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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Welcome to one of the least accessible captial cities in the world! |
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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Welcome to one of the least accessible captial cities in the world! |
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Since international tourism into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is virtually impossible without a corporate or government sponsor, I hope you enjoy this rare opportunity to view Riyadh from the inside, as I take you with me on a little stroll through the Old Quarter.
Population of Saudi: 20.8 million Population Growth: 3.4% Head of State: King Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud Currency: Saudi Riyal (SR) Exchange rate: US$1 = SR3.75 The rate is fixed. |
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A Tid Bit of History (Note that the "Historical Facts about Saudi Arabia" section of the Lonely Planet Saudi Arabia book actually sold within the Kingdom has been cut out of all copies of the book. My copy, however, was purchased in the United States and is therefore unsensored (though not necessarily meaning it's entirely accurate!).) The pre-Islamic Era: about 5,000 years ago parts of the al-Ubaid civilization, which originated in Mesopotamia in the north or what is now Iraq, stretched down the eastern coast of the country. For several millennia, the interior or Saudi Arabia lay on the periphery of the larger and more organized civilizations to the north and to the west. From 200 BC to 400 AD most of the Middle East was conquered by the Roman Empire, with most of southern Arabia remaining independent during the era.
Jump forward a millennium into Saudi-specific history: In the early 18th century the royal al-Saud family were the ruling sheikhs (venerated religious scholars) of the oasis village of Dir'aiyah, near modern Riyadh. The first Saudi empire grew from an alliance in 1744 between the ruler bin Saud of Dir'aiyah and Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab, a preacher who espoused a simple, unadorned and strict form of Islam to later be known as Wahhabism, which became the offical form of Islam in Saudi Arabia. Numerous conflicts with Constantinople to the north occurred over the following century and a half then abated after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In 1902 Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman al-Saud recaptured Riyadh from a rival family, the al-Rashids and quickly built modern Saudi Arabia through a serious of quick and decisive conquests in the region. Then oil was discovered in commercial quantities in 1938 and the country subsequently became wildly rich and in September 2000 the Saudi government sponsored some random yet suavely international hearth-throb by the name of Daniel Schereck to come to the Kingdom to teach their National Guard how to speak English and voila now you're all reading his webpage documenting the tale! And that, my friends, is the end of our stroll down History Lane. Any additional information desired on the history of the region can be found in your local library (which has probably closed due to a lack of public funding) or on the Internet somewhere. Now, let's bet back to Riyadh! |
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Sidenote: the above picture is of the Masmak Fortress in the heart of Old Riyadh, which was captured during a key victory in 1902 by Abdul Aziz on his quest to unify Saudi Arabia. Now, where did I leave off on the other other page? Yes, that's right, Jeff, Donald and I were driving into town and Donald was being his usual self. On this particular trip in to Riyadh, we didn't actually go into the old sector of the city, as seen on this page, but rather went to the new downtown area of the city to prowl through Riyadh's newest shopping center al-Faisaliya and look at all the amazing shops they have as well as to people watch, then drive our way over to a nice little Thai restaurant and fill our stomachs with Asian cuisine. And so, I suddenly ask myself, "If we didn't go into the old part of town on this trip, why praytell am I talking about that story when the pictures don't match?" And well, the answer is that I don't have any good reason - except perhaps wanting to remain chronological - so, now that I think about it, what I'll do here is skip forward one weekend to the weekend Jeff and I came into town on our own and write about that story so the pictures * will * match. (In the mean time, Donald has since become a recluse who doesn't want to go into town with us on the weekends if he can't be back home by 9 p.m., at which time, we presume, he turns into a pumpkin.) So on to my new story. . . On Wednesday the 13th, Jeff and I signed up to take one of the English department 1990 Suburban heaps into town with the stated goal being to walk around the old ad-Dirah district, walk around al-Faisaliya and then to go have dinner at the above mentioned Thai restaurant - a now-weekly ritual with Jeff's other friends in the city. Our first stop in ad-Dirah was at the beautiful Masmak Fortress, as shown above. That paticular