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Penguin Travel Library
رمال العرب
خلال السنوات التي عشتها في الجزيرة العربية، لم أفكر مرة في تأليف كتاب عن رحلاتي، ولو فكرت لكان عليّ أن أحفظ آئنذٍ ملحوظات دقيقة كانت ستساعدني وتعرقلني في آن واحد؛ وبعد سبع سنوات من تركي جزيرة العربن عرضتُ بعض الصور على جراهام واطسون الذي ألحّ عليَّ بشدة أن أؤلف كتاباً عن الصحراء.
لذلك وضعت هذا الكتاب الذي أعاد إلى ذهني بوضوح البدو الذين سافرت وإياهم، والبلاد الشاسعة الخالية التي قطعت فيها ما يقب من عشرة آلاف ميل على ظهور الجمال.
لقد ذهبت إلى جنوبي الجزيرة في الوقت المناسب تماماً، وسيذهب غيري إلى هناك ليدرسوا علم طبقات الأرض وعلم الآثار والأطيار والنباتات والحيوانات، وليدرسوا إلى جانب ذلك أولئك العرب أنفسهم، إلا أنهم سينتقلون في سيارات، وسيتصلون بالعالم الخارجي عن طريق الهاتف، وسيأتون بنتائج أهمّ بكثير مما أتيت أنا بها، ولكنهم لن يعرفوا روح البلاد وعظمة العرب، ولو ذهب أحدهم الآن إلى هناك، بحثاً عن الحياة التي عشتها فلن يجدها، لأن الفنيين قد ذهبوا قبله منقبين عن البترول؛ والصحراء التي سافرت فيها تركت عجلات الشاحنات فيها آثاراً بغيضة، واتسخت ببقايا البضائع المستوردة من أوروبا وأميركا.
إن البدو لم يكن لديهم أية فكرة عن عالم غير عالمهم، ولم يكونوا متوحشين جهلاء، بل على العكس، كانوا الورثة المتعصبين لحضارة قديمة جداً، ولقد وجدوا ضمن إطار مجتمعتهم هذا الحرية الشخصية والتهذيب النفسي الذي تاقوا إليه� أما اليوم فإنهم يدفعون خارج الصحراء إلى المدن، حيث لم تعد تكفيهم المزايا التي منحتهم الجلد والسيطرة في الماضي على قوى لا تُقْهر، كالجدب الذي طالما قتلهم في الماضي، وحطّم نظام حياتهم.
ومنذ تركت جزيرة العرب، سافرتُ عبر شعاب كراكورام وهندوكوش في جبال كردستان وأهوار العراق، مدفوعاً دائماً إلى الأمكنة البعيدة، حيث لا تستطيع السيارات الوصول، وحيث لا يزال يعيش شيء من العادات القديمة، ولقد رأيتُ قسماً من أروع المناظر في العالم، وعشت بين قبائل عجيبة وغير معروفة، ولكن واحداً من هذه الأمكنة لم يهزني، كما فعلت صحراء الجزيرة العربية.
ومنذ خمسين سنة لم تكن كلمة "عربي" تعني سوى قاطن في الجزيرة العربية، وقد اعتبرت مرادفة لكلمة بدوي، ورجال القائل الذين هاجروا من الجزيرة إلى مصر وغيرها وظلوا عائشين كالبدو فيها قد اعتبروا عرباً، بينما غيرهم من الذين أصبحوا مزارعين أو من سكان المدن لم يعتبروا كذلك، وإني لأستعمل كلمة عربي في هذا المعنى القديم، وليس بالمعنى الذي تحمله كلمة - حديثاً، أصبح كل من اتخذ العربية لغة له يشار إليه كعربي دون إهتمام بأصله.
وعلى هذا، فإن البدو هم القبائل الرحل التي تربي الجمال في الصحراء العربية، والكلمة تعني "الذين ليس لهم مستقر"، وكلمة "البدويون" في صيغة الجمع قلما يستعملها أصحابها، وإني أفضل كلمة (بدو)، وقد استعملتها في تضاعيف الكتاب.
وعندما يتكلم هؤلاء البدو عن أنفسهم يستعملون عامة كلمة العرب، وعند الإشارة إليهم استعملت كلمتي بدو وعرب دون تمييز، وكلمة البدو في اللغة العربية هي في صيغة الجمع والبدوي هو المفرد، ومن اجل البساطة، استعملت كلمة بدو للجمع والمفرد، وكي لا أشوش أفكار القارئ، أتبعت الطريقة نفسها في أسماء القبائل: راشد ومفردها راشدي، عوامر ومفردها عامري.
لذلك وضعت هذا الكتاب الذي أعاد إلى ذهني بوضوح البدو الذين سافرت وإياهم، والبلاد الشاسعة الخالية التي قطعت فيها ما يقب من عشرة آلاف ميل على ظهور الجمال.
لقد ذهبت إلى جنوبي الجزيرة في الوقت المناسب تماماً، وسيذهب غيري إلى هناك ليدرسوا علم طبقات الأرض وعلم الآثار والأطيار والنباتات والحيوانات، وليدرسوا إلى جانب ذلك أولئك العرب أنفسهم، إلا أنهم سينتقلون في سيارات، وسيتصلون بالعالم الخارجي عن طريق الهاتف، وسيأتون بنتائج أهمّ بكثير مما أتيت أنا بها، ولكنهم لن يعرفوا روح البلاد وعظمة العرب، ولو ذهب أحدهم الآن إلى هناك، بحثاً عن الحياة التي عشتها فلن يجدها، لأن الفنيين قد ذهبوا قبله منقبين عن البترول؛ والصحراء التي سافرت فيها تركت عجلات الشاحنات فيها آثاراً بغيضة، واتسخت ببقايا البضائع المستوردة من أوروبا وأميركا.
إن البدو لم يكن لديهم أية فكرة عن عالم غير عالمهم، ولم يكونوا متوحشين جهلاء، بل على العكس، كانوا الورثة المتعصبين لحضارة قديمة جداً، ولقد وجدوا ضمن إطار مجتمعتهم هذا الحرية الشخصية والتهذيب النفسي الذي تاقوا إليه� أما اليوم فإنهم يدفعون خارج الصحراء إلى المدن، حيث لم تعد تكفيهم المزايا التي منحتهم الجلد والسيطرة في الماضي على قوى لا تُقْهر، كالجدب الذي طالما قتلهم في الماضي، وحطّم نظام حياتهم.
ومنذ تركت جزيرة العرب، سافرتُ عبر شعاب كراكورام وهندوكوش في جبال كردستان وأهوار العراق، مدفوعاً دائماً إلى الأمكنة البعيدة، حيث لا تستطيع السيارات الوصول، وحيث لا يزال يعيش شيء من العادات القديمة، ولقد رأيتُ قسماً من أروع المناظر في العالم، وعشت بين قبائل عجيبة وغير معروفة، ولكن واحداً من هذه الأمكنة لم يهزني، كما فعلت صحراء الجزيرة العربية.
ومنذ خمسين سنة لم تكن كلمة "عربي" تعني سوى قاطن في الجزيرة العربية، وقد اعتبرت مرادفة لكلمة بدوي، ورجال القائل الذين هاجروا من الجزيرة إلى مصر وغيرها وظلوا عائشين كالبدو فيها قد اعتبروا عرباً، بينما غيرهم من الذين أصبحوا مزارعين أو من سكان المدن لم يعتبروا كذلك، وإني لأستعمل كلمة عربي في هذا المعنى القديم، وليس بالمعنى الذي تحمله كلمة - حديثاً، أصبح كل من اتخذ العربية لغة له يشار إليه كعربي دون إهتمام بأصله.
وعلى هذا، فإن البدو هم القبائل الرحل التي تربي الجمال في الصحراء العربية، والكلمة تعني "الذين ليس لهم مستقر"، وكلمة "البدويون" في صيغة الجمع قلما يستعملها أصحابها، وإني أفضل كلمة (بدو)، وقد استعملتها في تضاعيف الكتاب.
وعندما يتكلم هؤلاء البدو عن أنفسهم يستعملون عامة كلمة العرب، وعند الإشارة إليهم استعملت كلمتي بدو وعرب دون تمييز، وكلمة البدو في اللغة العربية هي في صيغة الجمع والبدوي هو المفرد، ومن اجل البساطة، استعملت كلمة بدو للجمع والمفرد، وكي لا أشوش أفكار القارئ، أتبعت الطريقة نفسها في أسماء القبائل: راشد ومفردها راشدي، عوامر ومفردها عامري.
287 pages
First published January 1, 1959
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13k people want to read
About the author
Wilfred Thesiger
35books185followersSir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, KBE, DSO, MA, DLitt, FRAS, FRSL, FRGS, FBA, was a British explorer and travel writer born in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
Thesiger was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford University where he took a third in history. Between 1930 and 1933, Thesiger represented Oxford at boxing and later (1933) became captain of the Oxford boxing team.
In 1930, Thesiger returned to Africa, having received a personal invitation by Emperor Haile Selassie to attend his coronation. He returned again in 1933 in an expedition, funded in part by the Royal Geographical Society, to explore the course of the Awash River. During this expedition, he became the first European to enter the Aussa Sultanate and visit Lake Abbe.
Afterwards, in 1935, Thesiger joined the Sudan Political Service stationed in Darfur and the Upper Nile. He served in several desert campaigns with the Sudan Defence Force (SDF) and the Special Air Service (SAS) with the rank of major.
In World War II, Thesiger fought with Gideon Force in Ethiopia during the East African Campaign. He was awarded the DSO for capturing Agibar and its garrison of 2500 Italian troops. Afterwards, Thesiger served in the Long Range Desert Group during the North African Campaign.
There is a rare wartime photograph of Thesiger in this period. He appears in a well-known photograph usually used to illustrate the badge of the Greek Sacred Squadron. It is usually captioned 'a Greek officer of the Sacred Band briefing British troops'. The officer is recognisably the famous Tsigantes and one of the crowd is recognisably Thesiger. Thesiger is the tall figure with the distinct nasal profile. Characteristically, he is in Arab headdress. Thesiger was the liaison officer to the Greek Squadron.
In 1945, Thesiger worked in Arabia with the Desert Locusts Research Organisation. Meanwhile, from 1945 to 1949, he explored the southern regions of the Arabian peninsula and twice crossed the Empty Quarter. His travels also took him to Iraq, Persia (now Iran), Kurdistan, French West Africa, Pakistan, and Kenya. He returned to England in the 1990s and was knighted in 1995.
Thesiger is best known for two travel books. Arabian Sands (1959) recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins. The Marsh Arabs (1964) is an account of the Madan, the indigenous people of the marshlands of southern Iraq. The latter journey is also covered by his travelling companion, Gavin Maxwell, in A Reed Shaken By The Wind � a Journey Through the Unexplored Marshlands of Iraq (Longman, 1959).
Thesiger took many photographs during his travels and donated his vast collection of 25,000 negatives to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
Thesiger was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford University where he took a third in history. Between 1930 and 1933, Thesiger represented Oxford at boxing and later (1933) became captain of the Oxford boxing team.
In 1930, Thesiger returned to Africa, having received a personal invitation by Emperor Haile Selassie to attend his coronation. He returned again in 1933 in an expedition, funded in part by the Royal Geographical Society, to explore the course of the Awash River. During this expedition, he became the first European to enter the Aussa Sultanate and visit Lake Abbe.
Afterwards, in 1935, Thesiger joined the Sudan Political Service stationed in Darfur and the Upper Nile. He served in several desert campaigns with the Sudan Defence Force (SDF) and the Special Air Service (SAS) with the rank of major.
In World War II, Thesiger fought with Gideon Force in Ethiopia during the East African Campaign. He was awarded the DSO for capturing Agibar and its garrison of 2500 Italian troops. Afterwards, Thesiger served in the Long Range Desert Group during the North African Campaign.
There is a rare wartime photograph of Thesiger in this period. He appears in a well-known photograph usually used to illustrate the badge of the Greek Sacred Squadron. It is usually captioned 'a Greek officer of the Sacred Band briefing British troops'. The officer is recognisably the famous Tsigantes and one of the crowd is recognisably Thesiger. Thesiger is the tall figure with the distinct nasal profile. Characteristically, he is in Arab headdress. Thesiger was the liaison officer to the Greek Squadron.
In 1945, Thesiger worked in Arabia with the Desert Locusts Research Organisation. Meanwhile, from 1945 to 1949, he explored the southern regions of the Arabian peninsula and twice crossed the Empty Quarter. His travels also took him to Iraq, Persia (now Iran), Kurdistan, French West Africa, Pakistan, and Kenya. He returned to England in the 1990s and was knighted in 1995.
Thesiger is best known for two travel books. Arabian Sands (1959) recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins. The Marsh Arabs (1964) is an account of the Madan, the indigenous people of the marshlands of southern Iraq. The latter journey is also covered by his travelling companion, Gavin Maxwell, in A Reed Shaken By The Wind � a Journey Through the Unexplored Marshlands of Iraq (Longman, 1959).
Thesiger took many photographs during his travels and donated his vast collection of 25,000 negatives to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.
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December 22, 2024
Before I start, I have to declare I was pretty apprehensive about this book, and it sat on my shelves for a long time. I am a big Thesiger fan, and his books are excellent, and I find myself limiting my reading of them to one a year. I was concerned I wouldn't like this one, for a couple of reasons - I read a Penguin Great Journeys excerpt book with parts carved from Arabian Sands (Across the Empty Quarter) and didn't like it much - I found it an awkward selection of excerpts without much explanation or flow. At the time I had hoped it was just the excerpt, not the original text.
