From Here to TIHAMALAND: A BRIEF MEMOIR (Series 1)

From Here to TIHAMALAND: A BRIEF MEMOIR (Series 1)

Tihamaland is the Saudi Arabia that is little known to the world unfamiliar even to most of its citizens.

My town of Dhahran Al Janoub (Dhahran South) is located near the other end of the mountain range that runs along the Southwest of the Arabian Peninsula from Taif looming over Jeddah and Mecca to the Najran plains. Along this range are breathtaking panorama of upland towns and cities most famous of which is Taif because it is where the Prophet Mohammad (p.b.u.h.) was stoned by pagans in the early days of ISLAM. Some of the high altitude cities, towns and villages are 3,000 feet above sea level blessed with dry and temperate climate. It is indicated in some maps of Saudi Arabia as Tihamaland inhabited by a tribe with customs and traditions unique to the Middle East. They dress very differently as well. Time yonder adventurers referred to these mountains as Arabia Felix part of which belongs to Yemen.

            Internet sources are very frustrating. Pictures are mislabeled similarly in some books written by foreigners about this region; names of towns and villages are interchanged. Most of the books written about this region are picturesque in nature like “Flowered Men” so titled because men of Tihamaland wear crowns of weaved ornaments, leaves, flowers and whatever they fancy over their heads. A man at one time knocked at our village clinic asking for a roll of cotton. His wife allegedly delivered at home only to find parts of the cotton mounted on his head the following day. Even synthetic flowers mysteriously vanished from our vases only to see it tucked over their heads. “The Undiscovered Assir” is the book that I bought and treasures with care because it covered most of “Tihama Qahtan” where I spent a better half of my whole existence. Most of the tribal men whose pictures appeared in the book are people I knew and although names of villages were mislabeled, some of the pictures are superb.

            I used to drive precariously four to six hours in one of Earth’s most rugged mountainous terrain to get to the heartland of Tihama Qahtan named after the first settler of these mountains. It is known that one of the first that embraced Islam in the time of the prophet was a Qahtan. The Tihama flatland that runs along the foothills not far from the Red Sea coastal plains is Tihama Assiri so named like Tihama Qahtan from the patriarch of its early settlers.

            One hundred kilometers east of Dhahran Janoub is the city of Najran, the lowland at the end of the mountain range and at the edge of the Empty Quarter. When it rains in the mountains; rampaging torrents cascades down the mountains negotiating through valleys flooding the Najran plains. It is probably one of the oldest settlements in the Arabian Peninsula that used to be a Judeo-Christian City before Islam. It is biblical important as well being along the path and alleged favorite stopover of Yemen’s Queen of Sheba on her way to Solomon’s kingdom. It is the town where according to some historians, whole families leaped into deep wells rather than convert to Islam. Other historians however claimed that the mass suicide happened long before Islam arrived in the scene. There was a conflict between the Jews and the Christians that for whatever mysterious reason prompted the Christians to commit mass suicides. I am more inclined to believe the latter because Muslims are never known to have forced Jews and Christians to convert to Islam whom the Qur’an referred to with respect as the people of the book.

“THOSE WHO BELIEVE [IN THE QUR’AN] AND THOSE WHO FOLLOW THE JEWISH [SCRIPTURES] AND THE CHRISTIANS AND THE SABIANS, ANY WHO BELIEVE IN ALLAH AND THE LAST DAY, AND WORK RIGHTEOUSNESS, SHALL HAVE THEIR REWARD WITH THEIR LORD ON THEM SHALL BE NO FEAR, NOR SHALL THEY GRIEVE.”

                                                                                       QUR’AN 2:62

TIHAMA QAHTAN; Al Muftah