image was pieced together from three separate images, using my trusty Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and in case you're using a lower resolution setting on your monitor, if you scroll just to the right, you'll see two guys walking around in their white robes, known as 'thobe' (English phonetics). The * vast * majority of Saudi men here wear these white robes, and from what I understand they are very comfortable since "the male form is very free in them." Ah-hem! Anyways, we did not reach the Fortress before parking our Suburban pile in a neighboring parking lot near the following Religious Police ("mutawwa") vehicle below. Now, as you can see, the image is neither of the whole vehicle nor particularly clear, but the reason behind this is that I didn't particularly feel like just standing around taking a picture of the car, lest one of them see me and give me trouble - since photography is rather skittish in this country. Of interest in the image is the slogan written in Arabic and English around their emblem: "General Presidency of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice". Basically, what this means is that if you do anything they don't like, you're shafted. As I understand it, the term "mutawwa" refers to those Muslims who have devoted their lives to serving God, usually as the result of a "calling" at some point in their lives. You can usually spot the mutawwa since they wear robes which are generally a tad bit shorter than the average Saudi "thobe" and they almost always have long flowing beards, as did Mohammed the Prophet. Up until a few years ago (like, 1997) they used to walk around with sticks and beat you if you stepped out of line. For the time being the sticks are gone, but their influence is not. One interesting note, though, is that they generally do not have the power to arrest or take someone into custody for breaking the law unless they are with a uniformed officer and as such you will usually see the mutawwa accompanied by an officer who has the legal right to arrest.
I have also been informed, though, that Islam is also a religion based on the conception of forgiveness. If a crime is perpetrated against you, you have the right to either forgive the perpetrator or to punish him/her. Now, I'm not going to give any pro/con opinions about the system here, since to make any comments contrary to the Saudi government or Islam could land me in deep doo-doo with the local authorities, but I will say simply that in light of this system, it is intersting that Saudi Arabia does have a VERY LOW rate of theft, robbery, muggings or violence. . . at least in the public realm. |
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Across from as-Sa'ah Square is a small block of buildings which have fallen into disrepair and are therefore approaching "ruins" status. From what I gather, these buildings have been in this state for quite some time, so perhaps the city has no plans to remove them? Personally, I think that would be a cool option. Sure, it may not be Rome, but it's still nice to see how things were - even if that "were" is lying in a pile of rubble. Please scroll to the right to see the whole collage. And if the image appears a little too dark, just turn up the brightness level on your monitor! :-) |
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And from what I've seen in photographs of Riyadh, up to 50 years ago, most of the buildings were made of this compact earthen material (mud?). Then there was this period of modernization around the middle of the 20th Century during which most of the old architecture and walls around the city were torn down (which was quite common around most of the world) and only in the last 10 years or so has there been a big push for preservation of historical structures. The good thing, however, is that this preservation of Saudi architecture seems to be in full swing and there are a lot of beatifully renovated structures around the downtown area and the new architecture going up has a definite retro-design to it. And that's cool. |
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The picture to the left is of a clock tower boardering the as-Sa'ah Square with the Saudi Arabian emblem at its base. |
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Unphotographed observations of the as-Sa'ah Square area: Contrary to what one might think about life in a strict Islamic country, the square was busy with lots of people walking to and fro. Families with children walked around together with the kids riding bicycles and playing games. Women dressed in black robes (abaiya) sat together on stone benches in the dimming late afternoon dusk laughing together and having a good time with nothing but their eyes and their voices to reveal their identities. When prayer time came, everyone promptly got up and migrated to the nearest mosque to pray. Interestingly enough, during the prayer call Jeff and I were walking away from the main mosque out towards another market when this old man with a long white beard hobbled up to us and yelled at us to get into the mosque and pray and then bolted off through the courtyard into the mosque himself! But since neither Jeff nor I are Muslim, he was barking up the wrong