Travels to Arabia during the Reign of

King ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz

Dr. Fadia Saud Al Saleh

Introduction :

Apart from its socio-historical, geographical and topographical value, travel literature has always had a great literary impact. It gives an account of the explorers’ adventures, observations and impressions of the area explored, its culture, economy and society, using a variety of literary styles and technical devices.

Travel in Arabia has always been of great interest, but it was not until the eleventh century that this genre of literature crystallized and matured, with the work of Al Beyruni and Ibn Jubair. In the nineteenth century, interest in travel literature developed, particularly in the form of records of Western explorations in the Arabian peninsula. Explorers such as the Blunts, Doughty, Palgrave and Hogarth were fascinated by and attracted to the unexplored deserts of central Arabia. The discoveries, adventures and hardships of their journeys provided useful and detailed information on Arabia and the reforming movement of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahab (1691–1787).

The twentieth century saw the full blossoming of the literature of Arabian travel. The changed situation in the Arabian peninsula created by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud attracted European, Japanese and Arab travellers. His strong government and establishment of peace and security in the land made it possible for travellers to move about with impunity. Through their powers of narrative and memory, vivid accounts are revealed to the modern reader.

This chapter will concentrate on the first half of the twentieth century, covering the period of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz’s reign. The travels of H. St J. B. Philby, Amin al-Rihani, Eigiro Nakano, Ghulam Rasül Muhir, Gerald de Gaury, Fuad Shaker and ‘Abd al-Wahhab Azzam will be discussed and evaluated. The study will reveal a variety of attitudes, depending on the writers’ nationality, religion and disposition. The end-result will be a multifaceted image of an original, complex and rich civilization.

The Travels of ‘Abd-Allah Philby:

The physical exertion of desert travel is as nothing compared with the nervous strain – especially in the desert borderlands where tribal loyalties can never be taken for granted. In fact, we met with nothing but friendliness – a striking tribute to the desert’s fear of the desert king – but each day’s success had to be paid for by the anxieties of the night before (Monroe, Philby of Arabia, p. 192).

Physical exertion never deterred Philby, as he said, from exploring central Arabia. His chance came when summoned by Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner in Iraq, to act as political representative to Ibn Saud in 1917, from which time he built himself a successful career in exploration. Harry St John Bridger Philby was born in Ceylon in 1885, where his father had settled to seek his fortune in the coffee trade. He went to school at Westminster, where he became captain of the school, and then to from Cambridge, where he obtained a First Class degree in Modern Languages. In 1907, he joined the Indian Civil Service, and remained there until he and other linguists were chosen to work as civilian administrators in Iraq in 1915. In November 1917 he went to Riyadh via Hasa on a political mission. In order to win them the acceptance of religious people in Nejd, the Amir of Hasa rigged out the three European members of the mission with local dress, consisting of thüb, zabün, bisht, sandals and head-cloth. Of all the three, it was ‘Philby [who] felt comfortable and at home in the clothes, and at once had himself photographed; he had already started growing the beard that is customary in Arabia’ (Monroe, Philby of Arabia, p. 65).

As soon as they reached Riyadh, they were met and greeted by King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, who impressed them with his charm, generosity, indefatigability, volubility and expertness in desert affairs. Philby’s lively sense of curiosity was satisfied when the king assigned him a political task in Ta’if and provided him with the best of camels and guides. The expedition lasted fifteen days during December, at which time the pools of rainwater and the grass, birds and desert animals were of great interest to Philby. Apart from the difficulty that the camels had in climbing the cliffs, the unfriendliness of his companions, and the embarrassment he felt while waiting for them to pray, the journey was amusing and thrilling; even the coarse camel meat that he then ate for the first time was considered by Philby to be a great gastronomic experience.

To keep Philby off the scene while he was intending to invade Ha’il, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz provided him with camels and guides to explore southern Nejd. He described his departure from Riyadh to a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in April 1919:

The delightful spring season of Arabia, when the desert is bright with grass and flowers, was rapidly drawing to a close, when on May 6 we set forth to the southward, having on the previous night seen the last of a long series of daily thunder storms pass over Riyadh speeding northward. We passed rapidly down the bed of the Shamsiyya torrent, past the royal cemetery of the Wahabbi dynasty and beyond the outer fringe of the palm-groves of Riyadh. Then skirting the eastern fringe of Manfuha and Masana, we came to the valley of Wadi Hanifa, along which our course lay in a south-easterly direction for the rest of that day and the next until we came to the borders of Kharj (H. St J. B. Philby, ‘Southern Najd’, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3 (1920): 161—91, at p. 163).

He went on to describe Haïr and the city of Yamamah, Aflaj, Hawtah, Sulayyil and Wadi Dawasir and their oases, uplands, hamlets, pools of water, palm groves and ravines, where a ‘brisk northerly breeze, flowing with great regularity by day, made the climate of summer in these southern latitudes surprisingly mild, and the nights were delightfully cool’ (ibid., p. 183). This journey took fifty days, the last fourteen days of which were in Ramadan. As travellers, his companions were exempt from fasting, and so they caused irritation to the local inhabitants they came across, because ‘there is nothing so irritating to those that burn with thirst as to see their fellows drink’ (ibid., p. 184).

After intervals of work in Iraq, Iran, Eastbourne and Transjordan, Philby revived his friendship with King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and on 7 August 1930 he went to Makkah, escorted by two ministers and the editor of Umm al-Qura; he then became a Muslim, Sheikh ‘Abd-Allah. Commander D. G. Hogarth, discussing the Southern Nejd expedition, said that an agent saw Philby at Ta’if and reported that ‘it was impossible to distinguish Mr. Philby from the thirty-five or so Bedouin who accompanied him, either in his command of Arabic or in his mastery of their customs, or in his general bearing, except for one fact, namely, that his feet were a little too clean!’ (p. 186).

‘Becoming a Muslim seemed to him the only way of accomplishing the exploit of his dreams – the crossing of the Rub al-Khali’ (Monroe, Philby of Arabia, p. 163). His dream was in part frustrated when he heard that Bertram Thomas had anticipated him by crossing the Rub al-Khali first. A persistent and dedicated explorer, Philby won the permission of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to start the journey in mid-December 1931. He gave a lecture at a Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 23 May 1932 describing his journey ‘without hesitation or qualification as the greatest and most pleasant experience of all my life’. He attributed his success in achieving the expedition to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, without whose support he would not have been able to take the risk of crossing the great desert:

And now I must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, my mite of homage and gratitude to the great ruler of Wahabi Arabia, whose friendship has ever been to me more than sufficient solace for long years of exile and many disappointments. Without his countenance I would have never ventured to regard the Empty Quarter as within the range of my ambition. And to his generous assistance and patronage I owe entirely such measure of success as I have achieved. It is to him that I owe the provision of the necessary ways and means for my enterprise, and that at a moment when he and his country were in the throes of the grave economic crisis which has lately been passing over the whole world. My debt of gratitude is indeed great and unrepayable, but the kinsman of Hatim Tai would be the last to wish that I should embarrass him by making a pother about his far-famed and often self-embarrassing hospitality and generosity. I would ask you therefore to regard this expedition of mine rather as a historic landmark, for it was in effect the first expedition of a scientific nature organized and equipped by the Wahabi Government. Its results, I venture to hope, will be regarded as of world-wide interest and of some intrinsic importance (H. St J. B. Philby, ‘Rub’ al-Khali’. The Geographical Journal. Vol. 81, No. 1 (1933): 1—262, at p. 2).

