The Silk Road - Part 1, Deceit and Glamor, Warriors of Qin and The Big Goose Pagoda

May 2008
So, once again far removed from Ibn Battuta’s footsteps, I find myself in Hong Kong. I was last here 30 years ago, which even as I write seems to be quite impossible – how can this be? The city has changed enormously – for one thing, half of the harbor has disappeared and is now filled with glamorously tall skyscrapers. The energy of the place reminds me of New York even if the view of Hong Kong Island is more San Francisco with its steep hills and twisty stairways. I stayed on Kowloon side in a small boutique hotel called The Luxe Manor www.theluxemanor.com   which was both charming and quirky. I am here because due to the Olympics in Beijing, Hong Kong this year is the starting point for the northern Silk Road trip I am leading, over the Turugart Pass.
View of Hong Kong's skyscrapers built on what was the harbor.

Tales of the Imamate from the Sultanate

Nizwa, Oman

Oman is a land of forts, perfect sandcastle forts; pale honey-colored and smooth-sided, with round towers, square keeps, machiolated parapets, arrow slits, cannon and massive wooden iron-studded doors, they are a veritable medieval desert fantasy sprung to life. Nizwa’s fort is no exception although Ibn Battuta would not have seen it - the 17th century fort which has the largest circular tower in the country, took 12 years to build. From its corner towers one has a panoramic view over the whole oasis of Nizwa framed and hemmed in by a ridge of ancient, coal-black serrated crags.

The interior of Nizwa fort

Nizwa’s souk has been renovated to resemble an old souk with little shops clustered together in a central square, half the goods stacked outside; typical Omani products are the wooden, studded chests which were used for storage – the more elegant being used to store the most prized possessions such as special occasion clothing and jewelry - pottery frankincense burners, ewers and water holders, and woven palm and leather baskets. The walled and gated souk lies at the foot of the castle and with impeccable timing I arrived at lunchtime when everything was closed and everyone had gone home…. nonetheless all the merchandise which was outside had been left there unattended. I can’t imagine many places in other parts of the world where there would be anything left. Oman’s 2.5 million denizens are apparently a very law-abiding people – Omanis routinely park their cars, leave the engine running and go into a shop. It never occurs to them that their vehicle will not be there when they come out.

Typical Omani chests in Nizwa souk

Turtle Beach & The Road to Nizwa

Sur to Nizwa, Oman

Before leaving the region of Sur, I paid a visit to Ras al-Jinz, a tiny beach which belies its immense importance to several endangered turtle species; loggerhead, green, Olive Ridley and Hawksbill. On a small stretch of sand under honey-colored cliffs, female turtles come up on to the beach at night to lay upwards of 100 eggs deep in the sand.

The beach at Ras al-Jinz

After about 50 days the eggs hatch all at once, and guided instinctively by the moonlight the tiny black creatures, about two inches long, set off determinedly for the sea. Only a few meters separate their birthplace from the ocean but they are treacherous – birds, crabs and foxes catch them on the sand, and if they reach the ocean alive, fish and sea birds await them. For this reason they swim far out to sea for hours after hitting the water. It is not surprising that only about 1 of every 50 survives.

The government of Oman is arguably the most proactive in the Arab world with regard to conservation in general, and the turtles are no exception. Many have had little satellites attached to their shells so their movements can be tracked to enable us to learn more about them. The day of my visit a dead turtle lay on the beach – a female who for whatever reason had not made it back to sea, (males do not leave the sea). It seemed symbolic both of the struggle the little hatchlings face at the very start of their lives, to the ongoing pressures turtles face as adults sharing their habitat with increasing human encroachment and the attendant detritus that 21st century man in the form of 6 billion people brings to the earth.

Of cyclones and dhows and the Spangled Emperor

Sur, Oman

“We continued our voyage for a day and a night and came to the roadstead of a large village on the seashore called Sur, from which we saw the city of Qalhut on the slope of a hill, and seeming to us to be close by. “

Sur is no longer a village but a small and delightful town, I immediately liked its laid-back charm and its lovely old port. Sur is not on the itinerary of most tourists which is both a bit of a blessing and a curse for the town. In Ibn Battuta’s day Qalhat, a few miles up the coast, was clearly the more important city of the two, so he devotes few words to Sur.

View of Sur towards the Gulf of Oman

Sur means ‘fortified wall’ in Arabic so it comes as no surprise to see lots of crenellated walls even on modest, modern houses, having become something of a leitmotif of the city. I decided to visit two of the city’s forts despite the fact that neither of them had been built in Ibn Battuta’s day. In the 18th century, having seen off 200 years of Portuguese rule, Bilad castle was built to defend Sur from land attack from discontented tribes further inland, and Sunaysilah fort was built overlooking the sea to defend from sea-borne attack from everyone else. The former was closed, and I was the only visitor at the latter. A classic square-built fort with a round tower with arrow slits and cannon holes at each corner, it has been extensively renovated and the only complaint is that you cannot get on to the upper levels where the views out over the sea must be delightful.

The renovated upper courtyard interior of the fort.

The Island of Birds; a mystery not solved

Arabian Sea coast, Oman

“We continued our journey from the roadstead of Hasik for four days, and came to the Hill of Lum’an, in the midst of the sea. On top of it is a hermitage built of stone, with a roofing of fish bones, and with a pool of collected rainwater outside it.”

The accepted opinion about this – nobody has ever identified the Hill of Lum’an - is that it is Hallaniya, one of the Kuria Muria islands. The only major drawback about this explanation is that Ibn B said he had taken 4 days to get there and it is only 20 miles from Hasik. But after speaking with Salem who explained that his parents had once undertaken a boat journey to Sur when the wind dropped and they did not move an inch for days, it became a possible explanation for the puzzle, although I still did not like it – when Ibn B got stuck in the doldrums in the Sea of China he mentioned it, so if it had taken him 4 days to travel to an island 20 miles away, why had he not explained why?

