The volte face has been astonishing. Till 2017, or thereabouts, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was seen because the hallmark of Islamic puritanism, the place compulsorily veiled girls have been forbidden to journey with out their male guardian’s permission, retailers closed throughout prayer time, and the ‘non secular police’ brandished canes to marshal the trustworthy into mosques. Pre-Islamic historical past was the ‘time of ignorance’ (‘jahiliyya’) and tourism, when allowed, was restricted to small teams of well-paid overseas enterprise individuals and pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. However for the reason that ascendancy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (often referred to as MBS) underneath his father King Salman (who succeeded to the throne in 2015) issues have modified dramatically. Girls might now drive. Cinemas and live performance halls that non secular leaders, together with the grand mufti, as soon as thought to be sources of depravity are opening, together with ‘leisure cities’ and American-style theme parks. All are a part of Imaginative and prescient 2030, an bold programme aimed toward weaning the nation’s financial system off oil. Huge investments are being made in tourism, and Arabia’s pre-Islamic historical past – as soon as condemned as idolatrous – is central to it.
The Nabataeans
Amid this rediscovery of Arabia’s previous, a lot is being product of the potential of the AlUla Oasis, situated within the northwest within the neighborhood of Madain Saleh, also referred to as al-Hijr or Hegra. Madain Saleh was the second metropolis after Petra (now in neighbouring Jordan) created by the Nabataean kingdom that flourished from the late third century BC till it was annexed by the Romans in AD 106. Writing within the first century BC the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus described the Nabataeans as a nomadic tribe of merchants who averted agriculture, fastened dwellings, and wine, whereas pursuing a worthwhile commerce in frankincense, myrrh, and different spices from Arabia Felix (now Yemen) in addition to bitumen from the Useless Sea. As Arabic-speaking nomads who ventured throughout huge desert areas, they maintained a tradition of secrecy in regards to the origin of their items, together with the coastal ports they frequented, and the areas of cisterns and wells. After turning into a Roman consumer state they protected the Empire towards different Arabian tribes, extending their area as far north as Syria, clashing with the forces of King Herod earlier than the emperor Trajan took management of Petra and transformed their kingdom into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. Nabataean deities included the excessive god Dushara (whose shrine has been discovered at Puteoli close to Naples) and al-Uzza, one in every of three goddesses mentioned to have been worshipped in Mecca earlier than Islam.
In 2008 UNESCO awarded AlUla World Heritage standing as ‘a serious web site of the Nabataean civilization’. The positioning accommodates an ensemble of tombs and monuments minimize into the native sandstone that bear ‘excellent witness to necessary cultural exchanges in structure, ornament, language use and the caravan commerce’ linking the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Whereas Madain Saleh is perhaps much less spectacular than Petra (which now sees almost one million guests per yr), its large vacationer potential is evident.
Vacation spot desolation
This poses an issue for the Saudis. Custom – buttressed by the conservative clerics who dominated Saudi tradition earlier than MBS’s ascent – as soon as warned Muslims towards visiting Madain Saleh the place, in line with the Quran, God had struck down its individuals for idolatry. The British poet and traveller Charles Doughty, who visited Madain Saleh in 1876 as a part of a pilgrim caravan, confirmed that the ulama (Islamic scholar-authorities) taught ‘that males’s prayers might hardly rise to Heaven from the soil of Madain Saleh’. Probably the most pious pilgrims refused to drink from the native effectively for concern of its curses. Doughty wrote that even by the point of the Prophet Muhammad (c.560-632) – who, it’s now mentioned, turned his face away whereas passing the location – its ‘desolate locations’ had lengthy handed into legend.
Coming into one in every of Madain Saleh’s caves, Doughty discovered ‘grave-pits, sunken aspect by aspect, filled with males’s bones strewed upon the sanded ground’ and seen ‘a loathsome mummy odour’ that was ‘heavy on the nostrils’. Judging from the most recent photos accessible on-line – a few of them shared by historians and different media personalities who’ve accepted the Saudi state’s invitation to go to and promote the location – the makeover is now full. The AlUla web site exhibits staged images of ‘adrenaline-pumping actions’ reminiscent of rock-climbing on sandstone cliffs, monumental up to date artwork works, and ‘panoramic walks’ alongside the streets of AlUla previous city, the place Western-attired {couples} ‘stroll the streets of historical past … alongside the world’s largest hand-painted carpet’. All this on the place as soon as occupied by the traditional Thamud tribe whose individuals, in line with the Quran, have been destroyed by God for rejecting the Prophet Saleh, after whom the Nabataean metropolis acquired its Arabic title. Crucially, the brand new choices at AlUla acknowledge 200,000 years of historical past; the Saudi state seems to have embraced the Nabataeans.