He was escorted by nineteen men of different tribes, and provided with thirty-two camels loaded with provisions enough for ninety days. He admired the great endurance of the camels, for they could stay without food for over forty-eight hours and for ten days without water. The beginning of the journey was not cheerful, for the weather was too cold and misty. Moreover, they decided not to take advantage of the exemption for travellers, and to fast during Ramadan, which started on the third day of their journey. They crossed many valleys and ridges and passed many wells, such as Bin Fadhil, Tuwairifa, ‘Ain Sala and Naifa, where Philby heard the humming music of the singing sands, the same sound that he had heard in Madinah in 1928.

The collapsing of the camels and the scarcity of water and food affected the nerves of Philby and his companions. They were compelled to handle water with so much care that they only poured it into the camels’ nostrils to refresh them. Yet at last he fulfilled his dream.

Philby narrated his travels in a vivid recreation of the adventures and hardships that he encountered. His style varied according to the demands made by his subject-matter. Being a linguist, he had the capacity to respond flexibly to his experience and convey it vividly, focusing with great intensity on specific details. Here is an example, describing the singing sands:

I immediately went up to the summit of the great dunes where a very gentle breeze was blowing from the north, while the sun shone hot and strong upon the sand. I found I could produce the desired effect practically at will by setting large quantities of the sand in motion with my feet. The sliding mass began with a soft grating sound, which gradually developed into the deep musical booming as it got lower, and then as gradually the tone softened, until it stopped abruptly when the sand ceased to move. On one occasion, having got the music strongly, I threw myself down the steep slope and almost buried myself in the deep moving sand, which seemed to vibrate and throb under me, but continued singing. I plunged a bottle into the singing mass to collect a genuine sample, and as I withdrew it a long-drawn-out wail as of a trombone followed it. The same thing happened when I tried to disengage my deeply buried knees. I would suggest that this effect is achieved by the formation of a sort of a vacuum between the moving mass and the stationary sand over which it passes, the hollow space serving as a sounding-board to convert the initial grating into the final booming (ibid., p. 15).

His use of metaphor is interesting: ‘from this point we marched for two days across a swelling ocean of sands of which the ridges were the waves’ (ibid., p. 11). And in his relating of certain episodes, a certain comic effect too cannot be mistaken. In concluding his lecture about the Rub’ al-Khali, he said:

Seven figures appeared stealthily from the Farsha bushes some way ahead of us and seemed to be trying to cut us off. In a moment rifles were unslung and loaded for action, when someone cried out that they seemed to be unarmed. Next minute there was relief and laughing. They were women! And soon we were exchanging greetings and news with a charming old lady and her pretty daughter, the former veiled and the latter sufficiently conscious of her beauty to be coyly careless. And that was our welcome back into civilization after fifty-three unrelieved days of our own company (ibid., p. 21).

The Travels of Amin al-Rihani:

How glorious the gold of the Nafüd is at sunrise and sunset! Or rather how beautiful its shade of purple sloping towards the sunset! How delightful the nights of the Nafüd when you sit down on the smooth silky sands accompanied by a star whose light comes closer to you as if whispering words of tranquillity, love and peace (Amin al-Rihani, Mulük al-Arab, p. 617).

In this way the red colour of the Nafüd dunes impressed its delightful and exhilarating effect on Amin al-Rihani. Amin Faris al-Rihani (1293–1354/1876–1940) was born in the Lebanon and left at the age of eleven to live with his uncle and then his father in America. He started to study Law at New York University, but in 1898 gave up Law and came back to Lebanon to study Arabic. As time passed he made frequent journeys between Lebanon and America. Moreover, he travelled widely in the Arab world in 1922, and met most of the Arab kings while calling for national unity among the Arabs. The full account of these travels was given in Mulük al-Arab (Kings of the Arabs). As an American citizen, al-Rihani met with many obstacles in his attempt to visit most of the Arab countries under the British protectorate. He was at Lahj when he wrote to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz asking his permission to visit Nejd. ‘Between them lay the Indian Ocean, then the Nafüd, then the Dahana, then the English’ (ibid., p. 492). He was welcomed by the King, but delayed by the British Agent in passing through Bahrain. However, he reached the eastern coast of Arabia:

I entered the tent while the servants were still talking. I lay on the bed filled with delight of a man whose dream had come true. Here is the desert! There is the camel! Those are my servants and here I am, a neighbour of one of the Arab princes: Sultan of Nejd. … After a while the place was filled with noise and excitement receiving the King’s procession … and it was the first meeting on the sands, under the sky and the stones and in the light of blazing fires and around us, I saw a man distinguished by his height … and a smile that is a magnet for hearts. I do not know how I welcomed him. I was delighted and startled by the great surprise (ibid., p. 520–2).

Al-Rihani accompanied the King, who was heading for al-Uqair, where they were expecting Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner in Iraq. On that journey al-Rihani was so close to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz that he came to understand his mental and spiritual make-up. The imposing personality of the King never failed to impress al-Rihani. He was touched by his modesty when he sat down on the sand and asked him to do the same: ‘This is the best carpet.’ He also liked his sense of humour. When the tents were pitched for the conference in the Uqair, some of them were highly furnished for the sake of the British delegation. The King used to invite al-Rihani there, saying: ‘Let’s travel to the modern world! Don’t think that we are far from it. It is only ten steps. Here we are in modernity! Bring tea, boy!’ Then he would sit on the chair, saying, ‘Let’s be modern. Come along Ustath; join us’ (ibid., p. 535) pointing to another chair.

Al-Rihani spent six weeks in Riyadh, recording observations and comments on the King, his people, his politics and his desert. Then he started his journey to Kuwait, which is about 550 miles away from Riyadh. They passed Manfuhah, the birthplace of the great poet al-A’sha, Dir’iyah, the old Saudi capital, ‘Uyainah, the birthplace of Sheikh Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahab, and then Shaqra. ‘Shagra is the biggest and most beautiful town in Washim. Its date palms, like its women, were within the walls, adorning the houses’ (ibid., p. 600).

At Unayzah, ‘the queen of Qasim’, the people were friendly and sociable, because most of them had lived abroad. It is called ‘the Paris of Nejd’, yet al-Rihani believed that it was more beautiful than Paris was. ‘It was like a picture painted by Claude Manet of a tale of Thousand and One Nights’ (p. 606). As for Buraydah, it was a commercial centre; they spent a week there to refresh themselves and prepare for the toughest part of their journey, the journey across the Nafüd, the Dahna, Wadi Ruma and the Dibdibah. Al-Rihani was the one who suffered most, because of frequent fevers and the uncomfortable camel ride. They were relieved when they passed the Dahna safely. One of them said that Mr Philby had danced with delight when he reached Hafar. The four days they spent in the Dibdibah were rich in bustards and truffles. At Jahrah, everybody started to dress up in their new kiswas, for ‘within one hour

Kuwait appeared behind the transparent silver veil of dawn’ (p. 645).