It seems odd in overview that some hopping about in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Sudan, then two trips across The Empty Quarter (the big empty bit in the middle of the Arabian Peninsular), and then some trips around the edge through Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen would make a long interesting narrative. Throw in the fact Thesiger travels not with a small core of companions, but with a larger entourage which changed up a bit more, and did I mention sand at all, and a lack of water - this could have been a snore-fest.
Thankfully, neither of these were an issue in Arabian Sands. Somehow Thesiger successfully transmits his own very real passion for The Empty Quarter, and for the Bedu (Bedouin to us uninformed people) shines through his writing. His respect for the Bedu way of life, and his foreseeing that the (newly arrived) oil company explorers and negotiators will have a negative effect on their culture is an interesting aspect to his story. The timeframe (1945-1950) is particularly interesting - Saudi Arabia and the Trucial Coast (a pre-cursor to the United Arab Emirates) had not verified oil reserves, and were not the wealthy counties they are now - Dubai is described as a village! Even motor vehicles were limited in these places - and again Thesiger predicted a future of the deserts being crossed with automobiles, and what limited animals (oryx in particular) would be decimated.
Thesiger's interactions with the many different tribes, many at war or with blood feuds, or just a mutual dislike - are a lesson in planning and diplomacy. The whole way of life of the Bedu is so different to Thesiger's England, and yet he was so enamored by it. He mentioned a couple of times while practically starving, surviving on a quart of water per day for weeks on end (bitter, brackish water at that), walking for 10 hours a day - that he simply considered whether he would rather be back in England or he with the Bedu - and each time he remained satisfied.
The other thing that occurs while reading this book is how a successful explorer / adventurer makes his own luck. Some of the circumstances that occur, had Thesiger been a week, or even a day earlier or later, then he would have been caught up in an altercation he would be unlikely to survive. The multiple times that Bedu / Arab parties were sent out after him with the task of 'killing the Christian', it is incredible that through that combination of luck, clever diplomacy, and even his ability to bond with people who will go out on a limb to help and protect him (also the Bedu etiquette / obligation to guests), got him through again and again. So despite coming across as a crotchety man, he must also have been incredibly likeable, because many people in this book, from his young companions to sheiks and leaders were able to bond with him, respect his wishes to undertake unusual and dangerous travel, and assist him in any way they could.
I feel I am rambling now, so will wrap this up, and without hesitation, bang 5 stars on this.
There are heaps of excellent quotes, here are a few:
It seems odd in overview that some hopping about in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Sudan, then two trips across The Empty Quarter (the big empty bit in the middle of the Arabian Peninsular), and then some trips around the edge through Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen would make a long interesting narrative. Throw in the fact Thesiger travels not with a small core of companions, but with a larger entourage which changed up a bit more, and did I mention sand at all, and a lack of water - this could have been a snore-fest.
Thankfully, neither of these were an issue in Arabian Sands. Somehow Thesiger successfully transmits his own very real passion for The Empty Quarter, and for the Bedu (Bedouin to us uninformed people) shines through his writing. His respect for the Bedu way of life, and his foreseeing that the (newly arrived) oil company explorers and negotiators will have a negative effect on their culture is an interesting aspect to his story. The timeframe (1945-1950) is particularly interesting - Saudi Arabia and the Trucial Coast (a pre-cursor to the United Arab Emirates) had not verified oil reserves, and were not the wealthy counties they are now - Dubai is described as a village! Even motor vehicles were limited in these places - and again Thesiger predicted a future of the deserts being crossed with automobiles, and what limited animals (oryx in particular) would be decimated.
Thesiger's interactions with the many different tribes, many at war or with blood feuds, or just a mutual dislike - are a lesson in planning and diplomacy. The whole way of life of the Bedu is so different to Thesiger's England, and yet he was so enamored by it. He mentioned a couple of times while practically starving, surviving on a quart of water per day for weeks on end (bitter, brackish water at that), walking for 10 hours a day - that he simply considered whether he would rather be back in England or he with the Bedu - and each time he remained satisfied.
The other thing that occurs while reading this book is how a successful explorer / adventurer makes his own luck. Some of the circumstances that occur, had Thesiger been a week, or even a day earlier or later, then he would have been caught up in an altercation he would be unlikely to survive. The multiple times that Bedu / Arab parties were sent out after him with the task of 'killing the Christian', it is incredible that through that combination of luck, clever diplomacy, and even his ability to bond with people who will go out on a limb to help and protect him (also the Bedu etiquette / obligation to guests), got him through again and again. So despite coming across as a crotchety man, he must also have been incredibly likeable, because many people in this book, from his young companions to sheiks and leaders were able to bond with him, respect his wishes to undertake unusual and dangerous travel, and assist him in any way they could.
I feel I am rambling now, so will wrap this up, and without hesitation, bang 5 stars on this.
There are heaps of excellent quotes, here are a few:
“I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence; the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving of sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.�
"While I was with the Arabs I wished only to live as they lived and, now that I have left them, I would gladly think that nothing in their lives was altered by my coming. Regretfully, however, I realize that the maps I made helped others, with more material aims, to visit and corrupt a people whose spirit once lit the desert like a flame.�
“I pondered on this desert hospitality and, compared it with our own. I remembered other encampments where I had slept, small tents on which I had happened in the Syrian desert and where I had spent the night. Gaunt men in rags and hungry-looking children had greeted me, and bade me welcome with the sonorous phrases of the desert. Later they had set a great dish before me, rice heaped round a sheep which they had slaughtered, over which my host poured liquid golden butter until it flowed down on to the sand; and when I protested, saying 'Enough! Enough!', had answered that I was a hundred times welcome. Their lavish hospitality had always made me uncomfortable, for I had known that as a result of it they would go hungry for days. Yet when I left them they had almost convinced me that I had done them a kindness by staying with them�
“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.�
And finally after spending five years on the Arabian Peninsular:
"One evening the Political Officer who had taken over from Noel Jackson came to dinner. He led me aside and said, 'I am afraid, Thesiger, that I have a rather embarrassing duty to perform. The Sultan of Muscat, His Highness Sayid Saiyad Bin Taimur, has demanded that we should cancel your Muscat visa. I have been instructed to do so by our Political Resident. I am afraid I must therefore have your passport.' I replied 'All right, I'll get it; but you realize I've never had a Muscat visa.'
Read
May 6, 2017It was at school that we were given an excerpt of Arabian Sands to read, a passage detailing the peoples who had lurked on the fringes of Arabia Felix without actually controlling it, coming across the book at the town library I borrowed it and read on.
Wilfred Thesiger travelled backwards and forwards across the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia in the late 1940s and early 50s. With the subsequent discovery and extraction of oil this is now a record of a vanished world.
Coming from a privileged British background (his father had been ambassador to Abyssinia, and one of Thesiger's early experiences was seeing the Abyssinian army jogging off to battle an insurgent,) as a young man he travelled ion the inhospitable Danakil depression, and after the Second World War travelled across the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia repeatedly, in between other adventures. he was an alien in the deserts of Arabia. His access to some areas was restricted, if I remember correctly the then Sultan of Oman was hostile to non-Muslims travelling on his territory.
Thesiger's focus was on exploration which meant spending time in the desert with a small number of guides rather than on ethnography and his views reflect his reading and his general attitudes about civilisation (he's more sympathetic to the hard lives lived in extreme circumstances). But it remains an entertaining book featuring Thesiger's wonder at the hardiness of his companions as they struggle over the dunes on a diet of rice and raisins utterly dependant on the health of their camels to survive.
Worth contrasting with his book . Thesiger's autobiography puts his journey in the context of his life - it is worth remembering that between trips to the Empty Quarter he was also sending time in the Kurdish regions and in the marshes of southern Iraq.
It is geography as hardship and hardship as the purest form of adventure. Travel as penance maybe, certainly not about destinations. The charm and good humour of his companions a constant amazement to Thesiger as they stagger over sand dunes and dream of feasting on roast camel hump and they watch uneasy as their male camels are socially obliged to perform stud services to the point of their own exhaustion, in accordance with the strict etiquette of the Empty Quarter - a law of manners that aims to resist feuding to reasonable limits and ensure the survival of people, as far as possible, in an uninhabitable region.
Wilfred Thesiger travelled backwards and forwards across the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia in the late 1940s and early 50s. With the subsequent discovery and extraction of oil this is now a record of a vanished world.
Coming from a privileged British background (his father had been ambassador to Abyssinia, and one of Thesiger's early experiences was seeing the Abyssinian army jogging off to battle an insurgent,) as a young man he travelled ion the inhospitable Danakil depression, and after the Second World War travelled across the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia repeatedly, in between other adventures. he was an alien in the deserts of Arabia. His access to some areas was restricted, if I remember correctly the then Sultan of Oman was hostile to non-Muslims travelling on his territory.
Thesiger's focus was on exploration which meant spending time in the desert with a small number of guides rather than on ethnography and his views reflect his reading and his general attitudes about civilisation (he's more sympathetic to the hard lives lived in extreme circumstances). But it remains an entertaining book featuring Thesiger's wonder at the hardiness of his companions as they struggle over the dunes on a diet of rice and raisins utterly dependant on the health of their camels to survive.
Worth contrasting with his book . Thesiger's autobiography puts his journey in the context of his life - it is worth remembering that between trips to the Empty Quarter he was also sending time in the Kurdish regions and in the marshes of southern Iraq.
It is geography as hardship and hardship as the purest form of adventure. Travel as penance maybe, certainly not about destinations. The charm and good humour of his companions a constant amazement to Thesiger as they stagger over sand dunes and dream of feasting on roast camel hump and they watch uneasy as their male camels are socially obliged to perform stud services to the point of their own exhaustion, in accordance with the strict etiquette of the Empty Quarter - a law of manners that aims to resist feuding to reasonable limits and ensure the survival of people, as far as possible, in an uninhabitable region.
September 11, 2021
There is no doubt in my mind that this is top of the shelf travel/adventure narrative. Thesiger could arguably be one of the last great explorers that this ever smaller world has seen. His journeys into the unmapped areas of the Empty Quarters of the Arabian peninsula are told in this well written book that must surely be a must for anyone that is attracted to any kind of travel writing. The writing is sparse but descriptive as he tells a tale of hardship by both himself and his Bedu (Bedouin) companions. Hardship comes in all shapes and forms, be it hunger and thirst or his struggles to make it known to hostile tribes that he was there to explore and not proselytise.
It took a recent trip to visit the edge of Australian desert country for me to understand that there is a deep beauty in these so called desolate lands and with that trip in my recent memories Thesiger’s descriptions of the various landscape he crossed and personally explored made his writings compelling. Add to that his deep respect for and descriptions of his travelling companions and their lifestyle along with some history this is a must read for anyone that likes travel readings.
Thesiger’s travels took place in the late 1940’s, pre oil boom. Places such as Abu Dhabi are but small towns of a couple of thousand people. He does notice and comment on the change of life that is beginning to take place and is not impressed.
“I marvelled that Arabs should wish to ape our ways�
“�..I was averse to all oil companies, dreading the changes and disintegration of society which they inevitably caused�
“I realised even then that speed and ease of mechanical transport must rob the world of all diversity�
A big thanks to my great friend Gordon who gifted me this book on my recent visit to his wonderful part of the world. You know me well mate. �
Highly recommended to any one who has an interest in travel and exploration.
It took a recent trip to visit the edge of Australian desert country for me to understand that there is a deep beauty in these so called desolate lands and with that trip in my recent memories Thesiger’s descriptions of the various landscape he crossed and personally explored made his writings compelling. Add to that his deep respect for and descriptions of his travelling companions and their lifestyle along with some history this is a must read for anyone that likes travel readings.
Thesiger’s travels took place in the late 1940’s, pre oil boom. Places such as Abu Dhabi are but small towns of a couple of thousand people. He does notice and comment on the change of life that is beginning to take place and is not impressed.
“I marvelled that Arabs should wish to ape our ways�
“�..I was averse to all oil companies, dreading the changes and disintegration of society which they inevitably caused�
“I realised even then that speed and ease of mechanical transport must rob the world of all diversity�
A big thanks to my great friend Gordon who gifted me this book on my recent visit to his wonderful part of the world. You know me well mate. �
Highly recommended to any one who has an interest in travel and exploration.
June 29, 2019
“…There was a very lovely girl working with the others on the well. Her hair was braided, except where it was cut in a fringe across her forehead, and fell in a curtain of small plaits round her neck. She wore various silver ornaments and several necklaces, some of large cornelians, others of small white beads. Round her waist she had half a dozen silver chains, and above them her sleeveless blue tunic gaped open to show small firm breasts. She was very fair. When she saw I was trying to take a photograph of her she screwed up her face and stuck out her tongue at me…�
Arabian Sands: Have I just finished an epic tale of man’s perseverance against the majesty of indifferent nature? Or a philosophical essay on how a wild and unforgiving terrain can elevate us to the heights or human dignity and bring us the deepest spiritual insights? Or have I finished an exhaustive text on camel husbandry?
Who can tell, but I am sure that I know more about the care and breeding of camels than the average suburban office worker will ever need to know. For example:
I learnt that drastic measures are required to ensure that female camel brings down their milk:
"...Bin Kabina’s camel and Amair’s had become inseparable, while mine showed a preference for the mirri, an ugly grey, which we had bought in the Raidat because she was in milk. At first she refused to give us any, although her calf had already been weaned, but Amai sewed up her anus, saying he would not undo it until she let down her milk. After that she gave us about a quart a day..."