This embrace has been a sluggish course of. From the Nineteen Seventies the Saudi authorities started cautiously introducing archaeology into the nation’s historical past curriculum, with regional museums permitted to point out reveals from Arabia’s pre-history. Museum captions use the worldwide Gregorian relationship system, thereby avoiding references to ‘pre-Islamic’ and ‘Islamic’ intervals. Websites reminiscent of Madain Saleh grew to become a part of the Saudi nationwide heritage relatively than a relic of a forbidden jahiliyya previous. Taboos towards Muslims visiting the cursed web site have been loosened and in 2011 Madain Saleh appeared within the standard tv present Historical past of the Prophets, with presenter Sheikh Nabil al-Awadi relating the story of the Prophet Saleh and the punishment God inflicted on the Nabataeans (identified by the Quranic title of Thamudis) towards the backdrop of Madain Saleh’s sandstone crags and tombs.
‘Lies and charlatanry’
The brand new presentation of AlUla has all of the cultural hallmarks of Western consultancies. Simply because the Scramble for Africa within the nineteenth century was pushed by competitors between rival European powers, the Twenty first-century Scramble for Arabia (or its cash) has been pushed by competitors between rival consultancies such because the McKinsey company and the Boston Consulting Group. The impression of gross sales pitches aimed on the higher finish of the Western vacationer market is strengthened by photos of the AlUla Wellness Middle, the place guests might enhance their respiratory methods in a ‘full moon sound bathtub’ by a Nabataean temple, in addition to having counselling classes with a well-known Californian therapist and yoga teacher.
Opinions of up to date Muslim students in the direction of the apply of yoga – which additionally had historical, pre-Islamic origins – might fluctuate, however that of the revered Hanbali scholar Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid – who studied with Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (1912-99), the eminent grand mufti of Saudi Arabia famed for his fatwas condemning anybody disputing the geocentric view that the solar circles the earth – is unequivocal. Yoga, al-Munajjid preaches, is a type of idolatry ‘primarily based on lies and charlatanry’ which will attraction ‘to easy minded people who find themselves weak in religion’. Some yoga postures imitating animals detract from human dignity together with ‘adopting nakedness and resting on all fours’. He has additionally criticised the tendency of yoga practitioners to encourage a vegetarian weight-reduction plan ‘for which Allah has not revealed any authority’.
The discovered sheikh’s fatwas – his on-line responses to believers’ questions delivered on his web site IslamQA – now not bear the authority of the Saudi state. Launched in 1996, IslamQA is now banned within the kingdom as solely the Dar al-Ifta’ – the official non secular institution underneath authorities management – is authorised to concern fatwas.
A much less contentious side of Imaginative and prescient 2030 is its embrace of artwork. Madain Saleh has hosted a lot of installations as a part of Desert X. Its co-curator, the Brazilian Marcello Dantas, sees the present as celebrating the ‘virginity of this panorama in individuals’s minds … a brand new interpretation of a really historical place with a forgotten historical past’. One in all its most hanging installations, by the Kuwaiti artist Monira al-Qadiri, consists of large-scale bronze sculptures impressed by meteorite fragments discovered by Harry St John Philby, buddy of Ibn Saud, the fashionable kingdom’s founder, and father of spy Kim Philby, when he crossed the Empty Quarter in 1932.
Object lesson
The transformation of a as soon as cursed web site right into a vacationer vacation spot is a part of a broader mission – rationalised economically – whereby the dominion’s function as guardian of Mecca and Medina is being subsumed right into a nationwide motion constructed across the individual of MBS. Worldwide tourism is meant to wean Saudi society off its dependency on hydrocarbons, whereas worldwide sport will wean it off Wahhabi puritanism, with out difficult the legitimacy of the ruling Saudi clan.
The idolatrous Nabataeans are integrated into the brand new nationwide narrative as an object lesson. The route of journey was indicated within the Nineteen Seventies by Allamah Tabatabaii, a well-known scholar who preached that classes could possibly be discovered from visiting the relics of now vanished ‘kings and rebellious pharaohs’, with their ‘grand dwellings and splendid thrones’. ‘God has merely left them there for future generations to glean recommendation from and by which individuals can see and be taught.’ This aligns with the brand new dogma proclaimed from Saudi pulpits. The crown prince is ‘singularly gifted’. Threats towards his reforms threaten worldwide safety, peace, and stability. The trustworthy can now go to Nabataean monuments secure within the information that they kind a part of the historic material of God’s chosen nation. And so can worldwide vacationers.
Â
Malise Ruthven is the writer of Unholy Kingdom: Faith, Corruption and Violence in Saudi Arabia (Verso, 2024).
