago by the Ottomans# The
laborers haul u" old e<"losives5 cannon shells that look like rusted "inea""les# The ordnance was chucked
down the well in "anic "robably in +anuary =>=)# At that time a camelback Arab army was a""roaching
fast# The tribes of the Hejaz had risen against their Jerman%allied Ottoman overlords# And the foreigner
who had stoked the revolt'he was barely five feet five inches tall but "ossessed a masochistic hardness
'whoo"ed along with the attackers# Of the Arab cavalry he wrote5 1They wore rusty%red tunics henna%
dyed under black cloaks and carried swords# &ach had a slave crouched behind him on the cru""er Kof
the camelL to hel" him with rifle and dagger in the fight and to watch his camel and cook for him on the
road#4
Thomas &dward 2awrence more famous as 2awrence of Arabia is one of our first "ostmodern heroes5 a
com"romised su"erman# The young -ritish intelligence officer and O<ford medievalist yearned
subversively to bring liberty to an Arab world that was then staggering under the corru"t yoke of the
Ottoman Turks# :et he was tormented by the knowledge that the Hejazis who fought alongside him would
be betrayed by the &uro"ean colonial "owers that carved u" the Middle &ast after World War $#
Lorens al Arab, $ tell the workmen at the fort# $ "oint to the live shells#
The name means nothing to them# 2awrence is virtually forgotten in Saudi Arabia# He backed the wrong
dynasty after the war# His cham"ion ;aisal the moderate Hashemite "rince of the Hejaz lost a "ower
struggle to the fierce tribes of the interior led by the "eninsula,s future king $bn Saud#
1They were a "eo"le of s"asms of u"heavals of ideas the race of the individual genius4 2awrence wrote
of his comrades in the Hejaz# 1The desert Arab found no joy like the joy of voluntarily holding back# He
found lu<ury in abnegation renunciation self restraint# He made nakedness of the mind as sensuous as
nakedness of the body# He saved his own soul "erha"s and without danger but in a hard selfishness#4
This is what ha""ens when you "eer down wells in the Hejaz# :ou glim"se your own reflection#
2awrence an ascetic of em"ire was describing himself#
#ells of piety$ "lastic cu"s of water arranged by the thousands across a stone courtyard in Medina#
$t is (amadan the fasting month# The holiest month of the Muslim lunar calendar# +ust outside Al Masjid
al 7abawi the burial mosMue of the !ro"het Muhammad the second holiest site in $slam at least B****
faithful are gathered at sunset to break the day,s hunger#
They come from all Muadrants of the &arth# $ see $ndians and Africans# $ hear ;rench# $ am not Muslim#
-ut $ have been fasting all month out of res"ect# Across from me a big "ilgrim from Afghanistan'a red%
haired 7uristani'kneels in front of one of the "re"ackaged meals distributed daily at the site# He hands
me his orange# $ give him mine# We e<change our food like this several times laughing# On the
louds"eakers an imam sings the crowd into "rayer# They "ray# And beneath a fading yellow sky we eat in
tender silence#
Strange new wells on the roads of the Hejaz5 machines humming in the desert#
Their fitted aluminum surfaces shine under the sun# Hallucinations of metal# Of rubber and "lastic# They
are outdoor electric coolers# They dis"ense water so icy it numbs the mouth# We encounter hundreds of
these mechanical shrines called asbila: "ublic water fountains commissioned by the "ious to earn virtue
in the eyes of Allah# One day their rusted "arts jutting from the shifting dunes will "uzzle archaeologists#
How can any society afford to chill a cu" of water in a barrens as gigantic and remote as the Hejaz/ $t
seems im"ossible# Mystifying# :et the asbila from which we gratefully fill our canteens e<ist because of
other wells'ones drilled in the distant oil fields of eastern Saudi Arabia#
1We,ve traded away our "ast for wealth4 laments $brahim a water engineer in the "ort of Al Wajh# 1My
grandfather,s ?**%year%old coral%block home/ -ulldozed# The docks where dhows from &ritrea brought in
camels/ Jone# Our city,s stone lighthouse that used to be seen from ?* kilometers at sea/ (ubble#
7obody cares# $t,s all old stuff# $t has no economic value#4
Some Hejazis blame Saudi Arabia,s ultraconservative version of $slam for much of the erasure of their
"ast# $n recent years for e<am"le urban historians have decried the demolition of the old Muarters of
Mecca and Medina including the flattening of ancient structures associated with Muhammad himself#
Officially this was done to "rovide services for the two million or more "ilgrims who swell the cities on
hajj# -ut religious authorities have freMuently blessed the destruction of cultural sites# Wahhabis
em"hasize that all the "ast before $slam is jahiliyya: a time of ignorance# And they fear that even the
"reservation of $slamic sites may lead to the worshi" of objects and not Jod'thus "romoting idolatry or
shirk.