I learnt that my camel stick is a multipurpose tool. With it I can train my camel, use it to regulate my camel’s speed and my camel stick can help me find a girlfriend:
"...If you see a girl that pleases you, sit down next to her in the dark, push your camel-stick through the sand until it is underneath her, and then turn it over until the crook presses against her. If she gets up, gives you an indignant look, and marches off, you will know that you are wasting your time..."
while keeping an eye on my wife:
"...I had dropped my stick for the second time when bin Kabina, who jumped down from his camel to pick it up, said as he handed it back to me, ‘Really, Umbarak, this is too much. If I were you I should divorce her as soon as you get back.� The Bedu have a saying that whenever a man drops his stick his wife is being unfaithful..".
I learnt to recognise a contented female camel:
"...Whenever anyone approached her she flipped her tail up and down in a ridiculous manner, a sign that she had recently been served successfully..."
I learnt that the life of a male camel is bitter-sweet:
“…[As they do not give milk so are the first to be slaughtered] bull camels to act as sires are consequently very rare. Later, when I travelled to the Hadhramaut, I was accompanied by a man who rode one. We were continuously pursued by tribesmen with females to be served. We had a long journey in front of us and this constant exercise was visibly exhausting my companion’s mount, but he could not protest. Custom demanded that this camel should be allowed to serve as many females as were produced…�
The demands on a bull camel may bring exhaustion leading to death. Bitter-sweet indeed.
Arabian Sands is rightly recognised as a classic work. The book covers an area of the world about which I am wholly ignorant: Oman, The Yemen and southern Saudi Arabia; it sets one thinking about man’s insignificance before nature and how our consciousness of the evanescent uncertainty of life is these days lost, concealed behind fragile mask of modernity; it portrays a way of life that I am sure in only a few decades has disappeared forever; it has a lot to teach us about camels.
"...Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives..".
A closing message of the book is prophetic while also being a sad tribute to Thesiger’s insight into the human condition and the superficiality of the modern world that he demonstrates so well in the rest of the book:
"...Yet I knew that for them the danger lay, not in the hardship of their lives, but in the boredom and frustration they would feel when they renounced it. The tragedy was that the choice would not be theirs; economic forces beyond their control would eventually drive them into the towns to hang about street-corners as ‘unskilled labor�..."
The Pitt-Rivers Museum has in an online virtual museum. This is a fantastic resource for following the book.
October 2, 2014
Wilfred Thesiger was born a few centuries too late, given his enterprising spirit and his thirst for the pristine lands, untouched by human development. His is the temperament and the dogged determination that had led men to reject the comfort of home and the perks of civilized society and prefer to sweat and toil in the harshest climates for no other reason that the maps showed a blank space in that region. Empires were built by men like Thesiger, driven by the need to claim to be the first to set foot on that mountain peak or that Southern Pole or that uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere. It is also true that one of the less endearing characteristic of these British explorers is their ability to ignore the local populations that lived in those same places for millenia. Only the European foot counted in their history books. Wilfred Thesiger is the exception to the rule, as his explorations were concerned almost as much with getting to know and becoming integrated with the local tribes as they were about the physical distances travelled. I will get back to this.
By the time he finished his education (1930's) most of white spots on the maps had dissapeared with only the most forbidding lands still putting in a claim to virgin integity: the summit of the Everest, the Mariana Trench, the Amazonian jungles. Thesiger set his sights on the desert. A childhood spent in Abbysinia and a few years exploring the Sahara and the Horn of Africa prepared him for the biggest challenge of all : Rub al Khali, also known as the Empty Quarter, the most desolate land on the whole planet. In Africa he learned how to spend a whole day perched on the high and uncomfortable saddle of a camel, how to endure the heat and the thirst and the frozen nights, how to speak Arabic - the common language across the whole Muslim world. Arabian Sands is the account of his five years, between 1945 and 1950, spent crossing the Empty Quarter in the traditional way, guided by local Bedu tribesmen, without mechanized transport or modern communication devices, carrying all the water and the food on the back of camels.
For me exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert people. [...] No, it is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worth while the journey.
'Because it exists' sums up for me the argument regarding why Thesiger went to the desert, at least according to his own account. Left out of the narrative, but rather obvious from the wiki page of he author, is that his travels were most probably sponsored by the British Foreign Office, who was interested in the possibilities of moving around the Arabian Peninsula in case of future conflicts, and by the big oil companies who were beginning their involvmement in exploration and exploitation of the valuable resource. I'll get back to the oil later.
The memoir is important to me for two reasons :
- firstly, Thesiger is not only a daring explorer, but also a suprisingly articulate and lyrical writer. I believe only St Exupery surpasses him when it comes to the spiritual joy the desert awakens in the a man who finds himself hundreds of miles away from the nearest inhabited land. He has included in his present memoir not only the hardships of the travel and the dry enumeration of places and distances and weather reports, but the history of the peninsula, the way the climate and the economic issues had shaped the culture of the nomadic herders, the political changes brought about by the liberation from the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent creation of national Arab states, the balance between personal vendettas among the tribes and larger mmovements by the most powerful sheiks. Last, but not least, Thesiger is a good photographer, working well with black and white film to capture the desert landscape, the pure-bred camels, the faces of the tribesmen and the cities on the coast.
Next morning while we were leading our camels down a steep dune face I was suddenly conscious of a low vibrant hum, which grew in volume until it sounded as though an aeroplane were flying low over our heads. The frightened camels plunged about, tugging at their head-ropes and looking back at the slope above us. The sound ceased when we reached the bottom. This was he singing of the sands. The Arabs describe it as a roaring, which is perhaps a more descriptive word. During the five years that I was in these parts I only heard it half a dozen times. It is caused, I think, by one layer of sand slipping over another.
- secondly, the world depicted in the book is one on the verge of extinction. By 'going native', dressing in local garb, speaking the local dialect, sharing the work, the food and the campfire with his Bedu guides, Thesiger has imersed himself completely in a culture that was already under attack from sheiks cracking down on raiders who got their wealth from attacking caravans or stealing other tribes camels, from the extended draught that reduced drastically the areas of pasture in the desert, from outside money pouring in that made the camel based economy (travel, milk, meat) bankrupt. I don't know if the author showed amazing powers of clairvoyance, or he simply put in the text (written some 10 years after the journeys) later information about the effect of petrodollars pouring in and drastically changing the Gulf states social order, but he predicted the marginalization and the destitution of the nomads lifestyle that had endured unchanged for millenia.
I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and travelled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe. I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience, and lighthearted gallantry. Among no other people have I ever felt the same sense of personal inferiority.
There is something of the outdated 'noble savage' Romantic outlook (I'm thinking of Fenimore Cooper and the last of the Mohicans) in the above quote, but the arguments Thesiger brings in support of his thesis are convincing and often heartbreaking. Most of the remaining bookmarks I have from the memoir deal not so much with the beauty of the desert but with the respect and the admiration of the author for the integrity, the endurance and the hospitality of his companions on the journey. I would encourage any reader who wants to really understand the culture of the Gulf Arabs, the importance of religion, of traditions and of family ties to pick up the book and read it before applying the usual labels of religious fanaticism and blind hatred.
Thesiger doesn't try to lionize the Bedu. He is one of the first to admit that their culture is a violent one, that their temperament is fiery and suspicious of strangers, that they are prideful, quick to anger and unforgiving to their enemies. The highest respect around the campfire is for the famous raiders who laugh in the face of death:
After a pause, he said, 'By God, he was a man! He knew how to fight. I thought he would kill us all.' He told us that in this raid the Mishqas had killed fourteen Yam and captured a hundred and thirty camels, and that nine Mishqas had been killed.
But the same people are unequal in the world when it comes to loyalty, generosity, integrity. A Bedu would give the shirt on his back to another man, just because he thinks the other needs it more than him, he would cut down a camel for visitors and feed them even if he knows he may starve in the next weeks, he would never turn away a traveller from his campfire at night. The nomads would chat all day about their favorite camel, would laugh and joke about their empty waterskins and rice bags, would burst into song when you least expect it:
God endures forever.
The life of man is short.
The Pleiades are overhead.
The Moon's among the stars.
Thesiger finds peace and contenment and spiritual solace among some of the poorest people in the world. He looks at his civilized compatriots with a critical eye for taking life for granted and feels more at home shivering under a thin blanket with an empty stomach and lips parched by thirst.
I wondered why people ever cluttered up their rooms with furniture, for this bare simplicity seemed to me infinitely preferable. [...] I had everything that I could want - food, shelter, and good company after long days upon the road.
and in another place:
Here life moved in time with the past. These people still valued leisure and courtesy and conversation. They did not live their lives at second hand, dependent on cinema and wireless.
He finds praise even for the style of leadership in the tribes:
A Bedu sheikh has no paid retainers on whom he can rely to carry out his orders. He is merely the first among equals in a society where every man is intensely independent and quick to resent any hint of autocracy. His authority depends in consquence on the force of his own personality and on his skill in handling men. His position in the tribe, in fact, resembles that of a chairman of a committee meeting.
Not all of the the pages in the book deal with the Empty Quarter. In between forays into the sand dunes, salt marshes and rubble plains, Thesiger spends some time in cities and more accomodating places. I;ve been to one of them myself on a day trip by car: Taif in Saudi Arabia is a mountain town where they have now some very good farms and orchards and even some tourist attractions. The land is less arrid than usual for the region, and the people are still hospitable and talkative. The other place I recognized is Abu Dhabi, but the town of today has little similarity withthe one in the book:
We stayed for twenty days in Abu Dhabi, a small town of about two thousand inhabitants. Each morning the Sheikhs visited us, walking slowly across from he castle - Shakhbut, a stately figure in a black cloak, a little ahead of his brothers, followed by a throng of armed retainers. we talked for an hour or more, drinking coffee and eating sweets, and, after they had left us, we visited the market, where we sat cross-legged in the small shops, gossipping and drinking more coffee; or we wandered along the beach and watched the dhows being caulked and treated with shark-oil to prepare them for the pearling season, the children bathing in the surf, and the fishermen landing their catch.
It's probably non-debatable that affluence brought by oil has improved the lifestyle of most of the people in the region, but I can't help being nostalgic and sad about the loss of cultural diversity and the preponderence of materialistic considerations in today's world. The last picture is one I took on my return from Taif:
May 10, 2013
I like to browse through my books on a Sunday morning for some strange reason and came across this book that I read when I was working in Saudi Arabia and, as I had also met the bedouin and taken tea with them, I was interested to hear about Thesiger's travels in that country.
It's such an interesting study of the Saudi culture by a travel writer, and also an explorer, such as Thesiger, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Middle East.
It's also good to see that this book is still so readily available. I couldn't see it on Kindle but Penguin issued it in paperback as part of their Penguin classics series in 2008.
Classics like this are such a joy to read.
It's such an interesting study of the Saudi culture by a travel writer, and also an explorer, such as Thesiger, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Middle East.
It's also good to see that this book is still so readily available. I couldn't see it on Kindle but Penguin issued it in paperback as part of their Penguin classics series in 2008.
Classics like this are such a joy to read.
January 31, 2018
The Last of the Barefoot Explorers
When I was a kid I dreamt of being an explorer. Never mind that I had never been out of New England and had no possibility of doing so. Discovering new lands and peoples seemed such a great job. What I couldn't figure out was how you got BE an explorer ? What, did you take a course someplace ? Once, in talking of other things, my father happened to remark that there must have been parts of the Maine woods where nobody had ever set foot (I don't think he was considering the Indians). Yes, I thought, first I would explore Maine and then, maybe some other, more distant lands. As I grew older, I realized the awful truth. Unless you wanted to freeze in Antarctica, dangle from icy rocks on a few mountains, or chop your way through insect-ridden, steamy jungles, there were no places left to explore. I was a slide rule in a computer age. Ah, well.....
Wilfred Thesiger was born in more fortunate circumstances for an exploring life. His father was not a small businessman in New England, but the British ambassador to Ethiopia in the days when all parts of that country had not been visited by Westerners. The first part of ARABIAN SANDS describes the author's adventures travelling in wilder parts of Ethiopia. After Middle Eastern service in Sudan and elsewhere during WW II, Thesiger signed on as a locust hunter in the Arabian Peninsula, trying to locate the then unknown breeding grounds for the dreaded insect. He did it purely to be able to travel through the most unknown parts of the region, the Rub al-Khali or "the Sands"; Oman, the Hadhramaut, and the southern reaches of Saudi Arabia. He travelled with small groups of Bedu (Bedouin) on camelback, always barefoot and dressed in Arab clothing. He faced thirst, hunger, cold, the risk of serious accident, arrest by Saudi and Omani authorities, and death at the hands of raiding tribesmen. With no available maps, Thesiger relied completely on the guiding skills of various Bedu whom he hired. He had no radio, no global positioning whatevers, and no chance of a helicopter rescue.
ARABIAN SANDS tells the story of Thesiger's travels in the Arabian deserts in the years 1945-1950, before Big Oil changed the lives of everybody there. An interesting pair of books to read to get an idea of the old world and how it changed would be this one plus Abdelrahman Munif's novel "Cities of Salt". Thesiger hated modernization and cities and would have preferred that the Bedu remain in their poverty, but in a state of desert purity. I feel that he romanticized the Bedu and the desert environment to an extreme because of his own character. Nevertheless his descriptions of Bedu life, their culture, and behavior are fascinating, as are many of the events that took place over the course of his long travels. If you are at all interested in that part of the world or in adventurous travels before the world became entrapped in visas and metal detectors, you must read this one !
When I was a kid I dreamt of being an explorer. Never mind that I had never been out of New England and had no possibility of doing so. Discovering new lands and peoples seemed such a great job. What I couldn't figure out was how you got BE an explorer ? What, did you take a course someplace ? Once, in talking of other things, my father happened to remark that there must have been parts of the Maine woods where nobody had ever set foot (I don't think he was considering the Indians). Yes, I thought, first I would explore Maine and then, maybe some other, more distant lands. As I grew older, I realized the awful truth. Unless you wanted to freeze in Antarctica, dangle from icy rocks on a few mountains, or chop your way through insect-ridden, steamy jungles, there were no places left to explore. I was a slide rule in a computer age. Ah, well.....