In any event Ibn B’s words proved to be an insurmountable problem for me as I could not get to Hallaniya. I could have rented a basic dhow from Mirbat, and I went to its little harbor to inspect the possibilities. I was not encouraged, the idea of being the only woman on such a boat did not appeal to me for various reasons. The trip might last for 12 hours or if the weather turned nasty for any number of days. I abandoned the idea of even beginning negotiations on the price and looked for another way.

The Land of Frankincense

Dhofar Province, Oman

One cannot speak about Dhofar without mentioning frankincense. Along with gold and myrrh, it was one of the gifts given by the magi at the birth of Christ. Frankincense is the milky-white resin of the boswellia sacra tree, an unprepossessing scarred and gnarly old thing which nonetheless was the source of the vast wealth of various South Arabian kingdoms for millennia. There are several species of boswellia, but boswellia sacra gives the best resin and it is grown in very few places. Dhofar produces the finest resin of all.

“…they possess incense trees; these have thin leaves, and when a leaf is slashed there drips from it a sap like milk, which then turns into a gum. This gum is the incense, and it is very plentiful there.”

So wrote Ibn Batutta about Hasik whence some consider the best frankincense to come, but it is the trunk which is ‘slashed’ to extract the resin, not the leaves. Clearly he did not see the trees or the harvesting of the incense, but the procedure would have been explained to him and he may have thought it like a euphorbia whose leaves do extrude a kind of sticky, milky substance when cut.

The strange-looking frankincense tree with its divine-smelling resin of medicinal, preservative and, some say, aphrodisiac qualities.

The aphrodisiac qualities of the coconut, abalone and shark fish

Dhofar coast, Oman                 20 Dhul Qadah, 1428

Dhofar is supposedly a blessed place. It has long been considered by its inhabitants to have some special divine protection. I was told this during my visit, and Ibn B was told the same thing;

“One of the special properties and marvels of this city is that no one approaches it with an evil design but his guile turns on himself and he is prevented from attaining it.” 

Even the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea writing in the 1st century AD wrote of the special atmosphere of the site of Khor Rouri, known to the Greeks as Moscha, which he felt must have the protection of a god. Ironically, nowadays the locals believe there are jinn or jinni, there and most people would never visit after dark for fear of them. (As has been mentioned on this site, the Arabic word ‘jinn’ is the origin of the English word ‘genie’ of Aladdin’s lamp fame.) 

Khor Rouri was built by a Hadhramut King sometime around the 1st century BC, for the export of frankincense. But like al-Baleed it suffered a reversal of fortune and today it is an isolated inlet (‘khor’ means inlet separated from the sea by a sand bar) home to flamingoes, herons and eagles.

Khor Rouri - photograph taken from the ruins of the city looking out towards the Arabian Sea 

The Rain Shadow, the khareef, and the lost city of al-Baleed.

Salalah, Dhofar province, Oman     6 Dhul Qadah, 1428 AH

I have been discombobulated. I have not been able to access my website for weeks; in Iran on certain servers it is blacklisted for reasons unknown and in Dubai both Girl Solo and Typepad are wholly inaccessible for reasons equally unknown, all of which has left me chomping at the bit. This is not a good position to be in when you are trying to arrange travel to places that were already off the beaten path in the 14th century, and to which the passing centuries have not improved accessibility. The final straw - the shutter button on my camera sheared clean off leaving me completely adrift – I feel as if I have been without an umbilical cord for the past two months.

I am thus happy to be back on Ibn B’s trail again in the company of Mohammed Saeed, mohdsr@hotmail.com an extremely knowledgeable and affable guide to these parts. This is going to be one of the most difficult parts of the trip to pull together – I have been trying for several months – so in the meantime I start with the easy stuff which is how I come to be driving to al-Baleed of a fine, tropical November Monday morning…….

The flora of this part of the Omani coast resembles that of South Asia with its poinsiana and frangipani trees, bougainvillea, banana and coconut groves

The luxury of lapis, two revolutions and the art of the holiday

Tabriz, Iran

Tabriz is an attractive city with a lovely climate in summer. After the searing heat and humidity of the coast, it was delightful to be in a temperate, warm climate.

“We arrived in the city of Tabriz....and encamped outside it in a place called al-Sham. At that place is the grave of Qazan, king of al-Iraq, and alongside it a fine madrasa and a hospice in which food is supplied to all wayfarers, consisting of bread, meat, rice cooked in ghee, and sweetmeats. On the following morning I entered the city by a gate called the Baghdad Gate, and we came to an immense bazaar, one of the finest bazaars I have seen the world over. Each trade has its own location in it, separate from every other.”

The tea bazaar, Tabriz

We went to the bazaar on arrival, which is indeed spectacular and rivals the bazaar of Isfahan. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, dates, hibiscus tea, rose tea, honey, sunflower seeds, saffron, spices, sugar candy – burlap sacks were everywhere stuffed and overflowing, the smells over the years seeming to have permeated the very stone of the vaulted covered corridors. Tabriz is famous for its mixtures of roasted, salted nuts as well as shirinee, a kind of cookie made of egg white, almond and pistachio.


The spice bazaar, Tabriz

Fortunately, being Thursday, the carpet bazaar was closed - I did not want to be tempted. But there were plenty of other things to buy. In the evening we walked through the fresh fruit bazaar where cherries were on sale for 6000 Iranian riyals a kilo which is about 65 cents, (the current rate of exchange is approx. 9000 riyals to $1), fava beans were 5000IR a kilo and strawberries were 12,000 IR per kilo. As I have mentioned before the fruits and vegetables in Iran are delicious, because they are grown and sold locally and eaten seasonally as they should be.

Mr. Bean goes to Kish and the Last of the Pearls

Bandar Assouleh & Kish (Qais), Iran

There was no hotel in Siraf so we had to go to Bandar Assouleh to spend the night. This is one of Iran’s new industrial areas and is a center of oil and natural gas refining. We first of all could not find the exit off the highway and in fact we never did – we had to cut across a dirt track to enter the town which was utterly nondescript with the exception of the esplanade.