Mulük al-Arab is a massive work of two volumes and about nine hundred and fifty pages; it gives an account of seven kings of Arabia, together with the historical, geographical and social circumstances of their peoples. Of these kings, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz is the most impressive: ‘I met all the princes of Arabia, but I did not find any of them as great as that man’ (p. 524). Al-Rihani has an outstanding skill in discerning a man’s character in his face, his gestures and his speech. An obvious example is his first interview with the King, when he expressed his wish for the unity of the Arab princes. ‘“Who are the Arabs? We are the Arabs.” The King said that, and hit the carpet with his bamboo stick’ (p. 523).

A distinctive feature of al-Rihani’s style in this book is his frequent use of colloquial words and phrases such as izgurt (those who smoke and sing), imsakhan (sick), ta’amira (lighting a cigarette), and ibretsah (a small pool, using the Nejdi sound [ts] instead of [k]), and his accounts of the folk songs of the Nejd that were recited by his companions to help the long nights pass.

Some of his descriptions are elaborate personifications, as when he describes his fever as ‘that wicked, troublesome guest’ that accompanied him throughout his entire journey (p. 593), and his depiction of Misfir, the ugly cook (p. 625). These lengthy paragraphs were clearly composed with the intention of adding to the literary quality of the work as a whole.

The Journey of Ghulam Rasül Muhir:

Days and ages passed when murder, robbery and plunder were on the increase everywhere. Then came the reign of King [Ibn Saud], when security and comfort were secured for the pilgrims. The voyage used to take six months from India to Hejaz; now it takes six or eight days. Still the flow of pilgrims continued, whether it was stormy or calm, whether it was dangerous or secure (Sheikh Ghulam Rasül Muhir, Yawmiyat Rihla fi al-Hijaz 1348/1930 (Diary of a Journey in the Hejaz 1348/1930), p. 39).

Sheikh Ghulam Rasül Muhir was one of the notable ulama of the Indian subcontinent. He was born in the Punjab in 1313/1895, and obtained his university degree from the Islamic College of Lahore. He joined the National Religious Movement and worked as a journalist, but his main interest was in Islamic history. In 1344/1925 he performed his first pilgrimage to Makkah as a secretary to Mawlana Zafar Ali Khan. In 1348/1930 he set out on his second pilgrimage at the invitation of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and he recounted his journey in Yawmiyat Rihla fi al-Hijaz 1348/1930 (Diary of a Journey in the Hejaz 1348/1930).

He set out with his friend, Ismaïl Ghaznawi, on 20 April 1930 from Lahore to Karachi by train. The trip was tough because of a sandstorm, which covered the whole place with a layer of dust about an inch thick: ‘When I looked at Ismaïl, I broke out in laughter. He looked like a jester disguised with make-up’ (p. 4). In Karachi they visited the salt-pans, where there were great throngs of people working in a huge area of about an acre that was entirely full of salt. They completed the regular preparations for the trip, such as obtaining vaccinations and buying tickets, and headed for the steamer Khesto to start their voyage to Aden. As soon as the ship began sailing along the coast, all the passengers called out with one voice ‘Allah Akbar!’ The ship was carrying about eight hundred pilgrims, of whom a large number were Iranians, who were constantly busy selling and buying their Persian carpets.

As for food, there were two kinds: national and English food. They were unfortunate in choosing the national food, because the cook for it was not very competent, and there was no convenient place to eat it, so that most of them felt suffered from sea-sickness. On 29 April they reached Aden:

The sight of Aden and Bab al-Mandab made me melancholic and sad because this spot was one of the most important places of the Islamic Da’wa in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Now it is captured by non-Muslims. Oh! How the Muslims have lost these blessed lands. Once they ruled over land and sea in Europe, Africa and Asia. Today other flags are waving over their lands. Every island now is dominated by the English and each coast in front of us is governed either by the English or some other European power (ibid., p. 28).

On board, the atmosphere was highly spiritual. Everybody was praying, reciting and interpreting verses of the Holy Qur’an. Their strong faith helped them to endure the difficulty of their journey. ‘The Hejaz is not like the Riviera, Kashmïr or Lausanne, where people go to enjoy themselves. People go to Hejaz showing remarkable endurance of difficulties, unbearable heat, burning sun and scarcity of water’ (ibid., p. 40).

On 2 May they reached Jeddah, and were received at the Royal Guest House. At midnight on the same day they left for Makkah. The road was not fully paved yet, but there were cafés serving coffee, tea and light meals. They saw numerous groups of Takarana (Negro Muslims), who travelled on foot at night from Jeddah to Makkah. They reached Makkah at half past three, and without delay they went to the Haram, entered through Bab al-Salam and started from the black stone their Omra by Tawaf. Then they went to Maqam Ibrahim, drank from the well of Zamzam, performed Sa’i, shaved their hair and prayed the Fajr prayer in their ihram. Finally, they took rest at Dar al-Kiswa.

On 5 May, Sheikh Ghulam with some five hundred pilgrims attended the Royal gathering. After dinner, they moved to the reception hall on the third floor, where ‘the great King in his simple dress, cloak and Nejdi sandals was sitting. He started his eloquent speech with verses from Sura 49 Al-Hujurat: “O mankind! We created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other [not that ye may despise each other]. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is [he who is] the most righteous of you” (Sura 49 Al-Hujurat, 13). He confirmed his strong faith, tawhïd, called for the unity of Muslims, and concluded his speech by saying: “I am not a man of learning but a simple Bedouin. Almighty Allah has given me the authority to protect Islam (tawhïd). My sons, my family, my people, my country and myself will sacrifice ourselves without hesitation to achieve the task imposed on me”’ (p. 58). The speech was translated into Urdu and Persian, and then followed by other speeches and poems.

Before relating the great experience of the hajj, Sheikh Ghulam gave a geographical and historical survey of the city of Makkah and the Haram, documented with maps. They were planning to go to Mina by car, but Sheikh Ghulam suggested that they should go there on foot. When they saw the rows of donkeys at Janat al-Mu’la, they decided to hire some, at the cost of one riyal each. Though it was humiliating to ride a donkey in India, they enjoyed their ride, calling out ‘Tarïq …Tarïq …Tarïq …’ (‘keep back’): ‘We were all wearing the ihram and as the donkeys were running we were not able to cover our bodies. We were wondering when to fall down! What would happen to the belt which held the ihram around our bodies? We were trying to wrap the ihram in order not to get naked in front of the whole world’ (ibid., p. 94).

From Mina they left for Arafat, using the same means of transport. They performed the noon and afternoon prayers and climbed the Jabal al-Rahma (‘Mountain of Mercy’) where they called upon Almighty Allah to strengthen Muslims and liberate India from the British occupation. A sense of spiritual exaltation pervaded the great meeting at Arafat, where there were no less than four hundred thousand pilgrims praising Allah Almighty in one voice. They went on to Muzdalifa and Mina and completed all the hajj rituals.

On 26 May they set sail for Karachi on the ship Dara. The ship was old, and so slow that most of the pilgrims felt worried and tired. However, an amusing incident lightened the tedious atmosphere. An Indian pilgrim had brought with him two ewes from Aden as a present for someone in India. He provided them with fodder and kept them on the upper deck. A group of pilgrims from Bukhara killed one of the ewes and ate it, and the next day they ate the other. The Indian became angry, demanding his ewes back, but the men from Bukhara claimed that one of them had bought them. After a dreadful row the Bukharans were found guilty, for it was discovered that their own two ewes were still alive. So they had to pay the Indian for his ewes.