Wilfred Thesiger was born in more fortunate circumstances for an exploring life. His father was not a small businessman in New England, but the British ambassador to Ethiopia in the days when all parts of that country had not been visited by Westerners. The first part of ARABIAN SANDS describes the author's adventures travelling in wilder parts of Ethiopia. After Middle Eastern service in Sudan and elsewhere during WW II, Thesiger signed on as a locust hunter in the Arabian Peninsula, trying to locate the then unknown breeding grounds for the dreaded insect. He did it purely to be able to travel through the most unknown parts of the region, the Rub al-Khali or "the Sands"; Oman, the Hadhramaut, and the southern reaches of Saudi Arabia. He travelled with small groups of Bedu (Bedouin) on camelback, always barefoot and dressed in Arab clothing. He faced thirst, hunger, cold, the risk of serious accident, arrest by Saudi and Omani authorities, and death at the hands of raiding tribesmen. With no available maps, Thesiger relied completely on the guiding skills of various Bedu whom he hired. He had no radio, no global positioning whatevers, and no chance of a helicopter rescue.
ARABIAN SANDS tells the story of Thesiger's travels in the Arabian deserts in the years 1945-1950, before Big Oil changed the lives of everybody there. An interesting pair of books to read to get an idea of the old world and how it changed would be this one plus Abdelrahman Munif's novel "Cities of Salt". Thesiger hated modernization and cities and would have preferred that the Bedu remain in their poverty, but in a state of desert purity. I feel that he romanticized the Bedu and the desert environment to an extreme because of his own character. Nevertheless his descriptions of Bedu life, their culture, and behavior are fascinating, as are many of the events that took place over the course of his long travels. If you are at all interested in that part of the world or in adventurous travels before the world became entrapped in visas and metal detectors, you must read this one !
November 8, 2016
Thesiger’s book is about a time, right after many people thought most of the great adventures had already been had and right before the frontiers of the desert sands were truly closed off. The book was one man’s love affair with the hardship of desert sand and the people who had called it their home -- the Bedu.
I came to this book at a strange time. At a time when one journey was ending and another beginning. Strangely, I didn’t know what to make of the journey that had just ended. I doubted sincerely that it had made me a better person. Thesiger’s book made me rethink that. It made me see parts of Arabia as he saw them in the past, the way the Bedu’s lifestyle came out of the spirit of the desert. So many of my own thoughts found expression in Thesiger’s words. So many of the sentences and paragraphs rang true.
”I wanted colour and savagery, hardship and adventure� (p. 32) he writes. Perhaps, I could only have these things mediated through Thesiger’s book. I understand these aspirations a little. As I watched the movie “Into the Wild�, I understood the impulse, even though I also knew it could end in tragedy. How many times did Thesiger’s tale almost end in tragedy, but didn’t?
A week after reading this book, I still remember the great pleasure it gave me whenever I sat down to eat or drink something. There are long passages in the book when the author and his compatriots are starving in the desert. As Thesiger writes, ”we seldom spoke of sex, for starving men dream of food, not women, and our bodies were generally too tired to lust.� (p. 113). After reading twenty or thirty pages, I would sit down to a simple meal and delight in it in ways I wouldn’t have expected.
There are also gems in the book that are as relevant today as they were so many years ago. Thesiger also has the advantage of being able to write bluntly and without reservation in tones and turns of phrases that modern authors might hesitate to use.
On Arab governance, Thesiger writes:
“Arabs rule but do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with the individual men. Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success or failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judge by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by loss of individual freedom.� (p. 46).
There is a great deal of sympathy in this passage -- and it is the blunt truth as Thesiger knows it, but I hadn’t read anything like it until I read Arabian Sands.
There are three are several other passages I wish to share with you. Passages that I think will make you want to read this book.
”it seemed that the evil that comes with sudden change would far outweigh the good� (p. 77)
”But I knew that for me the hardest test would be to live with them in harmony and not to let my impatience master me; neither to withdraw into myself, nor to become critical of standards and ways of life different from my own.� (p. 126)
“It is characteristic of Bedu to do things by extremes, to be either wildly generous or unbelievably mean, very patient or almost hysterically excitable, to be incredibly brave or to panic for no apparent reason� (p. 150).
”I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control....They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.� (p. 200).
I read this book on a beach somewhere far away from the deserts of Arabia. In the warm embrace of a beach I once called home, with mojitos aplenty, and the company of others, I regretted little, thought warm thoughts of friends and colleagues past, and looked forward to future adventures. I put this book down and moved on eagerly to another.
I came to this book at a strange time. At a time when one journey was ending and another beginning. Strangely, I didn’t know what to make of the journey that had just ended. I doubted sincerely that it had made me a better person. Thesiger’s book made me rethink that. It made me see parts of Arabia as he saw them in the past, the way the Bedu’s lifestyle came out of the spirit of the desert. So many of my own thoughts found expression in Thesiger’s words. So many of the sentences and paragraphs rang true.
”I wanted colour and savagery, hardship and adventure� (p. 32) he writes. Perhaps, I could only have these things mediated through Thesiger’s book. I understand these aspirations a little. As I watched the movie “Into the Wild�, I understood the impulse, even though I also knew it could end in tragedy. How many times did Thesiger’s tale almost end in tragedy, but didn’t?
A week after reading this book, I still remember the great pleasure it gave me whenever I sat down to eat or drink something. There are long passages in the book when the author and his compatriots are starving in the desert. As Thesiger writes, ”we seldom spoke of sex, for starving men dream of food, not women, and our bodies were generally too tired to lust.� (p. 113). After reading twenty or thirty pages, I would sit down to a simple meal and delight in it in ways I wouldn’t have expected.
There are also gems in the book that are as relevant today as they were so many years ago. Thesiger also has the advantage of being able to write bluntly and without reservation in tones and turns of phrases that modern authors might hesitate to use.
On Arab governance, Thesiger writes:
“Arabs rule but do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with the individual men. Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success or failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judge by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by loss of individual freedom.� (p. 46).
There is a great deal of sympathy in this passage -- and it is the blunt truth as Thesiger knows it, but I hadn’t read anything like it until I read Arabian Sands.
There are three are several other passages I wish to share with you. Passages that I think will make you want to read this book.
”it seemed that the evil that comes with sudden change would far outweigh the good� (p. 77)
”But I knew that for me the hardest test would be to live with them in harmony and not to let my impatience master me; neither to withdraw into myself, nor to become critical of standards and ways of life different from my own.� (p. 126)
“It is characteristic of Bedu to do things by extremes, to be either wildly generous or unbelievably mean, very patient or almost hysterically excitable, to be incredibly brave or to panic for no apparent reason� (p. 150).
”I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control....They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.� (p. 200).
I read this book on a beach somewhere far away from the deserts of Arabia. In the warm embrace of a beach I once called home, with mojitos aplenty, and the company of others, I regretted little, thought warm thoughts of friends and colleagues past, and looked forward to future adventures. I put this book down and moved on eagerly to another.
July 1, 2011
When I first came across this book in the library I was unsuspecting of the journey it would take me on, but I find, now that I have been on that journey, I am all the richer for it.
Wilfred Thesiger was wonderful company as I rolled along on a camel beside him, not literally of course, taking in the sights of a desert that has long since been tarnished by the west.
If you want to learn about the Bedu, and more indirectly the Arabs, then there is no greater book for that than Arabian Sands.
You will find that the Bedu are a delightfully peculiar people who have, as with all cultures of the world, as much good to them as bad.
How could I not give this book anything but 5 stars? For it is well written and extremely enjoyable, a feast for the senses at every turn and a valuable look, through the brown and gold flecked eyes of the Bedu, into the desert and dunes and unforgiving landsape of the Empty Quarter.
Wilfred Thesiger was wonderful company as I rolled along on a camel beside him, not literally of course, taking in the sights of a desert that has long since been tarnished by the west.
If you want to learn about the Bedu, and more indirectly the Arabs, then there is no greater book for that than Arabian Sands.
You will find that the Bedu are a delightfully peculiar people who have, as with all cultures of the world, as much good to them as bad.
How could I not give this book anything but 5 stars? For it is well written and extremely enjoyable, a feast for the senses at every turn and a valuable look, through the brown and gold flecked eyes of the Bedu, into the desert and dunes and unforgiving landsape of the Empty Quarter.
December 22, 2018
The Arabist Tradition of Wildred Thesiger
“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.�
"The tragedy was the choice would not be theirs. Economic forces beyond their control would eventually drive them into the towns to hang about street corners as unskilled street labour.
"I realised that the Bedu [...] were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe"
"Here in the desert I had found all that I asked for; I knew I should never find it again"
“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.�
"The tragedy was the choice would not be theirs. Economic forces beyond their control would eventually drive them into the towns to hang about street corners as unskilled street labour.
"I realised that the Bedu [...] were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe"
"Here in the desert I had found all that I asked for; I knew I should never find it again"
October 8, 2017
I love travelogues, but this one took a while for me to get into. Obviously, I am not that interested in the arid sandy deserts or in the lives of the people who live there. But Thesiger draws me into his story gradually. His respect for the people who guided him around the Sands at the height of colonialism, his acceptance of cultural differences, and his ability in adapting comfortably, all endeared him to me, despite his crotchety attitude at times.
Wilfred Thesiger was given an assignment to go into the deep deserts of Oman and find out whatever he could about desert locusts. He took on the assignment reluctantly, being more of a fan of African deserts. But it gave him an opportunity to experience the Rub' al-Khali, or the Empty Quarter, an experience not many outside the local Bedu tribes have had.
There is nothing gripping going on nor is there much cultural activity to be described in this book about a place that should technically be devoid of much interest. However, Thesiger's interactions with the locals make for captivating anecdotes, and the friendships he makes with the members of the Bedu tribes drives the narrative forward with ease. The desert is there in the background, a formidable foe that this team has to take down, and they do it.
One very interesting aspect of this book is its time period. Ibn Saud, the original Saud, was finally taking control of the region. Reading about the battles and skirmishes taking place between the different tribes at this time gives a real strong feel of the formation of Saudi Arabia, which is still being governed on tribal lines. The British interference in these disputes also make for interesting reading and give a real understanding of the history of the region.
Despite my complete lack of interest in deserts, this book kept me interested till the end. There are far too many good things about it for me to pass up on recommending it. You can combine it with watching , a BBC documentary, to see how much things have changed (or remained the same). It worked perfectly for me!
Wilfred Thesiger was given an assignment to go into the deep deserts of Oman and find out whatever he could about desert locusts. He took on the assignment reluctantly, being more of a fan of African deserts. But it gave him an opportunity to experience the Rub' al-Khali, or the Empty Quarter, an experience not many outside the local Bedu tribes have had.
There is nothing gripping going on nor is there much cultural activity to be described in this book about a place that should technically be devoid of much interest. However, Thesiger's interactions with the locals make for captivating anecdotes, and the friendships he makes with the members of the Bedu tribes drives the narrative forward with ease. The desert is there in the background, a formidable foe that this team has to take down, and they do it.
One very interesting aspect of this book is its time period. Ibn Saud, the original Saud, was finally taking control of the region. Reading about the battles and skirmishes taking place between the different tribes at this time gives a real strong feel of the formation of Saudi Arabia, which is still being governed on tribal lines. The British interference in these disputes also make for interesting reading and give a real understanding of the history of the region.
Despite my complete lack of interest in deserts, this book kept me interested till the end. There are far too many good things about it for me to pass up on recommending it. You can combine it with watching , a BBC documentary, to see how much things have changed (or remained the same). It worked perfectly for me!
December 19, 2023
Ever since I saw the exhibition of photographs by Thesiger at Al Jahili Fort, Al-ain, Abu Dhabi I had wanted to read his epic work-Arabian Sands. The book is an outcome of his five years of travel in the vast waterless desert, the empty quarter of Arabia. He travelled at the time when the first attempts at oil exploration had started. The classic therefore is a deep insightful study into lives of the people just before it was to change forever with discovery of oil. On a different level, it is also a fascinating study into how a rich and contriving Brit used money and muscle power to exploit the good natured Bedus.
April 7, 2012
Hmmm, well, I guess I can't honestly recommend this. Undoubtedly the journeys were fascinating and worthy of a certain amount of awe, but I didn't enjoy the writing. For starters, Thesiger devoted little energy to visually describing things. There was the occasional remark about the color of the dunes, and a some attempts at describing camels, the all-important ships of the desert. But when I read a book about a trip I'll probably never take, I want to feel like I'm there, and Thesiger either didn't know how to do that, or didn't think it was important.
But my bigger complaint is with Thesiger's thorough, oft-stated dismissal of everything and everyone not Bedu. To admire the grit, generosity and loyalty of his nomadic traveling companions is one thing, but to repeatedly tell me, the reader, that they are finer human beings in every way than his European peers and my American ones, and that any lifestyle other than theirs is fundamentally flawed and worthless... is another. Because Arab sensibilities were so rankled by his repeated (illicit in their eyes) traverses of the "Empty Quarter" and surrounding areas, he eventually became so well known that he was effectively barred from ever returning to the lands that he repeatedly pledged unabashed love for throughout the book. As the book was written after this realization had sunken in, perhaps a significant amount of bitterness was inevitably interjected into his prose.
Some examples:
"In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance. I had found, too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquility was to be found there. I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which springs from abstinence."