The esplanade of Bandar Assouleh - the flares behind the streetlamps are oil (and/or gas) refinery flares.
We could not find our hotel and hard as this may be to believe, the guide did not have the phone number. He only had the name. The hotel had changed its name. We drove around for two hours, nobody knew where the hotel was – everyone here comes from somewhere else as they come for work – and eventually the driver, by now furious with the guide for being so incompetent, said he would drop us off at a restaurant and he would try to find it. Because it was Friday the office was closed and the guide did not want to call anyone at home..........

The driver came back and took us to the Persian Gulf hotel – nothing to do with the name we had which was the Bandar Assouleh Inn. The guide had been telling me it was a government-run tourist inn such as we had stayed in the night before. It was not. It was filthy. It was apparently the best hotel in town and you would not have put a rabid dog in it. Nobody could use the loo, the cockroaches were the size of small birds and they were legion. I tried to pee down a drain and one leapt up, followed in rapid succession by me, so that was the end of that. I closed the door and slept with all my clothes on, on top of my silk liner. The next morning I peered cautiously into the bathroom, the repulsive creatures were still there. I went to a gas station to use the loo. I did however have one of the best meals for breakfast I had yet had in the entire country – a plate of beans from a tiny hole-in-the-wall that had workers lined up down the street. That and a cup of strong tea did the trick. And thus fortified we set off from the unforgettable Bandar Assouleh……..

Earthquakes and a Sufi's worth

Lar, Khonj, Siraf, Iran

“…From there we continued our march for three days through another desert like the former, and came to the city of Lar, a large city with many springs and perennial streams and gardens, and with fine bazaars.”

More of the astonishing desert vista; an extraordinary but forbidding landscape with massive chunks of the earth’s crust uplifted into rippling folds and craggy peaks.

By the time we reached Lar, and took time finding the hotel where we were the only guests, I could barely wait to close the room door firmly shut. Had there been anything to watch on TV other than a religious program in Farsi, I would have been content. There was not. I went out in the evening and bought some walnuts, salty cheese, yogurt, olives, fresh bread and chocolate for dinner. I wandered round New Lar but there was little of interest. Old Lar was destroyed by an earthquake in 1960 and a whole new town was built a few miles away. Old Lar, still inhabited, is the only part of interest.

Although the current bazaar dates primarily from the 16th century, there was a bazaar here when Ibn B passed through in 1347. Perhaps because it was located in an area prone to earthquakes, (better structural support?) or perhaps due to the very hot climate, the bazaar is built below ground level. It is built in a cruciform or ‘chahar-su’ plan, with a pierced central octagonal dome, which admitted both light and cooling breezes. Originally there was an octagonal pool under the dome which further cooled the inside temperature, but it is no longer there. The ashlar stonework is masterfully executed while the remains of painted stucco moldings are still visible.

The Principled Highwayman and the sacrificial goat

Hormuz Island and Kawrestan, Iran

You need a scarf and preferably some kind of face covering in this part of the world in summer. The wind is searing – it seems to fry the very air in your lungs. But it is the excessive humidity which leaves you wilted like a steamed lettuce after about 5 minutes. The boat crossing to Hormuz took about 20 minutes – I was sitting on some blankets on top of some plastic gasoline containers which I had not quite realized until I looked down and saw one pale blue linen trouser leg covered in petrol……. Arriving at Hormuz Island, a bedraggled fire hazard, we now had to set about finding someone to drive us round the island. . We were rescued by a man who came to the quayside driving a decrepit, red Toyota pick-up but to us it was a Mercedes limousine.

Our ‘fixer’, whom we had met on the boat and was related to said driver, now decided that he would drive the pick-up, but the car seemed to have only two gears one of which was reverse, and when the engine cut out as it did when you changed gear, it had to be hot-wired to start again as the key had disappeared long ago. Fortunately for us he quickly realized that his skills, considerable though they undoubtedly were, did not include driving a finicky pick-up and he quickly called back the owner who had over the years familiarized himself with the idiosyncracies of his vehicle. The island might only be 6 miles long, but for a moment it looked like the chances of us getting off the pier, never mind round the island were remote at best.

Hormuz island is a salt plug - this is a common vista as one drives around the island.

A long way from Tehran

Bandar Abbas, Iran

Our itinerary for the next few days was something of a shambles. We backtracked over many miles because we were doing the trip in the opposite direction from Ibn Battuta, and the places he visited which were vastly important in the 14th century barely exist now, but it was also because not being an area frequented by tourists, there are very few decent hotels. For the sake of Ibn Battuta’s text we will pretend we did the same route – south to north – when in fact we went north to south and then back north to Kish island……..The journey was the proverbial dog’s dinner.

Ibn B arrived in Iran from Oman - another country I am visiting out of sequence, but he went to Oman twice and like Iran, I am consolidating his trips into one which will make it almost accurate……..

“I traveled there next to the land of Hormuz. Hormuz is the city on the sea-coast, and is also called Mughistan. Opposite it in the sea New Hormuz, and between them is a sea passage of three farsakhs. We came to New Hormuz, which is an island whose city is called Jarawn. It is a fine large city, with magnificent bazaars, as it is the port of India and Sind, from which the wares of India are exported to the two Iraqs, Fars and Khorasan.”

Minab creek today - hard to believe that this was once one of the most important ports in the Persian Gulf.

