Getting Settled in Tripoli

Getting Settled in Tripoli

I was getting quite settled in Tripoli – the center is very small and easy to navigate and I now felt quite at home. I even had my little daily routine starting with Youssef who makes the best coffee in Tripoli, but early Friday morning, the driver, Nasser, and I set out for Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya on our ‘quest for the Qubbat’. Between his English and my Arabic we would see if we could discover anything more about Ibn B in the east.

Friday being the holiday, the roads were quiet as the crowds had not yet started out for the beach. As we neared the beach area roadside stands were getting prepared for the beachgoers with children’s water wings, balls, windbreaks, parasols, and plastic tables and chairs neatly stacked, while between the trees in the shade, pick-up trucks were parked loaded with watermelons. We turned off just before the beach area on to a graded track which eventually became a brand new road. Our first obstacle was a large rock in the middle of it. I think we may have been the first people to have driven on this new road and the rocks were probably there for a reason - but we were on a mission and despite the fact there was an uncomfortably sheer drop down a very high cliff if we had not managed to scoot around the rock, we scraped by and sailed on to what is now called al-Qusbat, known to Ibn B as Mislata. Al-Qusbat is a sleepy agricultural town built among hills of olives and figs and by rights should be a pretty place, but it is marred by the trash lying everywhere, and even the flocks of goats hoovering up from the previous day’s market could not hope to make a dent in it. There is no old town of any sort left here so we did not linger and drove off quickly to Mislata, now a fairly large coastal city.

From here for the next 600 kilometers (375 miles) the road passed unbroken through flat scrubby, desert with some spectacular sections along the coast passing a limpid turquoise and blue Mediterranean and white sandy beaches with not a soul to be seen. Because the roads were quiet we drove easily at speed (about 87 mph) and after a quick lunch stop arrived in Ajdabiya around five o’clock. We took a quick look at the 10th century Fatimid fortress, the only Fatimid monument in the country, which now consists of little more than a portion of a wall, before calling it a day.

This is all that remains of the 10th century fortress

The following day we set off northwards towards Sluge where I stopped to visit the Mausoleum of the great Libya hero, Omar Mukhtar executed by the Italians in after fighting the Italian occupation in Cyrenaica. (A fine movie called ‘The Lion of the Desert’, starring Anthony Quinn as Omar Mukhtar and Rod Steiger as Mussolini outlines the story.) After a detour involving several kilometers to get gas, (distribution of gas in oil-rich Libya is patchy outside of Tripoli and frequently you find gas stations barred, meaning they have no gas) we continued north to Barce, one of the ancient Greek Pentapolis cities, cited by many medieval travelers as the one place you had to pass through en route from East to West. Clutching at linguistic straws, I decided that Barce (pronounced Bar-sah), was Ibn B’s ‘Barsis’, and the fort might be here. After getting lost a dozen times, Nasser spotted old domes peeking through larger but dilapidating colonial Italian architecture, a pile of rusting cars, mounds of trash and what may have been some BC Greek walls – it was hard to tell. To this amateur, the domes looked medieval, but the façade was now definitely Italianate. A woman who lived amongst this horribly disfigured landscape told us only that it had been a church. But now we got a break; on Goodchild’s map, it noted Zaouiat al-Qusur or ‘retreat of the castles’ in this exact spot And so I unilaterally decided that Barce is probably where Ibn B’s fort is and this former retreat turned church turned ruin is his Qubbat Sallam.

Could this forlorn building be the elusive Qubbat Sallam?

That mystery now ‘solved’, we continued on the pilgrimage route to al-Khurruba, al Mekhili and Zaouiat al-Izziya. Considering we passed exactly three road signs between Ajdabiyah and al-Kharruba, a distance of 191 miles, this was a miracle. Seven centuries after Ibn B passed through, paved roads may make the going easier but being unmarked, travelers still have to rely on locals to tell them where they are. Maps are of little use because they are out of date. (Egyptian and other migrant workers have nonetheless been able to overcome this handicap and have managed to find their way as far west as the aforementioned al-Qusbat where they are to be found in large numbers sitting at ‘designated’ roadsides waiting for work.)

The roadside along this stretch of the southern Jebel Akhdar, or Green Mountain, is dotted with forts; mostly small and mostly in piles of rubble, (the upper portions of the castles were mud-built) but one near al-Khurruba was in reasonable shape. They undoubtedly served as watchtowers, but as they appear to be built approximately the same distance apart they may also have served the trade and Haj caravans as places of refuge at night. There was nothing else of note in the arid landscape and there was only one more place mentioned by Ibn B – Qasr az-Za’afiya. Dr. Youssef and I had surmised that a place on modern maps called Zaouiat al ‘Izziyat might be the place as the names are very similar. And in this tiny place – a clutch of houses and a mosque - in the middle of nowhere, we may just have struck pay dirt. We found the remains of a large castle. From the existing walls, it was at least 150 feet wide, and double that in length with what appeared to be a defensive perimeter ditch of about 20 feet wide. Walls further away from the enclosure suggested the castle may have been considerably larger than it appeared now. Narrow passageways, walls, lintels and elegantly arched doorways seemed to suggest a castle of considerable size and importance – this was more than just a simple watchtower fort such as we had seen so far. It was all we had to point to this being the castle where Ibn B. celebrated his second wedding.