I could argue most of these points with Thesiger, particularly the freedom that he seems to treasure. I would argue that he had less than he thought. He certainly couldn't go wherever he wanted. Availability of water, where his guides were willing to take him, boundaries imposed by warring tribes, weather, were all things that constrained his movements, whereas I can get in my car and go see almost any type of geography I want, and hop on a plane and fly to those I can't get to by car. If Thesiger's nomadic comrades had wanted to go skiing, they utterly and completely lacked the freedom to do so. And while I agree that our lives are often TOO dominated by possessions and the pursuit of them, that doesn't make possessions themselves bad. Many of our possessions (like, books for example) enhance the quality of our lives tremendously, and the notion that eschewing all possessions somehow makes a life purer and more nobly lived is something that I just can't begin to agree with. Besides, you know what possession (second to their camels) is the most important and treasured of the nomads? Their guns. That's not my analysis, it's all throughout the book. Is a life where your gun is your second most important, treasured possession really so free and noble?
"But there was a deeper reason that had prompted me to make this journey. I had done it to escape a little longer from the machines which dominated our world... all my life I had hated machines. I could remember how bitterly at school I had resented reading the news that someone had flown across the Atlantic or traveled through the Sahara in a car..."
Sure, there are lots of people who long for a simpler life, and reject the notion that mechanical and scientific advances have improved life for mankind. But without such advances I would only have one leg, wouldn't have been able to stand on the shores of the Bosphorous a few months ago, wouldn't be able to share thoughts on books with so many like-minded people and probably wouldn't have been able to read Thesiger's book at all. This notion that all technical advancements are bad is a tired cliche that I have no patience for. Sure, it's nice to get away, and if you want to be permanently away, more power to ya', but don't try to convince me that modernity is bad for everyone just because YOU don't like it.
My final, ultimate frustration with Thesiger was his incessant, adoring praise for the positive character traits of his nomad traveling companions, and simultaneously cavalier dismissal of their faults. I certainly admire their loyalty, perseverance, endurance, faith and generosity, which Thesiger described endlessly in the book. But in the same narrative he often mentions their greed and avarice, and their quickness to war, yet these seem not to tip the character balance at all. More disturbing still, and something I'm completely unable to rationalize, is their utter disregard for human life. The book is sprinkled throughout with stories of retribution killings, of completely innocent people, often children. In one case, a story is almost admiringly told of a Bedu who had seen a relative killed while conducting a raid against a rival tribe, and his satisfaction at later avenging that death by killing the a boy from that child that he happened upon, herding some goats. This, and a dozen similar stories in the book, seemed not cause Thesiger any dismay, and certainly didn't influence his perception of the people.
I intentionally didn't read any biographical information about Thesiger until I finished the book, but nothing I subsequently read surprised me. He spent his life eschewing modernity, bitterly railing against it whenever he had an audience. While I would have been fascinated to ask him questions about the places he went, I'm confident that we would not have liked each other at all. And weary of his bitterness and frustrated at his lack of objectivity, I definitely won't be reading his other best-known work, The Marsh Arabs.
But my bigger complaint is with Thesiger's thorough, oft-stated dismissal of everything and everyone not Bedu. To admire the grit, generosity and loyalty of his nomadic traveling companions is one thing, but to repeatedly tell me, the reader, that they are finer human beings in every way than his European peers and my American ones, and that any lifestyle other than theirs is fundamentally flawed and worthless... is another. Because Arab sensibilities were so rankled by his repeated (illicit in their eyes) traverses of the "Empty Quarter" and surrounding areas, he eventually became so well known that he was effectively barred from ever returning to the lands that he repeatedly pledged unabashed love for throughout the book. As the book was written after this realization had sunken in, perhaps a significant amount of bitterness was inevitably interjected into his prose.
Some examples:
"In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance. I had found, too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquility was to be found there. I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which springs from abstinence."
I could argue most of these points with Thesiger, particularly the freedom that he seems to treasure. I would argue that he had less than he thought. He certainly couldn't go wherever he wanted. Availability of water, where his guides were willing to take him, boundaries imposed by warring tribes, weather, were all things that constrained his movements, whereas I can get in my car and go see almost any type of geography I want, and hop on a plane and fly to those I can't get to by car. If Thesiger's nomadic comrades had wanted to go skiing, they utterly and completely lacked the freedom to do so. And while I agree that our lives are often TOO dominated by possessions and the pursuit of them, that doesn't make possessions themselves bad. Many of our possessions (like, books for example) enhance the quality of our lives tremendously, and the notion that eschewing all possessions somehow makes a life purer and more nobly lived is something that I just can't begin to agree with. Besides, you know what possession (second to their camels) is the most important and treasured of the nomads? Their guns. That's not my analysis, it's all throughout the book. Is a life where your gun is your second most important, treasured possession really so free and noble?
"But there was a deeper reason that had prompted me to make this journey. I had done it to escape a little longer from the machines which dominated our world... all my life I had hated machines. I could remember how bitterly at school I had resented reading the news that someone had flown across the Atlantic or traveled through the Sahara in a car..."
Sure, there are lots of people who long for a simpler life, and reject the notion that mechanical and scientific advances have improved life for mankind. But without such advances I would only have one leg, wouldn't have been able to stand on the shores of the Bosphorous a few months ago, wouldn't be able to share thoughts on books with so many like-minded people and probably wouldn't have been able to read Thesiger's book at all. This notion that all technical advancements are bad is a tired cliche that I have no patience for. Sure, it's nice to get away, and if you want to be permanently away, more power to ya', but don't try to convince me that modernity is bad for everyone just because YOU don't like it.
My final, ultimate frustration with Thesiger was his incessant, adoring praise for the positive character traits of his nomad traveling companions, and simultaneously cavalier dismissal of their faults. I certainly admire their loyalty, perseverance, endurance, faith and generosity, which Thesiger described endlessly in the book. But in the same narrative he often mentions their greed and avarice, and their quickness to war, yet these seem not to tip the character balance at all. More disturbing still, and something I'm completely unable to rationalize, is their utter disregard for human life. The book is sprinkled throughout with stories of retribution killings, of completely innocent people, often children. In one case, a story is almost admiringly told of a Bedu who had seen a relative killed while conducting a raid against a rival tribe, and his satisfaction at later avenging that death by killing the a boy from that child that he happened upon, herding some goats. This, and a dozen similar stories in the book, seemed not cause Thesiger any dismay, and certainly didn't influence his perception of the people.
I intentionally didn't read any biographical information about Thesiger until I finished the book, but nothing I subsequently read surprised me. He spent his life eschewing modernity, bitterly railing against it whenever he had an audience. While I would have been fascinated to ask him questions about the places he went, I'm confident that we would not have liked each other at all. And weary of his bitterness and frustrated at his lack of objectivity, I definitely won't be reading his other best-known work, The Marsh Arabs.
July 15, 2018
This book was very difficult to read as an audiobook. I advise against choosing the audiobook format. I have no complaints with the narration by Laurence Kennedy; he speaks clearly and at a perfect speed. The printed book contains maps, but they are NOT included in the PDF file that accompanied the audiobook. The PDF contains one short introductory paragraph followed by a list of the book's chapter titles and the first few words of each audiobook chapter. The PDF file has little value.
I had huge difficulty with the names of places, tribes and individuals. I do not know Arabic; names became a total blur to me. Flora and fauna are not in Latin; Arabic names are used here too. This being the situation and having no maps, I had to downscale my ambitions. What remained was to learn about the author's life before his travels of 1945-1950 and to learn about the nomadic Bedu people, their culture, their way of life and their moral codes and values. It was Bedu tribesmen that were Thesiger’s guides in the deserts he traversed in Rub Al Khali of southern Saudi Arabia, in Yemen and in Oman. Even as he concluded his travels, oil companies and politics were in the process of changing everything. He knew when he left he would not return. He had become too well-known. He was a foreigner, a Christian, and thus in the eyes of many powerful Arabian sheiks a despised infidel. He was no longer welcome.
There are a couple of chapters about Wilfred Thesiger’s youth and how he came to want to traverse the Arabian sands. We learn of his birth in 1910 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Abyssinia), his schooling at Oxford and how in 1930 he returned to Ethiopia having been personally invited to Emperor Haile Selassie’s coronation. During the Second World War he was stationed first in the Sudan and then in Syria. We come to see his love of the hard life and rigors of the desert. When he is offered the job of looking for locust breeding grounds in southern Arabia, he grabs it.
Then follows the real point of the book—Thesiger’s two desert crossings of Rub al Khali, also referred to as the Empty Quarter, his travels in Yemen and in inner Oman. Here we get to experience life in the desert and learn about the Bedu people and other Arab tribesmen.
We are told how Thesiger views them. Very few other Europeans have gotten to know them as intimately as he has. He feels an affinity for them, and as such forgives what others criticize. He sees in them uncompromising strength, valor and dedication to friends. He speaks of their humor, generosity courage, dignity and patience. He praises their powers of observation, their skill in handling men and their force of personality. HE says they do not steal; I thought this was stretching the truth, given the number of times camels were stolen. He understands their love of the desert and the freedom it offers. He sees the beauty of the desert, saying “the world was very still as staring into a bowl of silence.� In the desert Thesiger found inner peace. He understood why the Bedu chose to live there. He speaks also of barbaric rites as the flaying of the penis, about looting, beheadings, chopping off of hands, blood feuds and vengeful retaliations.
I did learn about the man, Wilfred Thesiger, about life in the deserts and about the Bedu, but I retain my right to make my own judgment of them.
I had huge difficulty with the names of places, tribes and individuals. I do not know Arabic; names became a total blur to me. Flora and fauna are not in Latin; Arabic names are used here too. This being the situation and having no maps, I had to downscale my ambitions. What remained was to learn about the author's life before his travels of 1945-1950 and to learn about the nomadic Bedu people, their culture, their way of life and their moral codes and values. It was Bedu tribesmen that were Thesiger’s guides in the deserts he traversed in Rub Al Khali of southern Saudi Arabia, in Yemen and in Oman. Even as he concluded his travels, oil companies and politics were in the process of changing everything. He knew when he left he would not return. He had become too well-known. He was a foreigner, a Christian, and thus in the eyes of many powerful Arabian sheiks a despised infidel. He was no longer welcome.
There are a couple of chapters about Wilfred Thesiger’s youth and how he came to want to traverse the Arabian sands. We learn of his birth in 1910 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Abyssinia), his schooling at Oxford and how in 1930 he returned to Ethiopia having been personally invited to Emperor Haile Selassie’s coronation. During the Second World War he was stationed first in the Sudan and then in Syria. We come to see his love of the hard life and rigors of the desert. When he is offered the job of looking for locust breeding grounds in southern Arabia, he grabs it.
Then follows the real point of the book—Thesiger’s two desert crossings of Rub al Khali, also referred to as the Empty Quarter, his travels in Yemen and in inner Oman. Here we get to experience life in the desert and learn about the Bedu people and other Arab tribesmen.
We are told how Thesiger views them. Very few other Europeans have gotten to know them as intimately as he has. He feels an affinity for them, and as such forgives what others criticize. He sees in them uncompromising strength, valor and dedication to friends. He speaks of their humor, generosity courage, dignity and patience. He praises their powers of observation, their skill in handling men and their force of personality. HE says they do not steal; I thought this was stretching the truth, given the number of times camels were stolen. He understands their love of the desert and the freedom it offers. He sees the beauty of the desert, saying “the world was very still as staring into a bowl of silence.� In the desert Thesiger found inner peace. He understood why the Bedu chose to live there. He speaks also of barbaric rites as the flaying of the penis, about looting, beheadings, chopping off of hands, blood feuds and vengeful retaliations.
I did learn about the man, Wilfred Thesiger, about life in the deserts and about the Bedu, but I retain my right to make my own judgment of them.
January 7, 2010
In
Arabian Sands
Thesiger documents a time, a place, and a people on the cusp of change. Largely responsible for mapping the 250,000 square miles of the largest sand desert in the world, The Empty Quarter, in the area of modern Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman, Thesiger realized that his work hastened the demise of the way of life he loved.
Despite having no interest in writing, Thesiger is a natural. He describes the Sands: "gold and silver, orange with cream, brick-red wtih white, burnt-brown with pink, yellow with grey--they have an infinite variety of colors and shades." He records conversations and arguments, instances of laughter among men at night around a campfire, snatches of stories retold among his companions with much frequency. His closest friends were young boys when he chose them to accompany him. He describes them, transparently to us, with such clear attraction and admiration, that we know he held himself in check all those years. The boys accompanied Thesiger over a period of years, time and again ignoring dangers and deprivations to be in his company.
This is a classic which stirs regret for a culture untouched.
"Regretfully, however, I realize that the maps I made helped others, with more material aims, to visit and corrupt a people whose spirit once lit the desert like a flame."
Despite having no interest in writing, Thesiger is a natural. He describes the Sands: "gold and silver, orange with cream, brick-red wtih white, burnt-brown with pink, yellow with grey--they have an infinite variety of colors and shades." He records conversations and arguments, instances of laughter among men at night around a campfire, snatches of stories retold among his companions with much frequency. His closest friends were young boys when he chose them to accompany him. He describes them, transparently to us, with such clear attraction and admiration, that we know he held himself in check all those years. The boys accompanied Thesiger over a period of years, time and again ignoring dangers and deprivations to be in his company.
This is a classic which stirs regret for a culture untouched.
February 1, 2011
Wilfred Thesiger, the author of Arabian Sands, is without question the Real Deal. After being trained as a British secret agent and fighting behind enemy lines in the SAS during World War II, he set out to explore the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula, the largest sand desert in the world. Travelling by foot and on camels with nomadic Bedouin tribes, he crossed and recrossed about 250,000 miles of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. He was a man of deeds, not words; it took months of cajoling on the part of his friends to persuade him to write this book in which he recounts some of his adventures.