A Drunken Rage, Shapur’s Glory and the Traveler’s Friend

Persepolis, Bishapur, Kazerun, Fars province, Iran

PERSEPOLIS
I have never entirely come to grips with Persepolis despite the fact that my first visit was with Alireza who is one of the finest, most knowledgeable guides I have had the privilege of working with, and Mike Kozuh who, with a Ph.D in Ancient Eastern Civilizations, could read the cuneiform inscriptions on the walls like a newspaper. When Alexander the Great destroyed Persepolis in 330BC, he did not pussyfoot around – excluding the astonishing Apadana staircase, there is little left. It is said that one night he got completely plastered and hoisted some undoubtedly beguiling, equally drunken slattern onto his shoulders who torched the halls. The city, much of which was built of wood, was incinerated. It has also been suggested that it was revenge for the burning of the Athens Acropolis by Xerxes in 480BC, but this seems unlikely since Alexander was Macedonian, not Greek. It is much more likely that Alexander deliberately inflicted this final touch of defeat on the Persians, to indicate to them that their empire, their days of glory were most determinedly over, and to destroy any hope of revival they might have entertained, and remove any vestige of what they once had been, he thoroughly razed their legendary ceremonial capital.

Persepolis was built as a ceremonial capital by the Achaemenid dynasty; begun by Darius the Great in the 6th century BC, continued by his son, Xerxes in the 5th century BC and then his son Artaxerxes, also 5th century BC, it was burned to the ground by Alexander the Great in 330BC. Having defeated Darius III at the Battle of Issus the same year - “all that belongs to you is now mine” - he deliberately destroyed Persepolis, glittering symbol of the empire’s power and might. Iranians are not unbiased or even-handed about this event and call Alexander “the Macedonian” as for them he was not remotely great at all. The Gate of all Lands was a waiting area where notables were led to await their audience with the King. Mounted on stone bases are two human-headed winged bulls who were ‘guardians’ of the city.

There is so little left that I have never been able to get my imagination to bridge the gap between what the eye sees and what the experts tell you must once have been. I dutifully toured the site again but with the exception of the phenomenal carvings of the Apadana staircase, Persepolis leaves me unmoved, I am self-evidently a cultural incompetent. And Ibn Battuta, as was his wont when world-class sites were pre-Islamic, sailed past without visiting or even mentioning them.

Carved on the inner staircase of the Apadana are 'The Immortals' - so-called because there were ten thousand of them and whenever one died he was immediately replaced. In battle they were legendary because it seemed when one fell another appeared in his place - another reason they were feared as 'immortal'.
From there we drove a short distance to where there are some Sassanian rock carvings. The Sassanians used this method to let people know about events in the empire, usually victories of some sort. One of the great carvings is of the powerful Zoroastrian priest Kartir, an unmitigated scoundrel, his right hand in the Sassanian gesture of respect – the curled forefinger.

Kartir, powerful Zoroastrian priest.

Shrines of Shiraz

Shiraz, Iran

“ We traveled to the town of Shiraz….famous in repute and high in esteem; it has elegant gardens and gushing streams, sumptuous bazaars and handsome thoroughfares.”

We arrived in Shiraz late afternoon through the Koran Gate, a route with a view which has been oft-raved over by a litany of travelers, but which now in a combination of pollution and urban sprawl, is quite unremarkable. And far from there being ‘gushing streams’ the main river is now in fact called Dry River on account of the fact that nary a drop of water is to found in it. (To be fair there is an effective water conservation program.) Shiraz, historically the place of wine, women and song, nightingales and roses – all the grand and eloquent subjects of Persian literature, is now just another large traffic-clogged city with no wine and two famous dead poets.

Begun in the late 18th century during the reign of Karim Khan, this mosque is famous for its spacious prayer hall and the exuberance of its tiling much of which was done later by the Qajars who completed construction of the mosque. Forty-eight stone columns with a spiral pattern ending in acanthus-leafed capitals are an unusal feature in an otherwise brick-built structure. The dados of the iwans are carved in alabaster arabesques while the upper walls and muqarnas are decorated in an exuberance of Victoriana swirls, flowers and general chintz with the predominant color being pink - a hallmark of the Qajars.

However the city does still boast some beautiful gardens, exquisite palaces, and stunningly-tiled mosques and madrasas although most of them were built after the time of Ibn Battuta – Shiraz was above all the city of the 18th century Zand dynasty. Of Ibn B’s day not much remains but we endeavored to unravel what we could. But first I had to find a kalyan – it was difficult, but after a day of the guide’s constant; “are you alright, watch your step, mind your head, are you too cold, watch out for the car” etc. despite my threat to emasculate him if he did not stop treating me like a little old lady from the suburbs on her first trip away from home, I needed to calmly smoke the pipe. Ironically it was he who told me where this could be procured; the Park Hotel – a hotel which has certainly seen happier times but which has a lovely garden with sweet-smelling jasmine and flamboyant pink bougainvillea. It especially has lovely carpeted charpoys – a kind of elevated large rectangle with cushions on three sides where one relaxes with tea and kalyan. And so of an evening I puffed and bubbled merrily away.

The Road south to Shiraz

Isfahan to Shiraz, Iran

We left in the morning to drive south. I had said goodbye to Alireza reluctantly and had met the guide who would be with me for the next two weeks. It was not to be an altogether happy partnership for either of us; his old womanish, fusspot ways drove me quite insane as I knew would be the case from the moment I laid eyes on him, and he undoubtedly thought I was his worst nightmare come true. Our first stop was Yazdikhast of which Ibn Battuta had written;

".....a small town substantially built, and with a fine bazaar; the congregational mosque in it is a marvel, built of stone and with arcades of stone also. The town is on the edge of a valley, in which are its orchards and its streams. In its outskirts there is a ribat in which travellers are lodged; it has an iron gate and is of the utmost strength and impregnability, and inside it there are shops where everything that travellers may need is on sale."

Bridge over the ravine which if removed, effectively sealed off the town. Ibn Battuta used the Moroccan/Maghreb word 'ribat' meaning "fortified monastery" when usually in Iran he used the word 'hospice' meaning caravanserai. It is possible given the size of Yazdikhast, that this had at one time been the entrance to the ribat he mentions and that the town was further along the edge of the cliff as its ruins still are today.