Yawmiyat Rihla fi al-Hijaz 1348/1930 is one of one hundred and eighty books written by Sheikh Ghulam Muhir. It was originally published in the form of letters sent from Sheikh Muhir to his friend Abdul Majïd Salik, the editor of the Inqilab newspaper. It was translated by Dr Samïr ‘Abd al-Hamïd Ibrahïm, who remarked in his Preface: ‘It is the first travel book to be translated from Urdu into Arabic as far as I know.’

Sheikh Muhir wrote in simple straightforward prose, full of Islamic references, a style that is entirely appropriate to the purpose of relating the spiritual experience of his pilgrimage to Makkah. His description and observations are accurate and objective, particularly when he mentions the attack of mosquitoes in Dar al-Kiswa or when he criticizes the Mutawifïn (pilgrims’ guides), whose main concern is to get money, and how their high voices irritate and disturb other pilgrims who need tranquillity and peace.

The light-heartedness of certain incidents reveals the writer’s sense of humour. This is especially obvious in the incidents of the two ewes (p. 130) and the donkey rides (p. 94).

The Travels of De Gaury:

Wherever you may go in the Arab world the tribesmen assert that they are descended from the tribes of Central Arabia, and they speak highly of the people there today and their manners and customs. It was an almost closed territory, but I had long had hopes of visiting it one day, of going to the fountain-head of the Arab race and of the Muhammadan religion (De Gaury, Gerald, Arabia Phoenix, Harrap, London, 1946, p. 17).

Colonel Gerald de Gaury was another Arabist. He served as a soldier and diplomat in Iraq, Arabia and Kuwait. His first journey from Jeddah to Kuwait through Riyadh started on Friday 28 June 1934. He got permission from King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ‘provided that he travels with an escort furnished by us and wears Arab dress’ (De Gaury, Gerald, ‘Memories and Impressions of the Arabia of Ibn Saud’, in Arabian Studies II, C. Hurst, London, 1975, pp.19—32, at p. 21). It took him three and a half days by car to reach Riyadh. He was received by Sheikh Yüsuf Yasin, the head of the king’s Diwan, and then by the king himself. He was impressed by ‘his immense height: six feet, four inches’ and his ‘overwhelming charm, which began at once to work on [him]’. During two audiences, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz gave him a full account of his battles and the wounds he received in his twelve years of retrieving Nejd, couched in strong language and classical phrasing, ‘with a mixture of Bedouin sayings interlaced’ (p. 23). Then he left Riyadh after two fascinating days, and reached Kuwait three days later in his Chevrolet.

His second journey to Riyadh was at the beginning of 1935, when he joined the first British Minister, Sir Andrew Ryan, on his first visit to Riyadh. They travelled from Cairo to Bahrain on a Royal Air Force flight, from where a ship, chartered by King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, ferried them across to the eastern coast of Arabia. On their way to Hofuf, the capital of al-Hasa, they were fascinated by the golden-coloured sand-dunes that ‘stood out boldly in contrast to their own lapis-lazuli shadows’, and admired their skilful driver, who ‘enjoyed his tussles with the untracked country and with the car, which he encouraged with shouts as if it were a camel’ (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 39).

Passing by the bath-house of Ain Umm Najim, they started their journey to Riyadh crossing ‘the great sand belts of the Dahana in a saloon car and loaded lorries. The track was very rough and the car was jerking, so that Sir Andrew was injured in the head and fainted.’ De Gaury revived him with some brandy, and they continued on their way.

While they were camped in the Summan plain a storm blew up hard, and heavy rain followed. As soon as it stopped everyone was relieved; the men ‘began to sing songs of war and songs of love’, and all kinds of creatures were ‘driven from their holes by the rain-water’ (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 51).

Finally they reached Riyadh, which ‘lay half hidden in the valley of the Wadi Hanifa’. They were cordially welcomed and led to their quarters in the Summer Palace, where they enjoyed ‘the cool air from the orchards, leaning out of the open windows and listening to long-drawn-out notes like that of a discordant violin, made by the wooden water-wheels’ (p. 38). They were received by His Majesty, Al-Shuyukh. Sir Andrew delivered his message from King George, and Colonel De Gaury read the translation in Arabic. They were enchanted by His Majesty’s charming personality and his two sons, the Crown Prince Saud and Prince Faisal and their horsemanship while playing the spear game known as Jarid in front of their father. They admired all the customs of the country, from the responsory formula sum to the minute details of preparing and serving coffee and meals.

When accompanying King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz on his hunting trips, De Gaury was so omnivorously observant that he learnt about falconry, locusts as a delicacy, the light autumn rain Wasm and its effect on spring grazing, and the growing of truffles. He, like Lady A. Blunt, found springtime ‘unbelievably stimulating’. He compared its effect to that of spring in the Western world:

Instead of a yearning for the greener lands of Europe which might be expected to overcome the traveller, he is filled with a strange elation, and as the deserts beckon him on he forgets all that he has left behind him in favour of this new addiction. It is with pride in his isolation, not longing for them, that he remembers the nearest Europeans are some five hundred miles away. As his falconers loose their hawks into the sky after a distant bustard, so his thoughts go soaring in philosophical flights by which he resolves the perfection of life in the desert. His only fear is that he will be forced to return to the crowded Western world (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 75).

Overwhelmed by the king’s kindness, hospitality and valuable gifts, they left for Hejaz. They passed the plain of Marat, where the pre-Islamic poet Imru al-Qais was born, the village of Dawadimi, the wells of Afif, the Fort of Muwayh, Ushayrah, Sayl, and the old irrigation works in Wadi Fatima, and were finally welcomed by the foreign community of Jeddah. From Jeddah they took the weekly steamer to Suez, where the customs men asked Colonel De Gaury if he had ‘anything of value to declare?’ He murmured in reply ‘Memories worth half the world’ (ibid., p. 127).

In the summer of 1939 De Gaury, instead of Philby, was chosen for a War Office post handling intelligence and counter-intelligence in Arabia, to Philby’s great disappointment. De Gaury did not reach Riyadh until the autumn of that year, and was fortunate enough to enjoy the rainy winter in the camp of His Majesty King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz at ‘the side of a large temporary lake at Hafr al-Ats north of Riyadh’ (De Gaury, ‘Memories and Impressions’, p. 27).

Accompanying the king, who was going to Makkah, De Gaury again crossed Arabia from Riyadh to Jeddah by car. Since he was only allowed as far as the limits of the Holy Area around Makkah, he headed to Jeddah and then to Asïr. ‘It is the fairest province in the Saudi Kingdom, the only one with running streams and some thick woods’ (De Gaury, Arabian Journey and other Desert Travels, Harrap, London, 1950, p. 64). In a difficult journey, they passed through Qunfudhah, crossed the Wadi Shahran, and went through Abha and the wood near Sabaya, enjoying their greenery. In the village of Jizan, which used to be an important centre for pearling, the governor arranged for them a four-day trip to Kamaran Island on a new sailing-boat. After grilling the fish for dinner, the crew passed the night drumming and dancing:

A quiver went down the Negro from neck to toe, so that his head shot forward, while his posterior was suddenly thrust backward, and as sharply forward again, his spine curved, and his arms held out for balance. So he stayed posturing to the sound of the drum, clicking his forefingers, jerking his thighs (De Gaury, Arabian Journey, p. 99).