Seen from a distance, Thesiger seems like a caricature of the old-fashioned stiff-upper-lip British adventurer. His own hardships are noted with almost clinical disinterest. For example, almost as an afterthought, he mentions that in order to fit in with his native travelling companions he decided to walk across the desert barefoot and that this was "uncomfortable." Similarly, describing an episode in which he travelled 2,000 miles across the desolate dunes on starvation rations, drinking a few mouthfuls of water once a day and pursued by raiding parties intent on killing him, he restrains himself to noting that "it was hot."
Despite this terseness, Thesiger’s clear, concise prose is enormously readable and all the more evocative for its lack of ornamentation, much like the stark landscape he depicts. Through his eyes, we glimpse a world of almost unimaginable hardship and startling beauty. After travelling for miles through the desert with his companions, he writes:
Along with his bravery, reserve and occasional dry humor, Thesiger fits the mold of the classic T.E.-Lawrence-style British adventurer in another respect as well: his absolute admiration for the traditional Bedouin way of life, and a commensurate distain for all things "modern." Toward the end of this book, he writes: "I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and travelled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe."
Thesiger is a worshipper at the altar of Character, and for him Character is expressed through heroic endurance of hardship. In this sense, he is fundamentally a pessimist; change and progress are for the worse. In these sentiments, it is hard not to detect a whiff of "noble savage" ideology and its accompanying veiled racism. Certainly he is not hesitant to describe men as belonging to a “finer breed� (or an inferior one). It is an unforgiving view of the world, and one that lacks nuance. Given these things, there is perhaps a kind of poetic justice in the fact that, sixty years later, Thesiger himself seems quaint and old-fashioned, a fantastic remnant of a time when the world seemed at once larger and less complex.
Seen from a distance, Thesiger seems like a caricature of the old-fashioned stiff-upper-lip British adventurer. His own hardships are noted with almost clinical disinterest. For example, almost as an afterthought, he mentions that in order to fit in with his native travelling companions he decided to walk across the desert barefoot and that this was "uncomfortable." Similarly, describing an episode in which he travelled 2,000 miles across the desolate dunes on starvation rations, drinking a few mouthfuls of water once a day and pursued by raiding parties intent on killing him, he restrains himself to noting that "it was hot."
Despite this terseness, Thesiger’s clear, concise prose is enormously readable and all the more evocative for its lack of ornamentation, much like the stark landscape he depicts. Through his eyes, we glimpse a world of almost unimaginable hardship and startling beauty. After travelling for miles through the desert with his companions, he writes:
…we saw a small boy, dressed in the remnants of a loin-cloth�. He led us back to the [camp] where three men sat round the embers of a fire�. They had no tent; their only possessions were saddles, ropes, bowls, empty goatskins, and their rifles and daggers�. These men would sleep naked on the freezing sand, covered only with their flimsy loin-cloths� After milking [their camels] our hosts brought us milk. We blew the froth aside and drank deep; they urged us to drink more, saying “You will find no milk in the sands ahead of you. Drink � drink. You are our guests. God has brought you here � drink.� I drank again, knowing even as I did so that they would go hungry and thirsty that night, for they had nothing else, no other food and no water.
Along with his bravery, reserve and occasional dry humor, Thesiger fits the mold of the classic T.E.-Lawrence-style British adventurer in another respect as well: his absolute admiration for the traditional Bedouin way of life, and a commensurate distain for all things "modern." Toward the end of this book, he writes: "I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and travelled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe."
Thesiger is a worshipper at the altar of Character, and for him Character is expressed through heroic endurance of hardship. In this sense, he is fundamentally a pessimist; change and progress are for the worse. In these sentiments, it is hard not to detect a whiff of "noble savage" ideology and its accompanying veiled racism. Certainly he is not hesitant to describe men as belonging to a “finer breed� (or an inferior one). It is an unforgiving view of the world, and one that lacks nuance. Given these things, there is perhaps a kind of poetic justice in the fact that, sixty years later, Thesiger himself seems quaint and old-fashioned, a fantastic remnant of a time when the world seemed at once larger and less complex.
September 7, 2018
Even T.E. Lawrence never had it so rough. In the Fifties intrepid Wilfrid Thesiger and a small band set out to cross Arabia's "Empty Quarter," mostly for mapping purposes (his work is still referred to). The prose is lean and tough, but without brag: reminds me of the late Paul Fussell's term "British phlegm" to describe the attitude.
All in all ARABIAN SANDS is a wonderful travel book, especially when sitting comfortably at home with lemonade, iced tea or shandy. A fine companion volume, also by Thesiger: .
All in all ARABIAN SANDS is a wonderful travel book, especially when sitting comfortably at home with lemonade, iced tea or shandy. A fine companion volume, also by Thesiger: .
April 21, 2018
مايميز هذا الكتاب هو أن الكاتب لم ينظر بنظرة إستعلائية لقبائل جزيرة العرب لذلك كان ما كتبه بعين المُطلع المتفحص. يضاف الى ذلك قيامه برحلات داخل جزيرة العرب الى مناطق لم يذهب اليها الكثير من الغربيين في ذلك الوقت
December 11, 2021
one of the best travel books i ever read and i read a lot. not only amazing tale of adventure and courage but the clear voice of Thesiger in telling his crossing of the sand desert is still ringing in my ears. i read it on my journey to the UAE and even been written long ago it explains so much about the present. and above all the respect he gives to his Bedouins companions and to the mighty desert.
November 7, 2023
لم أعد كما كنت، لم أستطع أن أنظر إلى مغامرات هؤلاء في أراضينا بعين الإعجاب أو الدهشة.
July 18, 2021
'Arabian Sands' has an iconic status in travel literature. And very rightly so. Skeptical as one is of adventurous accounts of European explorations of the east - contribute as they prominently did to the consolidation and expansion of Empires through cartography, intelligence gathering and espionage (with prominent names such as T.E.Lawrence), as well as through the instrumentality of self-serving categorizations, stereo-typing, othering and even demeaning of several cultures and people - Thesiger stands distinct and disparate in his account. " I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience, and light-hearted gallantry. Among no other people have I felt the same sense of personal inferiority." These are telling words that he shares towards the end of the book and they denote both a deep admiration for the bedu as well as a certain humility that was rather rare in the ruling race of the time. But this is not the exception. Time and again in his travelogue he gushes over the free spirited bedouin way of life, its hospitality and simplicity, its ruggedness and fearlessness and its sense of community and loyalty. The book is dedicated to bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha whose character sketches he draws with loving precision and who were to remain his closest companions and friends in his Arabian journeys. The Sands it is evident is where he was truly happiest and his wanderlust found its pinnacle of happiness as he embarked on another, largely impulsive journey across a new sandy wilderness, with some trusted companions and barely enough provisions for survival.
The book focuses on two crossings of the Rub-ul-Khali or the Empty Quarter - an enormous, desolate desert within an even larger desert, named as such for its aridity, remoteness and difficulty of passage. However, it also narrates other journeys, either in preparation of these crossings, after them or earlier, in Abyssinia, The Sudan, Oman, the Trucial Coast (the Trucial States later became UAE), Yemen and Arabia. The places and locations have such evocative names - Sands of Ghanim; the Quicksands of Umm-al-Samim; the Sand dunes of Uruq-al-Shaiba; the Wahiba Sands; and the various individually names wells. Indeed, as do the tribes - Bait Kathir, Rashid, Saar, Manahil, Awamir, Mahra, Junuba, Wahiba, Duru, and so many more. Thesiger's knowledge of local flora and fauna was as impressive as his ability to describe geographical formations, geological features and the local habitats, at a larger scale as well as in minutest details. Also, his book has all that you could ever wish to know about camels. Their habits, types, temperaments and attributes, which is quite natural considering how integral they were to his adventures.
What can drive someone to go again and again into the desert on journeys rife with uncertainty? Is it a death-wish or escape from something or a certain inclination towards masochism? Sandstorms; far-flung wells with often undrinkable water; largely trackless sands over unimaginably vast distances with hardly any nourishment for man or camel; the barest of meals, constant hunger and risk of starvation and illness; hostile tribes, brigands and outlaws; towering and seemingly untraversable dunes and treacherous quicksands; wild animals; extreme temperatures, risk of exposure and acute discomfort; and hour upon hour of slow and uncomfortable progress accompanied by those with a very different outlook, culture and manner of living. However, it comes across very clearly that it was not just the thrill of discovering places where no non-native and very few natives had gone before but also the very cumbersomeness of the process, its precariousness, the hardship involved, and the company of a very different people from one's own. The very freedom and flexibility of it, the remoteness of the locations from modernity, and the joy of pushing the limits are what galvanized Thesiger to undertake journey after remarkable journey.
Hs escapades would have definitely been noteworthy but perhaps not memorable were it not for his minuteness of observation and his spectacular and often lyrical power of description that make even ordinary and mundane happenings turn into high prose. I read the book pencil in hand for I love how he writes. The book is rich in topographical description, painstaking capturing of landscapes and people, social and anthropological observations, and even the political economy of the time. The last is quite interesting as Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi etc., were at that time minor settlements with rulers whose influence didn't extend far beyond their habitats and who were only just observing, with alarm as well as avarice, international oil companies sniffing around for the eventual bonanzas. Thesiger's book is a veritable encyclopedia of the different tribes in the region, their characters and personalities, their alliances and feuds and has many an interesting episode to narrate about his encounters with them. While the Rashid were his constant guides, companions and friends, he met many more who displayed varied levels of friendliness and hostility. The Duru, for instance, were a constant menace and the following local saying that he quotes subtly conveys why so: “You cannot trust the Duru. Too many people who travel with them die of snake-bite.�
However, the antipathy on part of many towards his travels in the land is completely understandable. The encounters with Europeans had been disastrous for many in Asian and African lands and the greedy oil companies were also looked upon with great suspicion. While disappointed at times to have his progress thwarted, Thesiger fully appreciates these reasons and is even otherwise highly apprehensive of and averse to the wiping out of traditional ways of living and their normative frameworks due to the juggernaut of the progress and modernity that he saw advancing with great resentment. At the same time, he often voices admiration for Arab Muslim culture and civilization and its deep and lasting contributions to humankind.
I share here some of the passages that convey the sense of wonder and awe that Thesiger describes so well during his journeys across the sands:
"Hour after hour, day after day, we moved forward and nothing changed; the desert met the empty sky always the same distance ahead of us. Time and space were one. Round us was a silence in which only the winds played and a cleanliness which was infinitely remote from the world of men."
"It was a place where men live close together. Here, to be alone was to feel at once the weight of fear, for the nakedness of this land was more terrifying than the darkest forest at dead of night. In the pitiless light of day we were as insignificant as the beetles I watched laboring across the sand. Only in the kindly darkness could we borrow a few square feet of desert and find homeliness within the radius of the firelight, while overhead the familiar pattern of the stars screened the awful mystery of space."
" The deserts in which I had traveled had been blanks in time as well as space. They had no intelligible history, the nomads who inhabited them had no known past. Some bushmen paintings, a few disputed references in Herodotus and Ptolemy, and tribal legends of the recent past were all that had come down to us."
"We encamped on a floor of hard sand in the shelter of a small dune. Two twisted abal bushes, one of them with a broken branch drooping to the ground, three clumps of qassis, beside which I had placed my saddle-bags, a pile of camel-droppings, and a low bank of sand, marked with a tracery of lizards tracks, combined with our scattered possessions to become our home."
" The valleys when I woke at dawn were filled with eddying mist, above which the silhouettes of the dunes ran eastwards, like fantastic mountains towards the rising sun. The sky glowed softly with the colors of the opal. The world was very still, held in a fragile bowl of silence. Standing at last on this far threshold of the Sands I looked back, almost regretfully, the way we had come."
Thesiger's iconic book of travels across the sandy wastelands of Arabia is a memorable chronicle of an age and a place that has irrevocably altered; a heartfelt tribute to a people and a culture that he got to intimately know and deeply admire; and a sterling example of the human spirit of adventure and exploration and search for meaning that persuades us to collectively experience, respect and appreciate other and diverse ways of living.
The book focuses on two crossings of the Rub-ul-Khali or the Empty Quarter - an enormous, desolate desert within an even larger desert, named as such for its aridity, remoteness and difficulty of passage. However, it also narrates other journeys, either in preparation of these crossings, after them or earlier, in Abyssinia, The Sudan, Oman, the Trucial Coast (the Trucial States later became UAE), Yemen and Arabia. The places and locations have such evocative names - Sands of Ghanim; the Quicksands of Umm-al-Samim; the Sand dunes of Uruq-al-Shaiba; the Wahiba Sands; and the various individually names wells. Indeed, as do the tribes - Bait Kathir, Rashid, Saar, Manahil, Awamir, Mahra, Junuba, Wahiba, Duru, and so many more. Thesiger's knowledge of local flora and fauna was as impressive as his ability to describe geographical formations, geological features and the local habitats, at a larger scale as well as in minutest details. Also, his book has all that you could ever wish to know about camels. Their habits, types, temperaments and attributes, which is quite natural considering how integral they were to his adventures.
What can drive someone to go again and again into the desert on journeys rife with uncertainty? Is it a death-wish or escape from something or a certain inclination towards masochism? Sandstorms; far-flung wells with often undrinkable water; largely trackless sands over unimaginably vast distances with hardly any nourishment for man or camel; the barest of meals, constant hunger and risk of starvation and illness; hostile tribes, brigands and outlaws; towering and seemingly untraversable dunes and treacherous quicksands; wild animals; extreme temperatures, risk of exposure and acute discomfort; and hour upon hour of slow and uncomfortable progress accompanied by those with a very different outlook, culture and manner of living. However, it comes across very clearly that it was not just the thrill of discovering places where no non-native and very few natives had gone before but also the very cumbersomeness of the process, its precariousness, the hardship involved, and the company of a very different people from one's own. The very freedom and flexibility of it, the remoteness of the locations from modernity, and the joy of pushing the limits are what galvanized Thesiger to undertake journey after remarkable journey.