I found a bridge 'over a chasm' but the door was wooden although there were iron pieces in the stone wall. The door was clearly the only way into the now-ruined village, and indeed had the bridge been removed, the village was impregnable with defensive ramparts having been built around the spur of rock to which the village clung. The door was tightly locked shut so the guide, to my complete amazement, climbed up a rock face and over a gap in the wall and I followed, abaya and all. We then walked through the town, most of which was in a parlous state, and found the mosque although it did not appear to have been built of stone - the village consists of houses built of adobe and those actually hewn from the cliff. The whole time we were there the guide fretted; it was forbidden, we did not know who was watching, he could lose his licence - the litany of dire possibilities that surely awaited him never varied for the next two weeks. I became convinced he had been arrested and tortured either by Savak or by the post-revolutionary 'Robespierres' - I could imagine no other reason for such perpetual fearfulness.

Of Fire temples and Chicken Sacrifice

Isfahan, Iran

“My lodging at Isfahan was in a convent which is attributed to the shaikh Ali ibn Sahl, the disciple of al-Jonaid. It is held in great veneration and is visited by the people of those regions, who seek to obtain blessing by visiting it.”

In this convent Ibn Battuta had a momentous moment; he was elated to be initiated into the Suhrawardi Sufi taqqiya, the Sunni school of Sufism founded by Abu an-Najib as-Suhrawardi. (The more famous, or perhaps infamous, as-Suhrawardi was Shahad ad-Din who founded the Illuminationist school, a fusion of Zoroastrian, Platonic and Islamic philosophy, for which he was executed in 1191, his views being considered antithetical to Islam.)  We went off in search of the monastery. Predictably, the people working in the tourism office had never heard of it and had no idea where it was although they told us their director knew everything there was to know, but he was not there. Fortunately its location was in the guidebook...........

The lovely tree-shaded monastery Ibn Battuta would have seen although the adjacent hammam with its tiling has gone.

The Cat and the Raven and the Assassination of the Vizier

Isfahan, Iran

When I was in Isfahan, Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad decided to visit. The Naqsh-e-Jahan square was closed as he was due to make a speech near the Blue Mosque. Early afternoon we watched as crowds of people started making their way towards the square. These were the followers, the believers; the women were all chador-clad, troops of khaki-uniformed Revolutionary Guards ran down the center of the street carrying flags and banners, shouting “ya Hussein”, traditional battle cry of the doomed, some marched more sedately in the shaded avenues leading to the square, while buses were parked everywhere having disgorged the party faithful to the event.

Alireza would not let me take pictures, “these people are very fervent and anything can set them off - it’s better to stay out of their way”. Earlier we had seen a black cat and a raven fighting on the rooftops at the shrine of an Imamzadeh - I thought of Bush and Ahmedinejad.  The raven was squawking loudly and hopping about, flapping its wings to get rid of the cat which was aloof, dismissive and unconcerned. Many Iranians think Bush and Ahmedinejad are the same; both engage in saber-rattling designed to whip up people too lazy or oafish to think overmuch for themselves into a suitably nationalistic frenzy, and both appeal to religious fundamentalists. There is however one glaring difference - Ahmedinejad is a bona fide war veteran.

Giant Posters of the president were everywhere during his visit.

The conversion of Iran to Shi’ism and the struggle against the chador

Isfahan, Iran

”The city of Isfahan is one of the largest and fairest of cities, but it is now in ruins for the greater part, as the result of the feud there between the Sunnis and the Rafidis, which continues to rage between them still to the present day, so that they never cease to fight.”

Panorama of the maidan or square called Naqsh-e-Jahan, Image of the world; the Blue Mosque is to the rear and the dome of Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque is on the left.

Isfahan is not now in ruins, it is a beautiful city with one of the most magnificent public spaces in the world, and wide plane-shaded, boulevards lined with narrow water canals called ‘joob’ which combine to keep the city relatively cool even in the most blistering of summer heats. But the most beautiful buildings were not built at the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit. The splendor of Isfahan was in essence the creation of one man, Shah Abbas I, in the 17th century..........

Many of Isfahan's streets are heavily shaded by old plane trees which keep the city cool and give it a very pleasant aspect.

Iran was not a Shi’ite country when Ibn Battuta traveled there, it did not become Shi’ite until forcibly converted by the Safavid Shah, Ismail in 1512. The Safavids were originally a Sunni Turkish sufi order - Sufism being the ‘mystical’ branch of Sunni Islam. In 1501 Ismail inherited the throne aged 15, and having already converted to Shia Islam he later declared Shi’ism the state religion. Shah Ismail claimed he was the representative on earth of the ‘Hidden Imam’ which is intrinsically heretical since the doctrine of the hidden Imam stipulates that he shall have no earthly representation until he himself returns. But Ismail was not only able to waive this theological detail and to convince the people of the validity of his claim, but in the 19th century this claim was transferred to the Shi’ite ulema (clergy), a belief which stands to this day, and explains the position of strength the clergy hold in the current Islamic republic. (It is also one of the the reasons the last Shah lost his throne - he fatally miscalculated the depth of this sentiment in the minds of his subjects.)

The Road of the Atabegs, Funeral ceremonies and Pigeon Towers

Izeh to Isfahan, Iran

Ibn Battuta had been in Izeh when the Atabeg’s son had died. He was perfectly scandalized by the funerary customs of the Lur people;

“.....slaves, sons of princes, viziers and soldiers - all wearing sacks of coarse cloth and horses’ saddle-cloths; they had put dust and straw on their heads and some of them had cut off their forelocks. They were divided into two groups, one group at the top end of the hall and another at its lower end, and each group would advance towards the other, all beating their breasts with their hands and crying khundikarima, which means ‘our master’. The spectacle that I witnessed was an appalling thing and a disgraceful sight, the like of which I have never encountered.”

