The Road to Ubar (35 page)

Close by holy Hud's town, water gushed inexplicably from the barren desert (a phenomenon that may have made this a place of pilgrimage long before its identification with him). The devout made their ablutions here, in the belief that they were bathing in the waters of a river of Paradise. Then they joined a long, slowly moving line that ritually retraced Hud's last days.

Hud, they believed, was pursued into the Wadi 'Aidid by a pair of wild and godless horsemen. He rode up the gully beyond the town (where there is now a wide staircase) and leapt from his faithful she-camel—a beast that God immortalized by turning it into a great boulder. Cornered and hard-pressed, Hud said to an oblong rock before him, "Open by the permission of God!" The rock opened wide. He entered, and the rock closed behind him, though it did not close entirely. A fissure remained through which, it is said, only the virtuous can pass.

Though pilgrims have demonstrated their virtue by squeezing partway into the fissure, what lies beyond it is holy, not to be seen. In the 900s, the Yemeni historian al-Hamdani offered the report of an informant from the Hadramaut: "As I went in, I saw stretched on a bier a man of dark brown complexion with a long face and thick beard. The corpse was dried up and felt hard to the fingers. I saw beside his head the following inscription in Arabic: 'I am Hud who believed in God. I had compassion upon 'Ad and regretted their unbelief. Verily nothing can forestall what God has ordained.'"
⁷

In this far corner of far Arabia, we had come to a precinct that pilgrims held "so sacred that a stick or stone removed would come alive, leaping and screaming until it was replaced."
⁸
We were at the center of a vivid mythological landscape. It encompassed belief (Hud's tomb) and unbelief (the Rock of the Infidel Woman). It encompassed heaven and hell; across the Wadi 'Aidid were pools watered by a river of Paradise, and a three-hour walk away was the cave and well of Bir Barhut, widely believed to be a sulfurous portal to the underworld.
⁹

Journeying to Hud's tomb, the pilgrim entered a symbolic world of the past, the psyche, life, and death. The pilgrimage lamented the death of the prophet Hud in a landscape of death; the word "Hadramaut"—appearing in Genesis as Hazarmaveth—has been taken to mean "Valley of Death." Yet this landscape also served as a landscape of life, of fertility. Robert Serjeant tells of the Karat Mawla, a conical (phallic, he says) hill in the Wadi 'Aidid. If a woman does not become pregnant within two or three years of marriage, she may elect to climb to the top of this hill, strip herself naked, and lie on her back as if anticipating intercourse. In some cases, the husband is there and materially enhances the chance that the woman will become pregnant. A pilgrim confided to Serjeant succinctly, "Some people have tried this out and benefited."

If a curious and diligent researcher could have unrestricted access to Hud's contemporary pilgrims and their pilgrimage, there would be enough material for a major study of ancient belief and rites, transmitted from the time of belief in betyls to the time of Islam. We were content just to be here and to sense the abiding power of Hud, prophet of Ubar. As a social reformer, he challenged a people who may have been not only "arrogant and unjust" but who had probably fallen into the barbarism of infanticide and Lord knows what else.

As to Hud's condemnation of the worship of multiple gods, the question can be raised: what, inherently, was wrong with worshipping as many gods as one wished? (In the old days, who didn't?) But consider the nature of Arabia's gods: they were identified with celestial and natural forces (scorching sun, comforting moon, storms that could be either destructive or life-giving). Offerings were made to please them, to gain their favor. Whether the petitioner was avaricious or dissolute didn't matter. The gods had little or no interest in morality. By contrast, a single God, particularly a Jewish-inspired single God, historically called for the judgment of human behavior. What mattered in life came to be moral order and elemental human decency. Faith might be important, but decency was even more important. So it has been said in Arabia, by pious prophets and free-spirited bedouin alike: when the vanity of the world fades and is gone, nothing remains of an individual but his good name.

For Kay and me, this was the day we reached the end of a fifteen-year trail, for it was that long ago that Virginia Blackburn, the crusty bookseller in Los Angeles, had insisted I buy a book I didn't want to buy. A few nights later Kay and I first came upon the story of the ancient lost city of Ubar. Between then and now we had had many doubts whether Ubar, much less Hud, really existed, and in pursuing this quest, had often been but a step ahead of the "We would like to remind you ... perhaps you overlooked..." people at American Express and Visa. But now the search was, as they say in Arabic with a clap of the hands, "Khalas!" Finished. "Khalas!" an Omani good friend told us, has a double meaning. As well as "Finished!" it means "Salvation!"

As we wandered about exploring the environs of Hud's tomb, our driver, Hussein, napped in the shade of Hud's petrified camel, his Kalashnikov his pillow. At our return, he blinked awake and asked, "We go?" We bumped over the desert track back to Tarim, where we spent the night at a derelict palace now being run as something resembling a hotel. It was, lugubriously but appropriately, named the Qasr al-Qubba, the "Castle of the Grave." A sign over the front desk read: "All weapons to be left with the Management." Hussein said if that was the case, he would just as soon sleep on the roof of his Toyota (and did). On the way to our rooms, we passed another sign, lettered in Arabic, then English:

CALMN
-
-
ESS IS
REQUE
-
-
STED
FROM
ALL.