The following night they woke suddenly when a storm broke out and the prevailing darkness turned everything black. ‘In this jet nothingness there was a roar like the fall of a city and the whole world was suddenly an electric white brighter than midday’ (ibid., pp.102–3). Their small craft could not survive the storm, but they were rescued by canoes from Kamaran Island, ‘where all that day at intervals the story of the storm was retold’ (p. 104).

A well-read and well-informed artist, De Gaury allowed himself some interesting digressions. His passage on ‘Slavery’ is a good example; it took him seven pages to describe the status of slaves in Arabia, and how the Mamluk dynasties of ‘Slave Kings’ ruled Egypt from AD 1252 until 1517. It is obvious that he was strongly in favour of Arabs and their customs. He drew an interesting comparison between ‘Ibn Saud’ and the customs of the generality of the European royalties:

There still survives in the East the pleasant custom of giving valuable presents to friends and dependants. Ibn Saud himself is particularly famed for his warm-hearted generosity. He gives away motor-cars as European royalties used to give tie-pins and Negro servants as they gave boxes of cigars. Gold daggers and watches are frequently sent to visitors at their departure. The kiswa, a camel-hair cloak, head-kerchief, and gown, or set of clothes, is sent to every guest leaving the Court. Gold swords are reserved as a special mark of kindness and esteem, while sheikhs and men at-arms receive rifles, sacks of rice, mares or brood camels (De Gaury, Arabian Journey, p. 52).

His elegant style is apparent in his use of metaphor and similes such as: ‘The trees give shadow but not shade. The upper fronds rubbing gently against each other in a breeze not felt below make a little creaking resulting sound, as if the trees were whispering to one another about the intruders’ (De Gaury, Arabian Phoenix, p. 44).

Finally his sense of humour shows, as when he comically describes what he took for the sound of a marching army:

After living with troops I was not to be deceived. There could not, I supposed, be a column marching, but the sound was quite unmistakable. I felt for a torch and picked my way over to where Said was sleeping. The light shone down on the little stones of the hard desert on which we had pitched our tents, and there I saw the marching army – hundreds of dung-beetles, scarabs, rolling before them, with maladroit pains, balls of dung rather larger than themselves (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 107).

The Travels of Eigiro Nakano:

There across the valley, I can see a small hamlet. That was the place of the pre-Islamic Süq Okaz, where the Arabs met every year to boast and recite their poems, while the girls were swaying here and there with their large eyes and dark golden complexions. That is how the Mu’allaqt came into being through the work of the great poets such as Imru al-Qais, Zuhair Ibn Aby Sulma, al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani, Amr Ibn Kalthüm and others. Their poetry concentrated on women, wine, the desert, camels and horses (Nakano, Eigiro, Ar-Rihla al-Yabaniah ela al-Jazerat al-Arabia, p. 19).

Pre-Islamic literature, life in the desert and the life of the Arabs in the pre-Islamic period were what Nakano had learned from Professor Taha Hussein at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. Nakano was a graduate of the Foreign Languages Department of Osaka University in Japan. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1352/1933, and was posted to the Japanese Embassy in Cairo. He spent seven years there, where he studied at al-Azhar and at the King Fuad I University of Cairo.

In May 1938 Sheikh Hafiz Wahba, the Saudi ambassador in Britain, visited Japan to attend the inauguration of the Tokyo Mosque. He invited the Japanese government to send a delegation to Riyadh in order to strengthen Saudi–Japanese relations. The Japanese Minister in Cairo, Yoko Yama, and Eigiro Nakano were chosen for the mission. They reached Jeddah on 26 March 1939. Nakano stated in his Preface: ‘In those days, there were only a few Europeans who visited Riyadh. Most of them were adventurers, soldiers or diplomats. It was the first time a Japanese had come to visit this area.’ Before leaving for Riyadh, they were each presented by the Minister of Finance, Sheikh ‘Abd-Allah al-Sulaiman, with a set of Arabian clothes. They were so happy that they took a photograph as soon as they had put them on.

On their way from Bahara to Ja’rana, their car got stuck in the sands. Though the driver was skilful and used to such tracks, he could not find a way of avoiding this problem. Getting stuck in the sands became a frequent experience as time passed. On their way they met a caravan of twenty or thirty loaded camels ‘led by a camel as if it was their guide, while the man on its back was simply for ornament. This reminded me [Nakano] of the traveller Doughty’s words in Arabia Deserta: “In the desert, man is a follower to the camel”’ (ibid., p.13).

Nakano kept on mentioning Charles M. Doughty throughout his travel book. This shows that he made good use of Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888), much as Colonel T. E. Lawrence did. Like Doughty, they reached Zaima and its fountain flowing out of the rocks. They grew alarmed, because at that place Doughty was attacked by Bedouins when they found out that he was a Christian (p. 19). At one o’clock in the morning they reached Sayl, and their escort of thirty men started to pitch the tents for the night. ‘After such a long journey the food was the most delicious I have ever eaten in my life’ (p. 15).

Their second day was entitled ‘The Seven Mu’alaqat’. Nakano was happy to meditate on the poets and their endurance of hardships in order to reach Süq Okaz and then have their Mu’alaqat posted on the walls of al-Ka’ba. Near Ushayrah well they saw some fifteen herdsmen watering their camels and sheep, and filling their water-skins. The sight of the black rocks of Harra and the vast empty plain filled Nakano with strange thoughts of jinns. His interest was aroused by the different forms of the sand-coloured lizard. ‘The Arabs say: the lizard’s tail is delicious to eat. It strengthens the backbone, which is essential for those who travel by camel’ (p. 26).

At Dafinah they camped and had their dinner while their escorts were performing their prayers. ‘When we heard their voices we at once felt lonely and scared, and sympathetic and enlightened. Our spirits responded in harmony with their chants, as if their prayer were some kind of splendour that entered the heart and evoked a variety of feelings’ (p. 29). Here we notice Nakano’s warm admiration for Islam. It is just as Sara Takahashi, the translator, remarks in her Preface: ‘While I was translating the book I felt the strong attraction of the writer to Islam. It runs deeper than a cultural relationship, though he did not admit that.’

On their way to Afif they got lost, but two herdsmen put them back on the right track. With some difficulty they passed Dawadimi and the sands of Nafüd al-Sirr, but they were pleased to enjoy the oasis of Marat, the birthplace of Imru al-Qais, and the village of Jubaylah with its sania, or wooden water-wheels; they finally arrived at Riyadh on the fifth day of their journey from Jeddah.

On the sixth day they were given a cordial welcome in Shamsiya Palace, where they met His Majesty King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. His remarkable stature ‘gave them the conviction that he is a real king, king of this area without dispute’ (p. 92). They talked of religion, the international situation and political affairs, the king usually prefacing his utterances with ‘Your Excellency, Japanese Minister’. Later, most of their political meetings were held with Sheikh Yüsuf Yasin, whose manner and looks reminded Nakano of Rasputin. He invited them to the palm garden at the back of the Palace, where they enjoyed the wonderful sight of almost five hundred date-palms. This was followed by a tour of the city of Riyadh and a royal dinner with the Crown Prince, who bore, they thought, a remarkable resemblance to his father.