Funeral customs in Iran differ from region to region. Since the Iran/Iraq war when burials per day ran into the tens of thousands, a foundation run by the government has an extremely efficient, computerized system at Tehran cemetery. The plots are pre-dug, lined with cement, then lightly covered over. When someone dies the body is taken to the cemetery to be washed and prepared for burial. (In Tehran nowadays, most people die in hospital.) As soon as the plot has been paid for by the family or friends of the deceased, it will be assigned by computer. Tehran cemetery is so huge that the section where the plot is located is indicated on a screen by a flashing light. After the body has been interred, the space is cemented over then, not to put too fine a point on it, the plot is lightly covered over again to await the next occupant, unless there are now three in which case the plot is full. In Tehran cemetery as many as three bodies lie in one vertically divided grave - they are usually members of the same family but not necessarily.

Interment takes place as quickly as possible after death, preferably within 24 hours, but in Tehran it is not mandatory. Prayers are said over the body at the graveside - again in Tehran at least, the body does not go to the mosque for any kind of ceremony, although a memorial service called khatm, may be held there three, or seven and/or forty days later. Also uniquely in Tehran women may form part of the graveside mourners whereas in most Muslim countries women are not allowed to participate in the funeral rites and normally visit the grave on the following day. Islamic belief holds that angels visit the deceased on the evening of death and ask the questions which determine if the person goes to heaven or hell. In Iran, at the graveside, a man related to the deceased will climb into the grave and lightly holding the shoulders of the body will pose the same questions, gently shaking the body as he does. (Bodies are merely covered with a white shroud at burial in Islam - there are no coffins.) This is like a ‘rehearsal’ of the real event, symbolizing the importance of the deceased giving the ‘correct’ answers. I was not able to determine if this is ‘Twelver’ or Iranian or Shia custom in general, but whatever it is I cannot begin to imagine what Ibn Battuta would have made of it, I fear he would have been apoplectic.......

A cache of gold and the cult of mourning

Khuzestan province, Iran

“We traveled for three nights across open country inhabited by Kurds in hair tents who are said to be Arabs by origin and then reached the town of Ramiz, a fine city with fruit trees and rivers. I stayed only one night in the town of Ramiz after which we continued our journey for three nights more across a plain where there were are villages inhabited by Kurds. At the end of each stage of this journey there was a hospice at which every traveller was supplied with bread, meat and sweetmeats. ”

Ibn Battuta would find Ramiz is now Ramhormuz. And while a large proportion of the population in this part of Iran is indeed ethnically Arab, they are no longer nomadic, although as recently as the 1920’s, tribal Arab attacks in the countryside were such that the government deferred the building of roads. And the Kurds, who are easily identifiable because of their dress; the men wear baggy pants gathered tightly at the ankle called shalwar, are not Arab. The majority of Iran’s Kurdish population lives in the northern province of Kurdistan, although small communities are still to be found in neighboring provinces. In Ramhormuz we went in search of the Tourism Department who we thought might know if any buildings remained from the 14th century. We met the very helpful director who gave us a list of his town’s 77 monuments of which precisely none corresponded to the time of Ibn Battuta. By way of recompense perhaps he showed us, on the computer, items from a recent extraordinary find; a cache of gold jewelry (and a burial site), dating back to the Elamite and Achaemenid periods. Apparently the ground was being dug for the laying of water pipes when workers came across the find; rings, smooth and ridged rings of kingship, bangles, belts, bracelets, armlets, buttons, fibulae, and beautifully-crafted woven and plaited gold belts with dangling pieces studded with agates and other semi-precious stones, were in miraculous shape. A lovely 19th-century Qajar building currently undergoing renovation will house the collection.

Prophets, ziggurats and rusting tanks

Khuzestan Province, Iran

From Abadan we drove north to Khorramshahr which like Abadan is a stone’s throw across the Shatt al-Arab from Iraq. It was virtually levelled during the Iran/Iraq war. Burnt out tanks litter the sides of the road, deliberately left as a reminder. Behind them, tall stands of sugar cane - not an indigenous plant in these parts - is now grown extensively on the flat, once-saline plain.

An ubiquitous sight in Khuzestan.

As was his habit, Ibn Battuta did not mention either the pre-Islamic Susa or Chogha-Zanbil. The former was the winter capital of Elam, an ancient and powerful empire, while Chogha-Zanbil built by the Elamites in 1250 BC, was the largest ziggurat in the world, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It may not look like much now but this massive mudbrick structure faced with brick, was the largest ziggurat in the world when it was built in 1250BC.

It is surprising however that he did not visit the Tomb of Daniel in Susa - a prophet honored by all three monothesitic faiths. The tomb is topped by an unusual and distinctive pyramidal, cone-shaped roof which is visible from the remains of Susa.

The Tomb of Daniel with its distinctive pyramidal, yet cone-shaped roof.

There really are only remains - from 1844 until 1979 a French archaeological mission excavated the site and most of what was uncovered is in the Louvre in Paris. In 550BC Elam became a satrapy (governorate) of the Achaemenid Empire and its capital, Susa, continued as winter capital of the Achaemenids. It was customary in Mesopotamia and surrounding regions for a conqueror to built his new capital atop an old one - Susa is said to have yielded 28 layers of civilizations.

A ceremonial bull, one of the few vestiges of the once-proud capital of Susa.

Susa reached its height during the reign of Darius I. His Apadana, or communal hall, had 3 porticoes of 12 columns, each of which was 22 meters (68 feet) high. Razed during the reign of Darius’s grandson Artaxerxes I, it was rebuilt under Artaxerxes II but finally burned to the ground a second time by Alexander the Great in 323BC. (Since he also burned Persepolis to the ground Iranians, understandably, do not consider Alexander remotely ‘great’ and call him Alexander the Macedonian.)