tree! (Not to mention that Jeff and I would most likely not even have been allowed in the mosque and even if we did get inside, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do!) But I was at least honored that I could visibly pass as Muslim. :-) Then as Jeff and I were making our way back to the Suburban heap-mobile we were stopped by a group of excited young teenagers, just outside the Mutawwa/Religious Police headquarters, who were excited to see us and be able to practice their English on us. One of the boys was really excited when he asked us in English what time it was and when we answered and he understood! Personally, I really love these simple, but important cultural exchanges. And if people wanna chit chat with me and practice the language they have worked hard to learn, I'm all for it! That is, unless it's by the Mutawwa as they hall me off to jail!!! And last, but not least, though * totally * unrelated to anything else on this page, is a Saudi license plate. Written from right to left across the top is "as-sa'uudiyya" (Saudi Arabia) and below, starting on the right (read from right to left) are the letters Taa', Haa', and alif (related to the Greek "alpha"). Then you have three digits on the left, which must be read from LEFT TO RIGHT as the single number 158, ie, one-hundred fifty-eight. However, if they were separated by commas, they'd be read from RIGHT TO LEFT and would be 8, 5, 1. Wild, eh? And for anyone intersted in language here's a tid bit for ya on how to read the above "as-sa'uudiyya": starting on the far right is the straight line shaped letter "alif" which is an a/i/u vowel holder, and has no sound of its own. (Keep in mind that vowels are not written in Arabic, so you just have to remember which vowel goes where in the word and which vowel the "alif" is holding. In this case, it's easy because the first two letters spell the word "al" which mean "the" in English - and are written connecting to the following world, like the L' in French.) Then the next letter over, the line connecting to a bunch of squiggles is an "L", then the three squiggles are an "s", followed by the black hump which is a sound we don't have in any shape or form in English (known as the 'vomit sound') then the next swirly letter is a "w". The following free-standing letter is a "d" followed by a "y" (with two dots below) and the final letter is the feminine marker, with two dots above, "a". So basically what you have written is "alif+ls?wdya" which is transliterated as "as-sa'uudiyya".
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But
first, a few facts on Saudi Arabia from the Lonely Planet travel
book series:
The
Islamic Era: Mohammed, the Islamic prophet, was born in 570 AD in
Mecca (modern western Saudi Arabia) and began preaching three years
after he received his first revelation at age 40. His teachings
challenged the pagan religion of the Meccans and as a result, in 622
Mohammed and his followeers were forced to flee to Medina, an oasis
town some 360 km to the north. This migration is taken to mark the
start of the new Muslim era and is considered year 0. Mohammed died
in 632 AD but not before regrouping in Medina and becoming a
successful religious, political and military leader, eventually
conquering his home town of Mecca. After Mohammed's death, Islam
began to spread rapidly in all directions from Arabia and within a
few years, a rift opened up which grew into today's Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.
And
this, to the left, is where the mutawwa are headquartered - an area
of new and/or recently renovated buildings known as as-Sa'ah Square.
This is also the same area which houses the well known "Chop
Chop Square" where all sorts of hands and heads go rolling every
weekend. According to Islam (or so I've been told by various
Muslims), the belief system participates in the idea of an eye-for-an-eye.
If you induce pain or suffering unto someone else, the same will be
done unto you. If you punch someone in the face, the same will be
done to you. If you steal your hand is removed to prevent you from
doing so again as well as to remind you of the consequences should
you ever face the same temptation. And of course, if you kill, you
get killed. From what I have been told, God gives life and to murder
life is of the highest offense.
So
anyways, Jeff and I walked around town and through the gold and rug
markets near the as-Sa'ah Square where he picked up a rug he had
ordered several weeks ago. I tell ya though, I'm going to have to go
back as soon as I get my first pay check (October 5th!) and pick up
some really cool Old World things they've got down there. There was
one really cool market we stumbled upon that was exactly like
something you'd see in a movie. Dare I say "Raiders of the Lost
Arc". Men dressed up in white thobes sitting atop PILES of old,
dusty things. Golden Arabian tea pots, wooden this's and that's, hand
made sacks, bags, carpets, rugs and anything else you can imagine. I
really wish I had taken some pictures of this little market, but I've
been warned to not be camera happy everywhere I go, especially if
there are any women around. So the next time I go there I think I'm
going to buy a few things and ask if I can snap a few shots as well.