They were planning to visit Hasa, Bahrain and Kuwait, but could not get permission for this from the British authorities owing to the death of King Ghazi of Iraq. It is interesting to note that the Japanese and the two American engineers in the king’s employment were not persuaded of the need for this British action against the Japanese; and this episode clearly reveals the effects of the serious political and economic rivalries of the great powers in the Middle East at the time. Though delayed by a flood of rain, the Japanese visitors finally left with great satisfaction on the fourteenth day of their trip.

Ar-Rihla al-Yabaniah ela al-Jazerat al-Arabia 1358/1939 (A Japanese Visit to the Arabian Peninsula 1358/1939) was first published in instalments, from Ramadan 1358/November 1939 until Muharam 1360/February 1941 in Kaikyo Sekai (The Journal of the Islamic World). It was published as a book in Sha’ban 1360/September 1941 in Tokyo, and translated into Arabic in 1416/1996 by Sara Takahashi under the supervision of Darat al-Malik ‘Abd al-‘Aziz.

Though the book was originally written in Japanese, the Arabic translation adequately conveys the literary style of the writer. His residence of seven years in Cairo and his study of Arabic Literature had given him the opportunity of mastering Arab culture: ‘This village [Marat] and its beautiful natural setting recalled to my mind, or rather reflected my recollection of, what Imru al-Qais expressed in his poems. It aroused both my emotions and my senses’ (ibid., p. 62).

The heavy rain he experienced during his last two days in Riyadh reminded the author of the Flood of Arim that was held to have destroyed the Ma’rib Dam among the ancient Sabaeans, and so he quotes the relevant five verses of Süra 34, ‘Saba’. His familiarity with Qur’anic verses impresses the reader and exhibits well Nakano’s sympathetic understanding of Islam.

The Journey of Fuad Shakir:

The sight of the royal camp in its magnificent and huge numbers and our expectation of the majestic meeting had, no doubt, a great effect on us. The spectacle of the immense number of tents, which we learned later numbered about 1,750, was splendid. They were like the wings of startled white doves, or a spread of fluttering sails ploughing through the heavy waves (Fuad Ismaïl Shakir, Rihlat al-Rabi’ (‘The Spring Journey’), p. 74).

The journey to Nejd began on 5 Safar 1360/1941 with an invitation issued by King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to a group among the Meccan elite. Fuad Ismaïl Shakir, the editor of the Umm al-Qura newspaper, was one of this group. He was born in Makkah in 1323/1905 and was one of the members of the first Saudi educational mission to Cairo in 1347/1928. He obtained his university degree in Arabic literature from Cairo, and became an editor of several newspapers, such as al-Haram, Sout al-Hijaz, Umm al-Qura, al-Bilad and Akhbar al-’Alam al-Islami. He was a prolific poet and writer. Rihlat al-Rabi’ (‘The Spring Journey’) was one of eight works by Shakir; it gives an account of his journey to the royal camp in Nejd. They were a party of eight in three small cars, with three loaded lorries for the baggage. The caravan headed for Sharay’, a wide valley with springs and a plenitude of agricultural products that supplied Makkah, ‘the valley without plants’, with the provisions it needed. Shakir expressed his admiration for the place in a poem called ‘The Moon and Dawn in al-Sharay’’.

They then reached Zima, which used to be even more green than Sharay’, a place described by Muhammad Hussein Haikal in Manzil al-Wahi as quoted by Shakir: ‘We saw in Sharay’ some plants called orchards but we did not take them into account. However, here [in Zima] we saw the water falling down from the mountains watering several orchards full of banana trees, and the heart was gladdened by the greenery and the water that we saw’ (ibid.,

p. 36). Sayl followed; it was in a valley surrounded by a semi-circle of mountains; the rainwater from those mountains poured into the valley, and that explains its name: sayl: ‘the course of rainwater’. It is famous because some researchers have thought that it was the site of Süq Okaz, as well as being the point where pilgrims start their ihram.

At Ushayrah they camped and spent their first night ‘away from their homes and families’. They continued their smooth journey to Muwayh, where they were welcomed by the Amir at the official rest house (Qas’r). They suffered from the cold weather, particularly when they had to use cold water for wudhu. They consulted a guidebook that cited distances, climates, places for camping and water sources; they decided to spend their third night at Dawadimi, passing through Dafinah, Afif and Qai’yah. At the royal palace of Dawadimi they were glad to have the opportunity of calling up their families by two-way radio. On their way to Marat one of the cars broke down. They were fortunate to find a ‘small workshop in the heart of the desert’ (ibid., p. 60). The damage was repaired by an engineer sent by the Arabian Car Company to repair one of their own broken cars.

At Marat they were anxious to see the birthplace of Imru al-Qais and the well of Ibn al-Walïd, where Khalid Ibn al-Walïd stopped on his way from Madinah to Wadi Hanifa in his campaign against the rebels, Ahl al-Ridda. On Saturday morning they reached the green meadows of the Royal Camp at Rawdat al-Khafs. There, they were delighted to be greeted by His Majesty King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, his two sons, Saud and Faisal, and members of the Royal Court. They asked permission to make speeches and to recite poems by three of the members of the group, to express their loyalty and gratitude. They were enchanted by the variegated coloured meadows covered with different kinds of flowers, yellow, blue and white. His Majesty gave a dinner party in his own tent in honour of his guests. On Thursday 15 Safar they were invited by Sheikh Yüsuf Yasin to a dinner party an hour before the Maghrib prayer, as was the custom of His Majesty. The next day Shakir recited in front of His Majesty a poem of forty-nine verses entitled Hawliyat Najd, praising Nejd, its gardens and its pools, and the Royal Camp and its royal master.

When other delegates from Jeddah, Madinah and Ta’if joined the Royal Camp, His Majesty announced that he would start his journey to Kharj and Riyadh. Together with his guests he planned the details of the journey, which would take four to five hours. They witnessed many signs of the king’s noble personality: for instance, he stopped the entire caravan to help a poor truck driver waiting by the side of the road, and provided him with water, petrol and a sum of money. Moreover, whenever they passed by Bedouin, he would help them with money, and once had to borrow money from the Amir of Zima to give to the poor.

The king was famous for his fondness for sweet scents; incense and essence of rose water were regularly used in his presence, especially after meals. After lunch on their way to Kharj, the travellers washed their hands, and:

His Majesty called ra’i al-Teeb, the man in charge of the perfume. He put on some of the best rose perfume, and then announced; all those who want perfume, come to me! We came to put on the perfume, and His Majesty said: ‘Those who want perfume, let them come and shake hands with me!’ His noble palms were full of perfume, and my companions came to shake hands with him. He would shake hands with one of them, and then refill his palms with perfume to shake hands with another. They all came to grasp his hands, and all the while the smile never left his finely drawn lips and his gracious face. They were all filled with joy and pleasure at His Majesty’s warm kindness and gentle manners, which bore witness to his noble nature (ibid., p. 166).

On Sunday 25 Safar they reached Kharj, the place of the extinct Arabian tribes, Tasim and Jadïc, and the home of Zarqa al-Yamama, a woman famous for her far-sighted power of vision. Kharj is situated on the south-west of Wadi Hanifa, one of the most fertile valleys of Nejd. There were five springs; the largest was Samha, from which three engines drew about six thousand gallons of water per minute. The abundance of water encouraged the government to call on a technical mission from Iraq to make a geological study of the area with the object of investing in the rich valley of Kharj. The charm of the flowing water captivated the royal party and their guests to the extent that words failed our poet Shakir, and he could not do it justice. This situation reminded him of Lamartine, the French Romantic poet, and his fascination at the sight of Niagara Falls. He was so stunned by the grandeur of the falls that he unwittingly cried out aloud ‘Niagara! Niagara! Niagara!’; and then he said: ‘It is Niagara, and that is enough.’ The French consider that to have been a supremely eloquent expression (p. 190).