700 years later, this is what remains of Ibn B's Qasr Za'afiya, or is it?

And so mission accomplished we drove to and long the coast to Tobruk, site of WWII war graves; British, French and German, and now a large, clean and modern city where we stopped for a well-deserved ‘narghile’ or water pipe. I have a great fondness for a good water pipe and I had not partaken of the pleasure since I had arrived in Libya. I could not leave the country without having at least one.

These are the young water-pipe preparers.

(In Tunisia, Saleh the driver, and I shared a pipe while watching the Tunisia/Ukraine football match but in Algeria, the water pipe does not exist.) Next stop Alexandria tomorrow.

The Libyan Wedding

Libyan weddings are grand affairs. If finances permit, the wedding can last up to 5 days, but even in modest circumstances 3 days is the minimum. The celebrations can be exhausting and many modern brides think 3 days is enough regardless of financial outlay. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a local wedding – day 1 of a large celebration. Weddings nowadays are rarely held in the home, and venues are rented for the occasion. In this case the wedding party was held on the family’s estate just outside of Tripoli. Entering the hall, the brilliant spectacle of about 200 glamorous women bejeweled and clad in beautiful sparkly evening-wear was a tad unnerving to this traveler who was entirely unsuitably clad. It is customary in Libya to have large weddings, and family, friends and neighbors are all invited, but it is not mandatory to attend every night of the wedding.

On this particular night the bride, in contrast to the other women, was not wearing make-up which is the tradition for this day only. She wore a traditional pink-striped voluminous dress, folded up into cushion-like forms at the back and hips, and had a matching kerchief tied up on top of her head. Guests were served a traditional dish called rishda, a vermicelli pasta in a spicy tomato-based sauce, served with lamb or chicken. From then on, servers patrolled the hall with giant platters of cakes, cookies, baklava, ice cream, mint tea and soft drinks throughout the night. A four-piece live band of female musicians played (amplified) Arabic music all night long – certain songs saw lots of women of all ages up on the floor, tying belts around their hips and shimmying away in a Libyan-style belly dance. I too took to the floor and danced with the bride and the rest - it was like being in the disco again - the only thing missing was the pile of handbags in the middle of the circle! Seeing the little girls dance was something to behold – dashing on to the floor as soon as they liked the beat, they’d shake and shimmy their slender forms and non-existent hips like pros. One little girl in particular who had very long hair had her own style – bending over from the waist, she’d shake out her hair then toss her head in fast circles first to one side and then the other so that her hair became a whirling halo.

There are no men at these affairs. The celebrations are almost entirely separate, even today. Also in contrast to our weddings, here they are held at night. We arrived at 1100 at night, and left at 0230 in the morning, it was a Tuesday night and people were going to work as normal the next day. The summer months are generally the season for weddings and parties but they do occur throughout the year. One wonders where they get the stamina…. The day I attended is called hafla.

The following day was nejma, meaning star, when the bride gets hennaed up. The star bit refers to the bride going out into the street at night holding a mirror in front of her to ‘catch the star’. It is a procession in which the bride’s friends, neighbors and family members take part, although several women who were describing the wedding celebrations to me told me they had not done this, and this part of the tradition may be dying off. A child walks in front of her holding a tray with candles for light, eggs for fertility and a knife to keep away the evil eye. In Ottoman times I am told a black eunuch would walk entirely naked in the street at the same time, in order to deflect unwanted attention away from the bride...….perhaps if they re-introduced this part of the custom it might revive it? Just a thought......

When this is done, henna is applied. This is far more elaborate than I had understood. A tray with the ritual henna and associated implements is placed in front of the bride. Sometimes a family member will apply the henna but if they are not skilled, a professional is called upon to do it. The parts of the body which are not going to be hennaed are covered with string – either it is wound round the lower parts of a finger for example leaving the upper parts free, or in olden times to obtain the patterns on hands and feet, the string would be fashioned into different shapes and laid across the appropriate part of the body. (Now they have stencils.) The henna is not painted on but is thickly applied in a paste over the hand, arm or foot, and then bound with cloth to keep it warm to speed up the activation process. Formerly, straw was used for its warming properties. Thus bound and pasted the bride passes the time with her friends – feet and arms aloft. The process can take either a few hours or all night depending on the desired depth of color. The longer it is left on, the deeper the red.