Saddam Hussein’s First March of Folly

Ahvaz to Abadan, Iran

We had waited for 12 hours in Mehrabad airport in Tehran; Ahvaz, our destination, was cut off by a dust storm. We were given breakfast, lunch and dinner but little in the way of information or alternatives. Nobody made a fuss. I made a mental note;  Iranians are very patient.  I struck up a conversation with an Iranian doctor waiting for the same flight, I told her that if such a delay had happened in the US with so little information being given out, there would have been a screaming mob. She told me Iranians had had to develop patience.....  She herself had lost hers and was shortly emigrating to Australia.

Khuzestan dustbowl

Tribes, Flags and Forts

Eastern Province and Nejd Province, Saudi Arabia

“From there we traveled next to the town of al-Yamamah, also called Hajr, a fine and fertile city with running streams and trees inhabited by diffferent clans of Arabs, most of whom are of the Bani Hanifa, this being their land from old.”

Not far from here at a place called Dira’iyah, the ancestors of al-Saud established a stronghold sometime in the 15th century that eventually became seat of the First Saudi Empire.  In 1744 Mohammed ibn Saud formed an alliance with Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, a fiery preacher who considered the tribesmen at best remiss in their loose adherence to strict interpretation of the Koran, and at worst to have reverted to polytheism.

The mud-brick fortress of Dira'iyah, ancestral home of Al-Saud family.

The combined forces of the two men led to a subjugation of most of the local tribes and an implementation of Wahhabi principle which was based on the Hanbali canonical school, the strictest of the four schools of Sunni Islam. In 1802 the Saudi-led Wahhabis captured Mecca and not only destroyed some saints’ tombs, the visitation of which they felt was idolatrous, but turned away the hajj caravans as infidels and idolaters. The Ottoman Sultan, nominally in charge of the region and hence the pilgrims, was suitably affronted at this insult and an army was duly dispatched under Ibrahim Pasha, son of the Egyptian viceroy, to sort things out. The war lasted 6 years at the end of which in 1818 Abdullah al-Saud was defeated and sent to Constantinople where he was executed, Dira’iyah was destroyed, and the remnants of al-Saud family ended up in Riyadh, a few miles to the south.

Dira'iyah; typical painted door from Nejd province.

In 1843 Faisal al-Saud managed to eject the Ottoman forces from Nejd province, but on his death in-fighting over the succession paved the way for a Turkish alliance with the powerful al-Rashid family from Hail in the northern Nejd. Bitter rivals, they ousted al-Saud from Riyadh and ruled Nejd from 1891 until 1897. Al-Saud meanwhile had gone to Kuwait where a new, principled and charismatic leader would emerge in the form of Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman al-Saud, the eponymous founder of modern Saudi Arabia. 

The Palm tree, the Camel and Black Gold

Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

So bearing in mind that I have now jumped from the west coast of Saudi Arabia to the east, while Ibn Battuta had just come from Bahrain........

“We then traveled to the city of Qutaif, a fine large city with many date palms, inhabited by different clans of Arabs who are extremist Rafidis, and display their recusant heresy openly, without fear of anyone. Their muadhdhin says in his call to prayer, after the two words of witness, ‘I witness that Ali is the friend of God’, and after the two bidding formulas, (‘Come to prayer, come to salvation’) he adds, ‘Come to the best of works’. He also adds after the final tabkir (‘God is most great’), ‘Muhammed and Ali are the best of mankind; whoso opposes them has become an infidel."

Poor old Ibn B, warming once again to his theme of contempt for the Shia - 'Rafidi' being a derogatory term. Qatif is still a Shi’ite town as is much of the Eastern part of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman, although the Omanis are Ibadis while Bahrain and Saudi Arabia practice ‘Twelver’ Shi’ism as in Iran. (More on the Ibadis later.) The additional phrases in the call to prayer (adhan) that Ibn B is so contemptuous of are standard Shi’ite formulas for the call to prayer. The Sunni call to prayer is;

Allahu Akbar (God is most great) 4 times

Ashadu an la ilaha illa Allah (I testify there is no god but God) 2 times

Ashadu an na Mohammedan Rasul Allah (I testify Mohammed is his Prophet) 2 times

Hayya ‘al as-salah (come to prayer) 2 times

Hayya ‘al al-Falah (come to salvation) 2 times

Allahu Akbar (God is most great) 2 times

La ilaha illa Allah (There is no god but God)

The dawn prayer adds, “As salatu khayrun min an-nawm”, (It is better to pray than to sleep) after ‘come to salvation’. The five daily prayers are fijr (dawn), dohr (midday), ‘asr (mid-afternoon), maghreb (sunset), ‘asha (late evening). Prayer times were set by traveling times; the dawn prayer (1) was when the camel caravans would set out before the extreme heat of the day forced them to rest when the sun was at its height (2), farmers and fishermen would return home for the day mid-afternoon (3), maghreb prayer (4) when a shadow is the same length as an object, and the last prayer of the day at 'asha (5) when cameleers would stop to eat for the evening. Having said this, the Islamic 'day' (as in Judaism) starts in the evening, thus the Maghreb prayer is in fact the 'first' prayer.

Juwatha Mosque - third holiest site in the country where the Prophet Mohammed is said to have prayed.

Mt. Qassioun and the cave of Blood

Damascus, Syria

So here I am back in Syria. When Ibn Battuta traveled he consolidated several journeys into one trip - I am not so much consolidating, as engaging in obligatory backtracking. When I left Israel and Palestine I flew to Jordan then drove to Syria. I am now on the last day of my search of the obscure and obsurer.

“Qasiyun is a mountain on the north side of Damascus - al-Salihiya lies at its foot - celebrated for its blessedness, being the place of ascent of the Prophets (on them be peace.) Among its holy sanctuaries is the cave in which was born Ibrahim al-Khalil (On him be peace.) It is a long and narrow cave over which has been built a mosque with a tall minaret. It was from that cave that he saw the star, the moon and the sun as is related in the Exalted Book.”