They spent four delightful days at Kharj. In spite of an attack of fever, Shakir concluded his stay with a poem expressing his admiration for Kharj and his respects to His Majesty. In the early morning of Tuesday 27 Safar, accompanying His Majesty, they left for Riyadh, ‘the capital of Nejd, and the capital of the glorious historical career of al-Saud’ (p. 195). In two hours, they were welcomed at the royal palace, where they enjoyed the facilities of modern life, such as electricity and wireless communications. They made a tour of the Riyadh shopping centres and the gardens of Badi’a. And then they went back to Rawdat al-Khafs, where they spent a further three days.

On Monday 4 Rabi’ al-Awal, they bade farewell to His Majesty and headed for Dawadimi, Qai’yah, Afif, Dafinah and Muwayh. At Muwayh, heavy rain forced them to postpone their journey for forty-eight hours, because it was too dangerous to drive through the wet salt-marshes. As soon as they reached Makkah they went to the Haram, where they performed umra. They were met by another spring torrent in Hejaz; the heavy rain was a premonition of a prosperous year.

The great writer Abas Mahmoud al-Aqqad wrote the introduction for Rihlat al-Rabi’, stressing the Arabs’ deep attachment to their roots, and illustrating the point with an anecdote related by Shakir on his tracking down the birthplace of Imru al-Qais. He also praised Shakir’s poetic contribution to his travel book.

As a poet, Fuad Shakir is a sensitive observer, combining beauty with accuracy. The charm of the desert, its meadows, and its coloured flora, and the meeting of the sun and the moon on the fifteenth day of Safar were a constant source of inspiration to him:

One of the most beautiful memories of al-Rawdah was an evening walk near Khuwair pool. It was 15 Safar … a full moon. We saw a scene we had never seen before: the rising of the moon with the setting of the sun; one was in the east and the other was in the west, meeting each other face to face. It represented the noblest and most distinguished of all scenes of beauty (p. 217).

Shakir’s language is poetic throughout: his narrative is packed with elaborate images, poetic rhythms, and repetitions; and there are also more than ten poems intercalated into the text itself, most of them consisting of occasional or panegyric verse.

The Travels of ‘Abd al-Wahhab Azzam:

My aim in recording these sights was to present to Arab readers pages of our past, our present and the happy or sorrowful reminiscences of our history. I would ask them to be delighted and proud of the glorious pages and happy reminiscences and to take warning from the sad reminiscences. I would also like to present students with a description of ancient places in a direct and straightforward literary style. Add to this the enjoyment, entertainment and benefit of learning, history and literature that these travels contain (‘Preface’, Rihlat ‘Abd al-Wahhab Azzam).

‘Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad Azzam’s post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs helped him satisfy his interest in exploring Arab and Islamic countries. Born in Giza near Cairo in 1312/1894, he graduated from the Law School at al-Azhar, and then obtained a university degree from King Fuad I University in 1923. He was posted as Consultant on Islamic Affairs to the Egyptian Embassy in London. He enrolled in the London University School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and obtained a Ph.D. in Persian literature. He returned to Cairo to teach Persian, and later became dean in the Faculty of Arts. In 1948 he was posted as Egyptian Minister to Saudi Arabia and later to Pakistan. From 1954 he was ambassador in Saudi Arabia, and when he retired he was assigned the task of establishing the King Saud University in Riyadh. He died in Riyadh in 1378/1959.

His first journey to the Hejaz was in 1356/1937, with the first pilgrimage mission of King Fuad I University; the second was when he was Minister in Jeddah in 1948. On his journey of 24 November 1949 from Suez to Jeddah on the ship Saqara, he was in reflective mood: ‘I said to myself: you have sailed from Suez three times and this is the fourth, but you have not written a letter or recorded a word. If it was the noise of people bidding you welcome or saying goodbye that was what occupied your mind, now I can see nothing to distract you’ (p. 192). On Monday, 6 Rabi’ al-Thani/16 February, he drove to Makkah to perform umra. ‘The journey from Jeddah to Makkah used to take a day and a night, fraught with insecurity even though one was protected by guards. Today the traveller covers the distance securely asleep within a single hour’ (p. 195). Returning to Jeddah, he later travelled to Riyadh via Ta’if by plane. It was such a rough flight that he would have preferred to ride a lion. In Riyadh, they saw Al-Shuyukh on his way to meet the ulama, as it was his custom every Thursday. They greeted His Majesty, and then left for al-Nasirya and Fakhirya, the two orchards of Prince Saud and Prince Talal. They spent the afternoon with the king listening to his comments on the scarcity of rain, the importance of security and the power and violence of Communist Russia. The next day they went to Manfuhah, the home of the poet al-A’sha, and performed Friday prayers with His Majesty. They visited Dir’iyah and had dinner at the Royal Palace; there were many, many dishes, but His Majesty took only bread, soup and laban. After coffee, His Majesty called for Teeb (perfume) and put some on Azzam’s hands and handkerchief: ‘In Nejd and Hejaz, the meetings of the king and princes are usually concluded with Teeb – a very good conclusion, and a perfect rule’ (p. 220).

At Kharj they visited the fields of wheat and clover, the deep springs and the modern accommodation for the American engineers. They spent a delightful time in Riyadh visiting the Crown Prince, Saud, the learned prince ‘Abd-Allah Ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman, and the horse races at Malaz. On the day of his departure Azzam went to bid farewell to the king. There he met Sheikh ‘Abd-Allah Philby. They talked of his last book, Background of Islam, and discussed the language of southern Arabia (in an ongoing dispute with a French scholar, Philby held that the Arabs of the south had been the inventors of the Alphabet).

They left Riyadh for Makkah, passing by ‘Aqraba, the site of the battle between the Muslim armies led by Khalid Ibn al-Walïd and the apostate armies led by Musailima. The mountain ridge of Tuwaiq reminded them of Amru Ibn Kalthüm’s comparison of those ridges to upright swords. Between Sayl and Zaima they saw the valley of Hunain: ‘Assuredly Allah did help you in many battlefields and on the day of Hunain’ (Sura 9: At-tauba, 25). On Friday, 28 May 1948, he visited Ja’rana, about 18 kilometres from Makkah. He saw a large well with abundant and fresh water; it was said that King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz preferred to drink from that well when he was near Makkah, and some of its water was probably carried to Riyadh. Another well, called ‘Arwa’s, in the valley of ‘Aqiq, three kilometres from Madinah, was also famous for its fresh water. Those wells were mentioned by name in some well-known poems, and Yaqüt al-Hamawy reported that Zubair Ibn Bakr said that his father used to boil the water of ‘Arwa, put it in bottles, and present it to the al-Rashid at Riqah (p. 299).