The third day is called Goufah when the groom’s family invites family and friends to bring gifts to the bride. The bride usually wears the white dress on this day. This is also the day of the rajala, or men’s lunch, when they get together and eat couscous.

The 4th day is called Dokhla and the woman has a party in her home before the groom comes to pick her up to take her to his house. This usually takes place on a Thursday and if you have ever been to a Middle Eastern country and seen (and heard) crowds of people in their cars in a procession at night – all honking and shouting – this is what they are celebrating, the bride going to the groom’s house. As this is the first night they spend together, it is met with much teasing and banter. Inside the groom’s house, family members will greet them, some reciting prayers from the Koran sometimes to the accompaniment of music.

The following day is called sabahiyya – or morning after. A large breakfast is given and on this occasion the bride may change costume as many as 4 times, she will also be given a ritual spoonful of sugar to taste from all family members – (this is an old ritual to keep relations ‘sweet’ between them). Couples go on honeymoon on this day just as we do.

Wedding customs change from area to area across the country and a wedding in Benghazi will not be the same as a wedding in Tripoli for example, although there will be some similarities. Although there was a female video photographer recording the event, the video will only be shown to women and to immediate male family members. In respect of local custom therefore, there are no photographs to accompany this post. You will have to visit Libya and hopefully be invited to a wedding yourself. As it happens, I will be leading a trip for Geographic Expeditions to Libya October 29-November 14 later this year - if you would like to join me please contact kristina@geoex.com.

In search of Lost History

One of the reasons the history of Libya is so incomplete is that the nomads having been in control of so much of it for so long kept no written record, and we have to rely on hearsay, and documents from other sources. In addition because the tribes were both nomadic and warrior-like, when a weaker tribe was driven from an area, the occupying tribe moving in changed the names of places and sites without regard to history, which for them was of no importance. As this happened frequently the ‘collective memory’ was lost, and travelers passing through during different time frames would refer to the same place in a variety of names since their only source of information was from the local people who had no knowledge of the area from before their own time.

I have thus spent some time in Tripoli with the knowledgeable and affable scholar Dr. Youssef al-Alkhattali, trying to determine which route Ibn B. took after leaving Tripoli.

“We passed through Mislata, Misrata and Qusur Surt where the dromedary-men of some bands of nomad Arabs sought to attack us, but the Divine Will diverted them…………….Our way then lay through the midst of the ghaba and we traversed it to the fort of the anchorite Barsis and thence to Qabbat Sallam.”

Masalata and Misrata are straightforward, but by ‘Qusur Surt’, which means “castles of Surt”, we determined that Ibn B. was referring to a series of fortified buildings, dating back to Roman times, located on the south-eastern part of the Gulf of Sirt. This also made sense given Ibn B’s reference to potential attackers, as this area was greatly feared by travelers due to banditry by the local tribes. Using old maps compiled by the British archaeologist Richard Goodchild which plot Roman and Byzantine sites in Cyrenaica, as well as the writings of some seventeen other travelers from the 11th to 17th centuries who had completed the Haj pilgrimage, Dr. Youssef tried through a process of elimination to come up with the route.

We trudged off to the school for Libyan Studies under a blazing sun and about 38 degree Celcius (100F) temperatures to find al-Abthery’s book. There was not much to help us in this particulat segment of the journey although the book is of considerable import to students of medieval Haj pilgrimage

After a while we ended up back where we had started. We have determined the route based on the place names given by most other travelers who always cite the same names. We still do not know where the ‘fort of the anchorite Barsis’ is nor the Qubbat Sallam, although we are working on the theory that qubbat meaning dome could also be a retreat (zaouia) of a holy man of which there are many in the region, while Sallam would appear to be the name of the saint. (The name could as we have mentioned, have been changed any number of times before and after.)

By no means giving up the next day we then marched off to the Medina Museum housed in the old British Consulate building. It is a lovely shaded courtyard building with the library in the first floor. It was unbearably hot and humid – people were slumped in chairs, or sat on the steps in the porticoed gallery, immobile as statues. The library was no exception – the heat hung in the still air and 2 attendants seemingly incapable of movement, could barely muster the traditional greeting. I could feel perspiration dripping down my back as we looked for the volumes we needed. We came across al-Idrissi, the famous geographer who had passed by a century before, as well as al-Haukal who had passed by in the 10th century, but no fort, no Qubbat and no Qasr.

This plaque is on the wall outside the former Consulate which now houses the Medina Museum. Many of the early British expeditions undertaken in the discovery of sub-Saharan Africa left from here. Most of them came to grief one way or another - I trust I will have better luck in Cyrenaica with my own discovery.

Just for good measure, Ibn B ends his sojourn in Libya by saying that at Qabbat Sallam;

“I became involved in a dispute with my father-in-law which made it necessary for me to separate from his daughter. I then married the daughter of a talib* of Fez and when she was conducted to me at Qasr al-Za’afiya I gave a wedding feast at which I detained the caravan for a whole day and entertained them all.”