Hs escapades would have definitely been noteworthy but perhaps not memorable were it not for his minuteness of observation and his spectacular and often lyrical power of description that make even ordinary and mundane happenings turn into high prose. I read the book pencil in hand for I love how he writes. The book is rich in topographical description, painstaking capturing of landscapes and people, social and anthropological observations, and even the political economy of the time. The last is quite interesting as Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi etc., were at that time minor settlements with rulers whose influence didn't extend far beyond their habitats and who were only just observing, with alarm as well as avarice, international oil companies sniffing around for the eventual bonanzas. Thesiger's book is a veritable encyclopedia of the different tribes in the region, their characters and personalities, their alliances and feuds and has many an interesting episode to narrate about his encounters with them. While the Rashid were his constant guides, companions and friends, he met many more who displayed varied levels of friendliness and hostility. The Duru, for instance, were a constant menace and the following local saying that he quotes subtly conveys why so: “You cannot trust the Duru. Too many people who travel with them die of snake-bite.�
However, the antipathy on part of many towards his travels in the land is completely understandable. The encounters with Europeans had been disastrous for many in Asian and African lands and the greedy oil companies were also looked upon with great suspicion. While disappointed at times to have his progress thwarted, Thesiger fully appreciates these reasons and is even otherwise highly apprehensive of and averse to the wiping out of traditional ways of living and their normative frameworks due to the juggernaut of the progress and modernity that he saw advancing with great resentment. At the same time, he often voices admiration for Arab Muslim culture and civilization and its deep and lasting contributions to humankind.
I share here some of the passages that convey the sense of wonder and awe that Thesiger describes so well during his journeys across the sands:
"Hour after hour, day after day, we moved forward and nothing changed; the desert met the empty sky always the same distance ahead of us. Time and space were one. Round us was a silence in which only the winds played and a cleanliness which was infinitely remote from the world of men."
"It was a place where men live close together. Here, to be alone was to feel at once the weight of fear, for the nakedness of this land was more terrifying than the darkest forest at dead of night. In the pitiless light of day we were as insignificant as the beetles I watched laboring across the sand. Only in the kindly darkness could we borrow a few square feet of desert and find homeliness within the radius of the firelight, while overhead the familiar pattern of the stars screened the awful mystery of space."
" The deserts in which I had traveled had been blanks in time as well as space. They had no intelligible history, the nomads who inhabited them had no known past. Some bushmen paintings, a few disputed references in Herodotus and Ptolemy, and tribal legends of the recent past were all that had come down to us."
"We encamped on a floor of hard sand in the shelter of a small dune. Two twisted abal bushes, one of them with a broken branch drooping to the ground, three clumps of qassis, beside which I had placed my saddle-bags, a pile of camel-droppings, and a low bank of sand, marked with a tracery of lizards tracks, combined with our scattered possessions to become our home."
" The valleys when I woke at dawn were filled with eddying mist, above which the silhouettes of the dunes ran eastwards, like fantastic mountains towards the rising sun. The sky glowed softly with the colors of the opal. The world was very still, held in a fragile bowl of silence. Standing at last on this far threshold of the Sands I looked back, almost regretfully, the way we had come."
Thesiger's iconic book of travels across the sandy wastelands of Arabia is a memorable chronicle of an age and a place that has irrevocably altered; a heartfelt tribute to a people and a culture that he got to intimately know and deeply admire; and a sterling example of the human spirit of adventure and exploration and search for meaning that persuades us to collectively experience, respect and appreciate other and diverse ways of living.
January 5, 2015
There are several things I look for in a travel book experience: adventure, a smooth narrative, excitement and for the writer to get down to observing and understanding the people and place he/she is in without the eyes of a westerner. Strangely enough, I found it in Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands. Much has been said about Thesiger the man, the explorer, the throwback to the Victorian era, and before I opened the book, I cast everything I had heard about the man aside and read it with an open mind. What I found was truly delightful.
He was truly one of the last explorers of his ilk and though there were some instances of condescension, he was very much observing the desert Bedouins and taking them entirely as they were. He wrote about the Bedouins with whom he traveled with, with what I sensed was respect and admiration; and after reading about them through his eyes, I've gained a whole new appreciation for them and the way they manage to thrive in such a harsh environment. He writes about tribal life and kinship, a concept foreign to him and to most westerners but which made up the life blood of relationships in Arabia. He starts off his journey by seeking out the Rashid, a tribe which was small but spread out throughout Southern Arabia and he calls them the smallest of tribes numbering only about three hundred men and yet they are the most authentic of the Bedouin, those least affected by the outside world. Through his journey, documents a way of life which no longer exists, at a time when the Bedouins were fast disappearing with the discovery of oil in the Middle East, bringing with it the modern conveniences which arrive with this discovery of black gold.
Upon finishing the book, I concluded that Thesiger was a true explorer; exploring for exploration’s sake. My favourite line from this book: “For me, exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian Desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert peoples. I set myself a goal on these journeys, and, although the goal itself was unimportant, its attainment had to be worth every effort and sacrifice... No, it is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worth while the journey.�
I feel somehow richer for having read this book which has a well deserved classic status. Thesiger himself concluded his journey: “I knew that I had made my last journey in the Empty Quarter and that a phase in my life was ended. Here in the desert I found all that I asked; I knew that I should never find it again. But it was not only this personal sorrow that distressed me. I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and traveled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe. I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience and lighthearted gallantry. Among no other people have I ever felt the same sense of personal inferiority�
He was truly one of the last explorers of his ilk and though there were some instances of condescension, he was very much observing the desert Bedouins and taking them entirely as they were. He wrote about the Bedouins with whom he traveled with, with what I sensed was respect and admiration; and after reading about them through his eyes, I've gained a whole new appreciation for them and the way they manage to thrive in such a harsh environment. He writes about tribal life and kinship, a concept foreign to him and to most westerners but which made up the life blood of relationships in Arabia. He starts off his journey by seeking out the Rashid, a tribe which was small but spread out throughout Southern Arabia and he calls them the smallest of tribes numbering only about three hundred men and yet they are the most authentic of the Bedouin, those least affected by the outside world. Through his journey, documents a way of life which no longer exists, at a time when the Bedouins were fast disappearing with the discovery of oil in the Middle East, bringing with it the modern conveniences which arrive with this discovery of black gold.
Upon finishing the book, I concluded that Thesiger was a true explorer; exploring for exploration’s sake. My favourite line from this book: “For me, exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian Desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert peoples. I set myself a goal on these journeys, and, although the goal itself was unimportant, its attainment had to be worth every effort and sacrifice... No, it is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worth while the journey.�
I feel somehow richer for having read this book which has a well deserved classic status. Thesiger himself concluded his journey: “I knew that I had made my last journey in the Empty Quarter and that a phase in my life was ended. Here in the desert I found all that I asked; I knew that I should never find it again. But it was not only this personal sorrow that distressed me. I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and traveled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe. I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience and lighthearted gallantry. Among no other people have I ever felt the same sense of personal inferiority�
July 7, 2016
After the Second World War, Thesiger spent five years criss-crossing the deserts of Arabia in particular the 'Empty Quarter'. He had an unconventional life; born in Addis Ababa in Abyssinia, he spent the war in the region ending up in the SAS, before falling in love with the place and deciding to spend more time exploring it. He travelled with the Bedouin people, or as he calls them Bedu, experiencing their daily challenges of extreme heat, ice cold nights, long treks with camels under the relentless sun and the daily challenge of hunger and thirst. In most places he visited, he was the first European ever to set eyes on the dunes and wadis of those deserts. He immersed himself into their life, sharing food and water, hardship and company.
The Bedu were a people he had a deep respect for; he never ceased to be amazed by the way they could look at footprints in the sand and tell him who was riding the camels as well as picking up the subtle differences in the sands. The account of his travels across these lands show a harsh way of life that was about to vanish forever with the discovery of huge oilfields below the Arabian peninsular. It was dangerous too; whilst some welcomed him warmly, others considered him an infidel even going as far to threaten his life at times.
Thesiger has written a fascinating account of a landscape and culture of a people that is long gone. The writing has little emotion, instead the author conveys events as they happened, even when he was in the most danger, in an almost clinical way. The way that he immersed himself in the desert way of life gives us an insight that very few other authors have been able to gain since. The region has undergone massive changes since that time and this vanished way of life may never return. A traveller in the modern Arabia would not be able to have access to the deserts in the way that Thesiger did, and this fine book is a worthy tribute to a traditional society. Now I want to read The Marsh Arabs by him.
The Bedu were a people he had a deep respect for; he never ceased to be amazed by the way they could look at footprints in the sand and tell him who was riding the camels as well as picking up the subtle differences in the sands. The account of his travels across these lands show a harsh way of life that was about to vanish forever with the discovery of huge oilfields below the Arabian peninsular. It was dangerous too; whilst some welcomed him warmly, others considered him an infidel even going as far to threaten his life at times.
Thesiger has written a fascinating account of a landscape and culture of a people that is long gone. The writing has little emotion, instead the author conveys events as they happened, even when he was in the most danger, in an almost clinical way. The way that he immersed himself in the desert way of life gives us an insight that very few other authors have been able to gain since. The region has undergone massive changes since that time and this vanished way of life may never return. A traveller in the modern Arabia would not be able to have access to the deserts in the way that Thesiger did, and this fine book is a worthy tribute to a traditional society. Now I want to read The Marsh Arabs by him.
March 4, 2016
في الواجهة الخلفية لهذا الكتاب "الرمال العربية" تظهر صورة للمؤلف الرحالة البريطاني "ويلفرد ثيسجر "و الذي أطلق عليه أصدقاءه البدو اسم " مبارك بن لندن" .يظهر مبارك في الصورة و هو مرتدي الدشداشة العمانية و مصرا و خنجرا و ممسكا بعصا ، و اكتسب وجهه سحنة البدو بعد أن عركته الحياة الصحراوية القاسية ....
في هذا الكتاب يشرح و يلفرد -أو مبارك - تفاصيل رحلته التي قام بها في ربوع الربع الخالي خلال خمس سنوات (1945 -1950) متنقلا على ظهر ناقة مع جماعة من البدو بين مناطق عمان و حضرموت و السعودية و الإمارات( لم يستخدم لفظ "الامارات" كونها لم تتحد بعد) و البحرين ... و رغم أنه قدم لهذه البلاد كمندوب من بلاده لاجر��ء بعض الدراسات المسحية ؛ إلا أنه يعتبرها أسباب عرضية و أنه استخدمها كوسيلة لتحقيق طموحه و متعته الشخصية في الترحل في الصحراء حيث ذكر مرارا أنه وجد ذاته في عزلة الصحراء مبتعدا عن مظاهر المدنية و التحضر ..
و رغم ان الكتاب يعتبر توثيق لما جرى في رحلته بالتفصيل الممل ، إلا أنه أيضا مرجع مهم لحياة المجتمعات الخليجية في تلك الحقبة الزمنية .أورد فيه عادات البدو و سماتهم و حكى عن العديد من نوادرهم المتعلقة بكرمهم و فراستهم و خصال أخرى .. أمكنني هذا الكتاب استشعار الفرق بين حال المجتمع العماني حينه و بين الآن ، حيث القبلية سابقا كانت في أوجها و كانت عمليات الثار و العداوة قائمة ...
أمر آخر جعل رحلة المؤلف مثرية و هو التقاءه بالمغفور له الشيخ زايد بن سلطان آل نهيان حينما كان في البريمي و ذكر تفاصيل احتكاكه به شخصيا ..
جعل ويلفرد ثيسجر اهداء الكتاب مخصوصا لشابين رافقاه في رحلته طيلة الخمس سنوات ، و هما "بن كبينة" و "بن غبيشة" شابين من ظفار و كانا خير سفيرين لأخلاق البدو الحميدة .أعجب بهما ويلفرد كثيراً و كان الاهداء عربون شكر و وفاء لهما ...
March 2, 2019
الجوع والعطش والظروف المناخية الصعبة والحياة البدائية بأدق تفاصيلها اليومية هي التي ابهجت روح الرحالة الانجليزي (ويلفريد ثيسيجر) او مبارك بن لندن كما اطلق عليه اصدقاءه البدو اثناء رحلتهم الشاقة و المضنية للربع الخالي ذهاباً و إيابأ والتي نقلها لنا في كتابه (فوق الرمال العربية)
كثيرة هي التفاصيل التي ذكرها ويلفريد ثيسيجر منذ انطلاقته من مدينة صلالة والبدو الذين اختارهم والقبائل المنتمين إليها اصدقاءه سواء من آل كثير او آل رشيد والعادات والتقاليد البدوية بكل تفاصيلها الدقيقة.. إ�� هذا الكتاب الذي بأيدينا ينقل لنا تفكير البدوي العميق و السطحي بنفس الوقت.
حاول ويلفريد ثيسيجر ذكر تفاصيل التفاصيل برحلته الشاقة لأجتياز الربع الخالي والتي اعتقد انه نجح بإيصالها للقارئ الكريم بشكل جيد
وسوف يلاحظ القارئ لهذه الرحلة المتعبة تعلق ويلفريد ثيسيجر او مبارك بن لندن بالصحراء و اصدقاءه البدو وخاصة (ابن كبينة) والذي أخلص بخدمة ومساعدة ويلفريد ثيسيجر طوال الرحلة
الكتاب ليس بالكبير ويستطيع القارئ الكريم أن ينتهي منه سريعاً..
فهد الجهوري .