His stay in Jeddah as a Minister gave Azzam the opportunity of travelling round the Hejaz. He made the journey from Jeddah to Madinah about nine times by car and twice by plane. On Wednesday, 19 April 1950, he made his way to Mahd al-Dhahab (the ‘Cradle of Gold’) on his way to Madinah. There he passed by the pilgrims’ reservoir built by Zubaida, the wife of one of the al-Rashïd:

Good God! What historical memories of pilgrims’ caravans that passed by that source of water! Roads brought them together and separated them. They came successively to the pool and then went on successively to death … I saw a range of black rocks at the edge of the pool and I thought: Don’t they look like a train of advancing camels (pp. 374–5)?

When they reached Mahd al-Dhahab, they admired the clean, small modern village composed of two compounds: one for the engineers, and the other for the workmen of the Saudi-Arabian Company. They spent the night in one of the American houses, fully equipped with air-conditioning and heating devices. At the mine and the factory they saw the veins of gold and the huge engines and machines that ground and smelted the rock ore, which contained gold, silver, zinc and copper. The percentage of gold in the crudely smelted ore was 24 per cent; it was then sent to America for the metals to be extracted.

Twice he missed the visit to Thour cave. However, on one of his trips to Makkah, Azzam went to the cave that gave shelter to the prophet (peace be upon him) and his companion, Abu Bakr: ‘If ye help not [the prophet], [no matter]: for Allah did indeed help him, when the unbelievers drove him out, he being the second of the two. The two of them were in the cave, and he said to his companion, “Have no fear, for Allah is with us”’ (Sura 9: At-Tauba, 40). It was a difficult trip that took them about an hour and a half to climb the mountain. The cave was in a big rock that looked like a camel’s head, whose mouth would have been the opening where the prophet and his companion entered. Azzam was delighted at the sight of the cave and the fresh air at the top of the mountain. From there he could see the mountain of Hira; and he wished he could fly between the two summits: ‘Between Hira and Thour there was a line of kinship; one was the place of worship and divine inspiration, the other the point of escape of the just from fear to security. … How often we need to be alone in one of these sites just to contemplate and meditate, away from the noise and bustle of life’ (p. 361).

Ahmed Hassan al-Zayat wrote the introduction for Rihlat ‘Abd al-Wahhab Azzam; he compared Azzam’s lucid style, his sense of humour and power of observation to the works of the famous Arab travellers: Beyroni, Baghdadi, Ibn Jubair and Ibn Batuta. His grasp of written sources is clear in his description of al-Waht, which is a place of orchards and farms that belonged to Imru Ibn al-’As, and is mentioned in Mu’jam al-Buldan by Yaqüt al-Hamawi:

Waht was a property of Imru Ibn al-’As at Ta’if. It consisted of grapevines fixed on a thousand thousand trellises. Each trellis cost one dirhem [that was what the Bedouin said]. When Sulaiman Ibn ‘Abd al-Malik went on hajj, he passed al-Waht, and said: ‘I would like to see this place.’ When he had made a tour of it, he said: ‘This is the best and most admirable property I have seen, were it not for that black spot in the middle.’ Then they told him that that was the place for drying the raisins (pp. 315–16).

His delight in historical sites shows how well informed he was on Islamic history and classic literature. Most of the places he visited reminded him of the great Arab poets – and inspired further creativity, for he was a skilful poet. His sense of humour shows clearly in his narratives of his aeroplane flight and and of his visit to Prince Saud. Once they were having tea in the prince’s orchard: he was telling Azzam of the different kinds of fruits there, which had been brought from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Azzam’s comment was: ‘The whole of the Arab League is represented in this orchard!’ (p. 136). It is his accounts of situations such as this that enliven the story of his travels and do credit to his sense of humour.

Conclusion :

The Arabian peninsula has always been a focus of attention in the minds of outsiders as well as for Muslims, who have always been attracted to the holy cities, since the pilgrimage to Makkah and Madinah is the ultimate rite of their faith. Famous Muslim travellers have often described their journeys by sea or land, informing their readers of the details of this great enrichment of their religious and human experience. For non-Muslim Europeans, the attraction was curiosity, mainly centring on the holy cities of Islam, as well as on the desert plains that remained inaccessible to most foreign adventurers. A number of Europeans who penetrated the Hejaz disguised as Muslims have contributed well-studied and well-documented works. Only those few of them who went so far into the heart of Arabia as to reach the land of Nejd have been mentioned above.

The establishment of a strong central government in Riyadh by King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in the first decade of the twentieth century also attracted curious travellers, who were welcomed and helped on their way by the king. And in the next two decades the introduction of motor-cars and later of aeroplanes into Arabia made their journeys easier and considerably more comfortable.

We have covered the publications of seven travellers whose narratives all fall within the reign of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz; they were all received, encouraged and generously treated in his court. Their work has been discussed in the chronological order of the dates of their journeys. The work of ‘Abd-Allah Philby, the British diplomat, includes a larger number of explorations than were made by any subsequent traveller in the area. His was the genuine work of exploration on camel-back. He was most proud of his crossing of the Rub’ al-Khali. His works (1917–1957) gave the earliest and most detailed account of the camp, the court and the character of the king and his companions.

The American-Arab poet and traveller Amin al-Rihani made extensive travels in Arabia and enjoyed the patronage of the king and the opportunity of observing him closely on various occasions. He wrote the history of Nejd and of the wars of unification of the peninsula under ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. His work is perfused throughout with his great aspiration for the unity of the Arabs, which informs most of the details that he reported of his travels.

Ghulam Rasül Muhir’s Hejaz Journal gives us a new perspective, since this Indian Muslim pilgrim came from the East, crossing the Arabian Sea to Aden and sailing north through the Red Sea to Jeddah. As a devout Muslim his performance of the umra and of hajj pervades his narrative with intense emotion. His meeting with the king and his court during the hajj is one of the highlights of his journey. His journal includes much information on the day-to-day life of the ordinary pilgrims, many of them poor devout Muslims from the Far East.

An Orientalist diplomat of a different type from Philby, Colonel Gerald de Gaury first arrived in Riyadh from Jeddah in 1934 in Arab dress, as requested by the king. In 1935 he went again to Riyadh, accompanying the first British Minister to Saudi Arabia. The details of this he gave in his book Arabia Phoenix (1946). His most interesting contribution to Travel Literature in Arabia in the first half of the century was his account of ‘Asïr, published in his Arabian Journey (1950).

The first Japanese delegation to the Kingdom in the reign of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz arrived in 1939. One of the members was a scholar of Arabic, Eigiro Nakano, who had studied in Cairo. He was well versed in pre-Islamic literature and desert lore in general. His observations and excitement were wonderfully reported in Japanese (1939–41). The Arabic translation published by Darat al-Malik ‘Abd al-‘Aziz presents a really new and fresh outlook on the kingdom. The writer has two sources of inspiration: pre-Islamic poetry and Doughty’s Arabia Deserta (1888).

The poet and journalist Fuad Shakir made the journey from Makkah to Nejd in 1941. His tour of Nejd, frequently in the company of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz himself, was narrated in highly inspired language. The experience of the desert, oases and springs of Nejd was a revelation to the poet from Makkah.

The last traveller discussed in this paper, Professor ‘Abd al-Wahhab Azzam, was a great scholar and advocate of Arab unity and Islamic culture. His great output of literature on Arabia and his contribution to the building of Modern Arab Scholarship give him a distinguished position among the makers of Modern Arabic Culture. It seems fitting to end this chapter with one of the founders of King Saud University, a man whom King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz himself complimented as ‘one of us’.

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