$t is worth noting that the loudest laments for the disa""earing heritage of the old Hejaz come from
Muslims outside Saudi Arabia# 1$t is difficult to get young Saudis involved in their own history4 says
Malak Mohammed Mehmoud -aissa the mayor of +eddah,s remnant old town# 1$t isn,t taught seriously
in schools#4
-reakneck economic change# Modernization# ;rom tents to Twitter and glass skyscra"ers in barely three
generations# &uro"e must have been this way during the industrial revolution# $t is miraculous that !aris
survived#
Meanwhile in the fishing towns along the shore of the Hejaz the last local fishermen strain to sing sea
shanties into my digital recorder# Songs from the age of wooden dhows# Songs of warm (ed Sea winds#
Of beauties waiting in "orts# These Hejazi fishermen most of whom have hired out their boats to migrant
-angladeshis have earned their own anthro"ologists# 1$t is im"ortant4 say researchers from the
Dniversity of &<eter in &ngland 1to ca"ture the last true remnants of the songs of the sea before they
become mere "astiches#4
#e inch northwar% toward +ordan# We guzzle a gallon of water a day# We seek out wells of memory#
$n +eddah a female artist honors a lost world dis"laying on the old city,s walls images of her grandfather
sitting with his vanished majlis a traditional council once common in the homes of Hejaz aristocrats#
.The art'titled 1Where $s My Majlis/4'is mysteriously removed after a week#0
$n Medina a museum director s"ends seven years of his life constructing a meticulous @*%foot%sMuare
diorama of the holy city,s heart with its mazy alleys and lemon trees# These timeless features were
scra"ed away in the =>G*s to make way for high%rise hotels# .1Old residents come here to cry#40
The "ast is fraught territory in every country# Dntil barely a generation ago D#S# te<tbooks rarely
acknowledged the com"le< universe inhabited by 7ative Americans# $srael "oints to biblical archaeology
to cement its right of e<istence# :et in Saudi Arabia this blinkered view is changing#
(iyadh has s"ent nearly a million dollars on a museum devoted to the Hejaz (ailway'the storied
Arabian version of the Orient &<"ress'terminating in Medina# +eddah,s antiMue Muarter is also u" for
review as a D7&S8O World Heritage site# .One such global treasure already e<ists in the Hejaz5 Madain
Salih a colossal necro"olis of the 7abataean em"ire#0 Most e<traordinary of all an entire Hejazi caravan
town of some G** homes abandoned and crumbling for I* years has been bought by the government for
renovation#
1This is our greatest e<"eriment4 says MutlaM Suleiman AlmutlaM an archaeologist with the Saudi
8ommission for Tourism and AntiMuities and the curator of the ancient caravansary town of Al Dla# 1We
are looking back more# This is good#4
AlmutlaM is an earnest friendly man# He scrambles ahead of me in his white thobe through the walled
ghost town located south of Madain Salih# He vaults broken archways and "okes through covered
medieval streets# He shows me courtyards where traders hawked incense la"is and silk for eight
centuries# 9erosene lanterns manufactured in Jermany rust on the floors of the em"ty homes# The
legendary Muslim e<"lorer $bn -attuta "assed through in the =Ith century "raising the honesty of Al
Dla,s "o"ulace5 !ilgrims stored their luggage here en route to Mecca# AlmutlaM takes "ride in this fact# He
lived and worked in Al Dla as a youth# The site,s residents were trucked en masse to modern a"artments
in the =>)*s#
1$ remember4 he says smiling# And he talks of traveling merchants loading bales of &gy"tian te<tiles# Of
farmers stalking in at dusk from the fields# Of women talking to each other from windows latticed for
modesty#
Twin wells of memory5 AlmutlaM,s glasses flashing e<citedly amid the dim archaeology of his childhood#
#e are all pilgrims in the Hejaz# Wanderers through time# We sto" at its wells or we "ass them by# $t
matters little# Dsed or not the wells remain# $n their basements shine disks of "ale sky'the unblinking
eyes of memory#
After si< months of walking $ say goodbye to my guides Ali and Awad# $ cross the HaMl border from
Saudi Arabia to +ordan# $ carry little# A shoulder bag of notebooks bound with rubber bands# Seven
hundred miles of words# !ages crazed with jottings about devastating heat# $nked ma"s of "ilgrim roads#
Eivinations of -edouin fire doctors# -earings for remote wells#
$ reach a modern tourist resort# 7o one "ays me any mind# There is the novelty of women driving cars# $
watch cou"les strolling beaches in sarongs# $ sto" at a mini%mart and buy a bottle of filtered water5 a small
"lastic well an artifact from the main channel of history# $ "eer south beyond the Julf of AMaba'toward
the Hejaz# A cloaked "lace# The li"s of its ancient wells are grooved by ro"es turned to dust# Eust long
since blown away# $ si" my water# $t tastes utterly ordinary#

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