كثيرة هي التفاصيل التي ذكرها ويلفريد ثيسيجر منذ انطلاقته من مدينة صلالة والبدو الذين اختارهم والقبائل المنتمين إليها اصدقاءه سواء من آل كثير او آل رشيد والعادات والتقاليد البدوية بكل تفاصيلها الدقيقة.. إ�� هذا الكتاب الذي بأيدينا ينقل لنا تفكير البدوي العميق و السطحي بنفس الوقت.
حاول ويلفريد ثيسيجر ذكر تفاصيل التفاصيل برحلته الشاقة لأجتياز الربع الخالي والتي اعتقد انه نجح بإيصالها للقارئ الكريم بشكل جيد
وسوف يلاحظ القارئ لهذه الرحلة المتعبة تعلق ويلفريد ثيسيجر او مبارك بن لندن بالصحراء و اصدقاءه البدو وخاصة (ابن كبينة) والذي أخلص بخدمة ومساعدة ويلفريد ثيسيجر طوال الرحلة
الكتاب ليس بالكبير ويستطيع القارئ الكريم أن ينتهي منه سريعاً..
فهد الجهوري .
April 29, 2014
Thesiger isn't a wordsmith, but he sure can wax lyrical about sand and camels. Usually I'm skeptical of the "white dude realizes his culture is superficial/grossly consumeristic and seeks enlightenment in Savage Territories" topos -- although I empathize with his feeling of displacement -- but the author's understated, matter-of-fact prose and authentic love of the desert and its people keep him from falling into the Exotic Other trap. The real selling part for me was the friendship he built with members of the Bedu, and the deep understanding that existed between them. I enjoyed reading this -- and, in a time where there is little left uncharted, got to experience a vicarious thrill of Adventure.
December 10, 2018
Reading Arabian Sands was an incredible experience for me, not only because as a standalone work it's the best piece of travel writing I've come across, but also its insight into a people, the Arabs, and religion, Islam, that I had been searching for. It has my strongest recommendation.
I've always loved travel writing, it began with Colin Thubron's "Beyond the Wall" about China, he was a fabulous writer, and he put into words what I had felt during a visit in 1988. However, Thesiger travels at a level of inconvenience and real danger that no one undergoes today. As Thesiger travels through the Empty Quarter, the far southeastern corner of Saudi Arabia, it was incomprehensible to me how little he cared about his physical well-being or safety. It's as if his desire to travel and to see these places - the first European to ever see many of them - was the prime driving force of his life. If you like travel writing or books about exploration and adventure, you will absolutely love this book.
The book is also a fascinating autobiography of the author. He grows up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, moves to England when he is 10 (and attends Eton of all places), and then goes back to explore, he just can't get away. He's the most driven person I've ever read about, and he knows what he wants to do, and will do anything to achieve it.
After some initial forays in Africa, he moves on to explore the Empty Quarter. The Arabian portion of the book can be divided into 3 parts - the initial trip across the sands, which is one of the most exciting things I've ever read, the second trip across the sands, only slightly less so, and then last part, which is not as richly or patiently written, about his travels in the mountains of Oman. The writing is exceptionally beautiful, the descriptions of the dunes and mountains, the plants and the animals. It is quite detailed, one really feels like one is there. My old hardcover copy of the book came with photographs from the journey, and a beautiful map in the back, which really helped visualize the traveling.
Many topics are covered in detail. The descriptions of camels are particularly interesting, and Thesiger minutely describes virtually everything about camels, which is fascinating. When I say everything I really mean that, there's nothing that he is too embarrassed to discuss about camels (or the Bedu for that matter).
But where Thesiger really shines is in his description of the people, the Bedu (or Bedoin), the way they are as a people, their tribal culture, and their Islam, and his personal relationships with them. Thesiger describes how they are as individuals, as people, how different they are, even the differences among the tribes, with highly personal, subjective observations. And the truly amazing thing about the book is how utterly honest and opinionated Thesiger is about the Bedu, how detailed - the good (mostly) and the bad. He is unafraid to say whatever he thinks, and to cover just about every topic.
As a result, at the end of the book one is left with this incredible understanding of and sympathy for the culture of the Bedu. The overarching message is one of incredible complexity, impossible to put into words, but incapable of simplification or stereotyping. There are many things about the Bedu which are so much better than Western culture, one is embarrassed, particularly their warmth. And there are many things that are so shockingly bad and wrong you can't believe that even started to like these people. Thesiger, who is clearly sympathetic and fond of the Bedu, shows his points quite clearly, but does not flinch from showing things which we might find difficult to understand or sympathize with.
He also makes overarching points about the Arabs as a people. They created the world's second largest religion, and nearly conquered the world. They are also the people behind 9/11 (11 of the 15 hijackers were Saudis). I've been studying these topics quite closely over the years, and I never quite "got it", mostly because what I've read has an agenda. While I'm reluctant to share my conclusions in this review, I've never read anything more enlightening.
Final words: this book is truly awesome. Thesiger's honesty and overarching "goodness" permeates the book and in a way that more than anything "makes" it. I expect to be thinking about it the rest of my life.
I've always loved travel writing, it began with Colin Thubron's "Beyond the Wall" about China, he was a fabulous writer, and he put into words what I had felt during a visit in 1988. However, Thesiger travels at a level of inconvenience and real danger that no one undergoes today. As Thesiger travels through the Empty Quarter, the far southeastern corner of Saudi Arabia, it was incomprehensible to me how little he cared about his physical well-being or safety. It's as if his desire to travel and to see these places - the first European to ever see many of them - was the prime driving force of his life. If you like travel writing or books about exploration and adventure, you will absolutely love this book.
The book is also a fascinating autobiography of the author. He grows up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, moves to England when he is 10 (and attends Eton of all places), and then goes back to explore, he just can't get away. He's the most driven person I've ever read about, and he knows what he wants to do, and will do anything to achieve it.
After some initial forays in Africa, he moves on to explore the Empty Quarter. The Arabian portion of the book can be divided into 3 parts - the initial trip across the sands, which is one of the most exciting things I've ever read, the second trip across the sands, only slightly less so, and then last part, which is not as richly or patiently written, about his travels in the mountains of Oman. The writing is exceptionally beautiful, the descriptions of the dunes and mountains, the plants and the animals. It is quite detailed, one really feels like one is there. My old hardcover copy of the book came with photographs from the journey, and a beautiful map in the back, which really helped visualize the traveling.
Many topics are covered in detail. The descriptions of camels are particularly interesting, and Thesiger minutely describes virtually everything about camels, which is fascinating. When I say everything I really mean that, there's nothing that he is too embarrassed to discuss about camels (or the Bedu for that matter).
But where Thesiger really shines is in his description of the people, the Bedu (or Bedoin), the way they are as a people, their tribal culture, and their Islam, and his personal relationships with them. Thesiger describes how they are as individuals, as people, how different they are, even the differences among the tribes, with highly personal, subjective observations. And the truly amazing thing about the book is how utterly honest and opinionated Thesiger is about the Bedu, how detailed - the good (mostly) and the bad. He is unafraid to say whatever he thinks, and to cover just about every topic.
As a result, at the end of the book one is left with this incredible understanding of and sympathy for the culture of the Bedu. The overarching message is one of incredible complexity, impossible to put into words, but incapable of simplification or stereotyping. There are many things about the Bedu which are so much better than Western culture, one is embarrassed, particularly their warmth. And there are many things that are so shockingly bad and wrong you can't believe that even started to like these people. Thesiger, who is clearly sympathetic and fond of the Bedu, shows his points quite clearly, but does not flinch from showing things which we might find difficult to understand or sympathize with.
He also makes overarching points about the Arabs as a people. They created the world's second largest religion, and nearly conquered the world. They are also the people behind 9/11 (11 of the 15 hijackers were Saudis). I've been studying these topics quite closely over the years, and I never quite "got it", mostly because what I've read has an agenda. While I'm reluctant to share my conclusions in this review, I've never read anything more enlightening.
Final words: this book is truly awesome. Thesiger's honesty and overarching "goodness" permeates the book and in a way that more than anything "makes" it. I expect to be thinking about it the rest of my life.
August 21, 2021
Ever since I read The Road to Mecca by Mohamed Asad, my interest over the life of Arab grew. Asad's description of the Arabs, especially the tradional/bedouin one is against typical one that I know. Asad praise high standard of their value, their hospitality to strangers, the simplicity of life. This (probably, still research) was the same type of people that lived during Prophet Muhammad time.
I came to saw this book recommended by ŷ. I read the short review on Wikipedia, and it is a travel diary of an Englishmen, Wilfried Thesiger during his time as map maker in Arabia. Ever since Road to Mecca, i wanted to learn mode about the pre modern Arab and hope this book can gave me other insights.
This book completely met my expectations. It gave us a rich look into the life of the Bedouin Arab, Thesiger travel companions. Thesiger did not write as an outsider who only observes from afar or rely on interviews but rather lives and travels with them for years. He experiences firsthand the life of the Bedouin; their attitude, life value, even the dynamics of the tribe amongst Bedouin across Arabia from nowadays Saudi to Bahrain to Yemen to Emirates and Oman.
Thesiger was far from having a comfortable life during his time in Arabia. As a map writer, he needs to wander into the desert, and no, not using a car, but using a camel. This was what makes his journey adventurous. There were occasions of life and death. Where they didn't have much water left, and water in the well was not drinkable (I just happened to know about this. I was thinking that the well, or the oasis, is drinkable). Where they can't find grazing for their camel, the extreme Sandstrom, the steep dune, the rivalry between tribes that can cost them life.
His observation of Bedu, his travel companion is also something that reader will be interested in. At least for me, Bedu, like many local tribes, was often depicted as pre-modern, uncivilized, and somewhat rude. We might do no justice by not mentioning the good qualities of Bedu. Their hospitality to strangers, their loyalty to their travel companion, and their practicality in life that allows them to survive the hard life in the desert.
Strongly suggested for someone who wanted to feel the experience of what is life in the Arabia desert (and yes, before modernity kicks in. I heard that not many Bedu that are fully nomad remains.)
I came to saw this book recommended by ŷ. I read the short review on Wikipedia, and it is a travel diary of an Englishmen, Wilfried Thesiger during his time as map maker in Arabia. Ever since Road to Mecca, i wanted to learn mode about the pre modern Arab and hope this book can gave me other insights.
This book completely met my expectations. It gave us a rich look into the life of the Bedouin Arab, Thesiger travel companions. Thesiger did not write as an outsider who only observes from afar or rely on interviews but rather lives and travels with them for years. He experiences firsthand the life of the Bedouin; their attitude, life value, even the dynamics of the tribe amongst Bedouin across Arabia from nowadays Saudi to Bahrain to Yemen to Emirates and Oman.
Thesiger was far from having a comfortable life during his time in Arabia. As a map writer, he needs to wander into the desert, and no, not using a car, but using a camel. This was what makes his journey adventurous. There were occasions of life and death. Where they didn't have much water left, and water in the well was not drinkable (I just happened to know about this. I was thinking that the well, or the oasis, is drinkable). Where they can't find grazing for their camel, the extreme Sandstrom, the steep dune, the rivalry between tribes that can cost them life.
His observation of Bedu, his travel companion is also something that reader will be interested in. At least for me, Bedu, like many local tribes, was often depicted as pre-modern, uncivilized, and somewhat rude. We might do no justice by not mentioning the good qualities of Bedu. Their hospitality to strangers, their loyalty to their travel companion, and their practicality in life that allows them to survive the hard life in the desert.
Strongly suggested for someone who wanted to feel the experience of what is life in the Arabia desert (and yes, before modernity kicks in. I heard that not many Bedu that are fully nomad remains.)
December 9, 2008
If you care to read about the wisdom and meekness of the Desert and its Bedu people, Arabian Sands is your Bible. This enchanted and spiritual volume completely satisfied my hunger for the romanticism and mysticism of travel and brought the dreamlike and psyhedelic part of the Arab world directly to my heart. Thesiger is an extraordinary bloke, stubborn in his pursuit of adventure and uncompromising in his extreme rules of assimilation. Living with the nomadic Arab tribes of the Empty Quarter between 1945-50, just before the discovery of oil, he gives a thorough insight to how locals cope with living under desperately harsh circumstances. The key of survival lies in the power of community; alone you are doomed in the waterless sands. Reading this book you will reach to the very root of the fatalism, generosity, poetry, pride, humour, courage, patience and the uncompromising hospitality of Arabic people. The landscape here has dominance over personality and somewhere between the starry skies of snow cold sand and the windy dunes of blinding sun ’basic truths emerge�. I was completely enchanted.
”For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can match.�
”For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can match.�
January 21, 2013
Nearly every listing of the best best travel books mentions this book. And it is no surprise: There is nothing quite like it. Most travel book contains vivid descriptions of the landscape. While Thesiger's occasionally describes the deserts physical details, the book is really a study of its the psychological landscape it creates. "I realized that for me the fascination of this journey lay not in seeing the seeing the country but in seeing it under these conditions." Over the course of three or four journeys across the parched "Empty Quarter" of Arabia with the Bedu people he writes of writes of dreams of food, of longing for water, and of the cultural ways the Bedu adapt to the desert. "They could tell at a glance," he writes, "from the depth of the footprint whether a camel was ridden or
free, and whether it was in calf. By studying strange tracks they could tell the area from which the camel came. Camels from the Sands, for instance, have sof soles to their feet, marked with tattered
strips of loose skin, whereas if they come from the gravel plains their feet are polished smooth." Fascinating stuff.
free, and whether it was in calf. By studying strange tracks they could tell the area from which the camel came. Camels from the Sands, for instance, have sof soles to their feet, marked with tattered
strips of loose skin, whereas if they come from the gravel plains their feet are polished smooth." Fascinating stuff.
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