The rooms were stifling hot and not for the fastidious. We hesitated to open the windows for fear that creatures of the night might join us. Already a suction-footed lizard was adhered to a pane, watching us. Or perhaps he was more interested in the little snacks our room might offer. A creature of uncertain species strolled across our pillow, which reminded us of the enlightenment offered by a Middle Eastern hotel clerk on a previous occasion. "The reason there are bugs in the bed," he explained, "is that they're too scared to get down on the floor."

As darkness descended over the Hadramaut—the Valley of Death—we settled in for the night at the Castle of the Grave. We didn't sleep badly. Quite well, in fact.

APPENDIX 1:
Key Dates in the History of Ubar

APPENDIX 2:
A Glossary of People and Places

APPENDIX 3:
Further Reflections on al-Kisai's "The Prophet Hud"

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

'A
D
The people who in antiquity harvested Arabia's finest frankincense from groves high in the Dhofar Mountains of today's Oman. Ubar was the 'Ad's city in the desert.

A
IN
H
UMRAN
A fortress of the 'Ad overlooking the Arabian Sea and controlling the maritime shipment of frankincense. In architecture and purpose, it was Ubar's sister city.

A
NDHUR
A colonial outpost of the Kingdom of the Hadramaut in the territory of the People of 'Ad. Along with Hanun, it was an inland collection point for frankincense.

A
L
-A
HQAF
An arc of dunes on the southern edge of the Rub' al-Khali. In legend, this is where Ubar lay buried.

D
HOFAR
The southern region of today's Oman, where the Dhofar Mountains rise up from the coast, providing ideal conditions for the growth of Arabia's finest frankincense.

G
ERRHA
A city on the north side of the Rub' al-Khali. The Gerrhans were trading partners of the 'Ad.

H
AGIF
The 'Ad's major settlement in the Dhofar Mountains and the largest Bronze Age site in Oman.

H
ADRAMAUT
A powerful kingdom immediately to the west of the People of'Ad. Shortly after the time of Christ, the Hadramis sought a share of the frankincense harvest and colonized 'Adite territory.

H
ANUN
A colonial outpost of the Hadramaut in 'Adite territory. Along with Andhur, an inland collection point for frankincense.

H
UD
In legend, the prophet who warned the People of 'Ad of the terrible fate that would befall them if they failed to renounce their arrogant and wicked ways.

I
RAM
A name for Ubar in the Koran, the
Arabian Nights,
and many other accounts.

K
HOR
S
ULI
An 'Ad port on the Arabian Sea for the shipment of frankincense. In case of attack, its inhabitants could retreat to the nearby fortress of Ain Humran.

K
HULJAN
In legend, the greatest king of the People of'Ad.

M
AHRA
A desert tribe descended from the People of 'Ad that exists to this day.

O
MANUM
E
MPORIUM
The apparent designation for Ubar on Claudius Ptolemy's map of Arabia, 150
A.D.

R
UB' AL
-K
HALI
(T
HE
E
MPTY
Q
UARTER
) The great sand desert of central Arabia, the largest sand mass on earth.

S
ABA
(
OR
S
HEBA
) A famed Arabian kingdom far to the west of Ubar. Known for its queen, who journeyed to Jerusalem and the court of King Solomon.

S
HADDAD
In legend, an 'Adite king known for his arrogance and vanity.

S
HAHRA
Today a small tribe living in the Dhofar Mountains. The Shahra claim direct descent from the People of'Ad.

S
HISUR
The spring at Ubar and today's name for the site.

S
UMHURAM
The principal colonial settlement of the Hadramaut in the land of the 'Ad. A port for the shipment of frankincense collected at Andhur and Hanun.

U
BAR
The legendary "Atlantis of the Sands," the city doomed to destruction because its people "sinned the old sins, and invented new ones." In reality, a staging point for the caravans bearing frankincense north to Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome. In both myth and reality, Ubar was destroyed in a great cataclysm.

W
ABAR
A variant spelling of Ubar.

"The Prophet Hud," as told by Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Kisai, is the work of a master storyteller. He casts the tale of Iram/Ubar as a three-act structure, with each act broken into short scenes. The structure arose out of the need of a
rawi,
a street storyteller, to be paid for his prose. Every so often he would pause at a point where onlookers were anxious to know "what comes next." The rawi would nod to his
mukawwiz
(collector) that now was the time to rattle his cup and take up a collection.

On one level, "The Prophet Hud" is a morality play with a flair for fantasy. On another, its subtext is steeped in fascinating details of life before Islam, including choice clues as to the character and location of Iram/Ubar. Virtually every aspect of the tale can be traced back in time; its every thread has a source. Little, if anything, is woven of whole cloth.

A number of the story's telling ideas, citations, and characters are discussed in Chapter 7, "The Rawi's Tale." Here are more. The numbers refer to the lines on pages 81–87.

Line 5: "Wahb ibn Munabbih said: The greatest king of 'Ad was Khuljan..."

Line 44: "Kaab al-Ahbar said: When Hud was four years old, God spoke to him..."

To enhance their credibility, Arab storytellers cited past chroniclers, sometimes by the score. But "The Prophet Hud" mentions only three, and two of these—Ibn Munabbih and al-Ahbar—had a common agenda. Both were Jewish converts to Islam, and both were anxious to prove that their new religion shone as the only true faith. Nevertheless, they valued their Jewish heritage. Fond of its figures and folklore, they would have been particularly taken by the idea of a Jewish prophet Hud.