The indefatigable Khaled and I set off. We climbed Mt. Qassioun twice. Or to be more accurate, we drove half way. I still have no idea how this was in fact accomplished. The narrow streets of Mt. Qassioun make those of the perched villages in the south of France seem like wide boulevards, they wind around improbable angles and cling to the curve of the hill on faith alone. Miraculously traffic moves in both directions, jaw-dropping disbelief has obliterated from my mind how. When we reached as far as we could go, I got out to visit one of the caves on the list. I had no idea which one it was as the names have changed and not even Iranians pilgrims visit here. I went inside, the key being held by a woman living nearby who had spotted me toiling up the hill. She came with me, but when I asked her if this was one of the caves mentioned by Ibn Battuta, she told me it had something to do with Fatima, but I could not quite figure out what. Even when Khaled joined us, panting and gasping from the steep walk, he could not determine from what she said which cave this represented in Ibn Battuta’s pantheon of caves. It was not particularly interesting to me and the only thing that interested her was that I give the baksheesh to her only and not to another woman who had silently appeared behind me. This she conveyed by a series of nods, silent mouthing, raised eyebrows and much eyeball darting to the left - it was quite comedic.

A view of Damascus from Mt. Qassioun.

Pisans, Templars and the Strange Case of the Tomb of Salih

Acre, (Akko) Israel

“I then journeyed along the coast to the town of Akka which is lying in ruins. Akka was formerly the capital of the lands of the Franks in Syria and the harbor for their vessels.......”

I did not journey along the coast because I came from Jerusalem with a Palestinian driver called Abed. And although I drove across much of the West Bank, we were on the highway, and green Palestinian licence plates are nowhere to be found because the access roads have been blocked. The settlements on either side of the road are fenced in with high chainlink fencing, and the ubiquitous concrete wall completes the apartheid picture.

Houses on the right comprise an illegally-built Israeli 'settlement' on Palestinian land. This road is for Israelis and yellow-licence plate holders only - the road barrier secures the passage of Israeli settlers on restricted roads by preventing Palestinians from gaining access. Palestinians thus have to take detours which can make a journey of minutes take several hours.

It is profoundly depressing; for the Palestinians because the ongoing theft of their land is an injustice they will never accept and for which they will continue to resist, and for Israelis because surely they can never have imagined that the 'Promised Land' would turn out to be the open prison that they themselves have built.

Scenes from the Occupied Territories.

What is positively uplifting however is the number of Israelis and Palestinians who are working together to try and bring about change. For those who want the truth about the genesis of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as well as honest, up-to-date reporting, I recommend the following four sources;

Zochrot, www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?lang=english means 'remembering' in Hebrew, and the objective of this admirable Israeli organization is to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. Israeli schoolchildren were deliberately never taught about 1948, and consequently many Israelis themselves have no idea what really happened.

Another Israeli organization is the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions who can be found at www.icahd.org/eng/

An excellent website is Electronic Intifada - Palestine's Weapon of Mass Instruction. You can find them at http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml

Another useful link is www.miftah.org the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, associated with the highly-respected scholar and tireless promoter of a negotiated and just peace agreement, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.

And so to Acre; Akko to the Israelis, Akka to the Arabs.......

The Isolation of Beni Na'im

Beni Na'im, Occupied Palestinian Territories

This was one of the most gratifying days of the trip so far. I found everything Ibn Battuta had described, exactly as he had described it.

“....and eastward of the sanctuary of al-Khalil is the turba of Lot (on him be peace.) Over his grave is a fine building, the grave itself being in a well-built and white-washed chamber within.”

The dome of Lot's tomb which is on the first floor (or second floor for US readers) of the mosque.

Hebron is called al-Khalil in Arabic; meaning ‘friend’, it is a reference to Abraham who was the ‘friend of God’.

A turba is a funerary chapel, and the tomb which is still there, is in the village of Beni Na’im only a few miles away. We drove off the main highway in the direction of the village but did not get very far - the road was blocked by huge chunks of rock. (Such blockages are marked on the United Nations' map of West Bank Closures.)

One of the methods used by Israeli authorities to prevent Palestinians from accessing the highways; this is a roadblock, then there are 'earthmounds' which are essentially piles of rubble designed to do the same thing, and then there are trenches.

Not to be defeated we drove around to try and find another access. On our way we passed an Israeli army post. We parked the car and walked a few meters to a small building on stony ground set among cypress and olive trees. We were overlooking the Jordan Valley and in the far distance, the Dead Sea. Ibn Battuta had mentioned this site,

“In the vicinity of the turba of Lot is the Mosque of al-Yaqin which is situtated on a high hill...... In this mosque close by the door there is a spot sunk in solid rock in which there has been formed the figure of a mihrab only large enough to accommodate a single worshipper. It is said that Abraham prostrated himself in this spot in gratitude to God Most High on the destruction of the men of Lot, and the place where he prostrated himself moved and sank down a little way into the ground.”

The little Mosque of Yaqin sits on a windswept ridge overlooking the Jordan Valley or 'ghawr'.

The ‘men of Lot’ is a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, and the mihrab is the ornamental niche in the qibla, the wall facing Mecca. Going into the mosque which, strangely for such a historic place, is now abandoned, the first thing we saw in front of us was the sunken part of the floor exactly as Ibn Battuta described it. It was almost a little too perfect, as if a movie set had just been constructed in time for our arrival. But there it was in the shape of a mihrab exactly as he had written - I was dumbstruck.

As perfectly described by Ibn Battuta.....

“O, Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.....”

Bethlehem and Hebron, Occupied Palestinian Territories

Bethlehem is indeed still. It is still because many of its shops are closed and shuttered. It is still because tourists rarely visit now. It is still because it is slowly being interred behind an illegal concrete wall.

One part of the wall which now almost entirely surrounds Bethlehem.

July 9, 2004
International Court of Justice
“Israel....has the obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built by it in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem... Cessation of those violations [of its international obligations] entails in practice the dismantling forthwith of those parts of the structure....The Court finds further that Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to all the na