* jurists of religious law

This place has not been identified either – and we have so far not found other reference to it. So to summarize Libya for the Prince of Travelers, in the space of approximately 4 months he got married twice, divorced once, and was constantly harassed by bandits. Meanwhile I am off to a Libyan wedding - the closest I am going to come to marriage in Libya methinks, and on Friday I leave for Cyrenaica in the quest to find the Qubbat!

Tripoli and the Barbary Coast

“We then left the town of Gabes making for Tarabulus (Tripoli) and were escorted for some stages of our journey thither by about a hundred or more horsemen. There were also in the caravan a troop of archers with the result that the roving Arabs, in fear of them, avoided their vicinity, and God preserved us from them.”

Ibn B. says nothing at all about the city of Tripoli except to mention that during his stay he celebrated Eid al-Adha (the 3-day celebration which marks the end of the Haj) and he got married.

A Brief Look at Tripoli
Medieval travelers in general had little to say about Tripoli, and indeed Al-Abthery, a traveler who passed by about 60 years prior to Ibn Battuta was scathing in his denouncement of the city as a cultural wasteland. Tripoli may have been nominally under the control of the Hafsids in Tunis, but while they were strong enough to provide for its defense, the city being frequently the object of local power struggles between competing Berber tribes, it remained far removed from the great intellectual centers of medieval learning. (In Roman times, a succession of castles and watchtowers was built across an area in the hinterland from the coast called the ‘limes’, which was essentially the dividing line between civilization and the ‘barbarians’ or Berber tribes, throughout North Africa.) In the 11th century the Fatimid dynasty in Cairo unleashed two tribes into the Maghreb; the Beni Hillal and the Beni Sulaim – both originally from the Arabian peninsula. This was an act of revenge due to the local Fatimid ruler in Mahdia (in Tunisia) having converted back to Sunni Islam from Shi’ism. Nomadic Berber tribes (there were – confusingly - settled Berber tribes also) joined with the two invading Arab tribes in an orgy of destruction and much of what was left of the Roman and Byzantine civilizations was destroyed and abandoned. The three Roman centers of Tripolitania; Oea (Tripoli), Sabratha and Leptis Magna, did not escape and today there is only an arch left of the original Roman city in Tripoli, the arch of Marcus Aurelius.

The medina
The Spanish, who were briefly masters of the Mediterranean, annexed Tripoli in 1510, it then passed to Malta in 1530 and eventually fell to the privateer Dragut in 1551. From then until the end of WWI, Tripoli and the ‘Barbary Coast’ were under Ottoman control, or at least the control of the Ottoman-appointed beys. The oldest buildings in Tripoli date from this period, namely Dragut’s Mosque, al-Saraya al-Hamra (Red Castle), and Nagha Mosque, said originally to have been built during the time of the Fatimids in the 10th century, although the existing building dates from1610. The medina is similar to other North African medinas in its plan of narrow streets leading to cul-de-sacs and courtyards for the privacy of residents, but unlike other medinas it is not usually roofed, but there are exceptions to this. Some streets and alleys are heavily buttressed which not only hold up the walls but give a degree of protection from the sun.

Like all other medieval medinas there was a Jewish section, here called the hara, which has now largely fallen into ruin although a synagogue still stands. In the wake of independence in 1951, many families moved out of the medina and it now tends to house the poorer segments of Libyan society as well as immigrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa, Morocco and Algeria. If much of the housing needs attention, Mosques, former churches, banks and important houses have been renovated and an organization has been set up dedicated to the historic preserve of the medina.

Minarets
Minarets in Libya are very different from those of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and one does not find here the solid square Almohad or Almoravid style minarets. (Firstly, Libya lay outwith their area of control, and secondly it has no mosques dating back as far as their era of the 11th and 12th centuries.) Mosques here have more slender round or octagonal minarets often capped with green ‘witch’s hats’ much more in keeping with those found in Turkey; the Ottomans who controlled the area introduced their building style even if the schools of Islam were different.

The advent of the Italians
The ‘Villa Moderna’, lying west of Green Square which links the old and new cities, is the city laid out by the Italians who declared Libya a part of Italy in 1939. The architecture of Tripoli’s new city is in parts magnificent, and was built in a variety of styles. Some public buildings such as the Post Office are in grandiose Fascist 1930’s style, others such as the cinema have a decided late art deco look, galleries recall those of Milan, while many streets are fronted by elegant Italianate arcaded buildings. (Sadly, some of this eclectic architecture is in a state of considerable deterioration and it is to be hoped that efforts are made either publicly or through the emerging private sector to restore what is, after all, part of the country’s heritage before it is too late.)

The School of Islamic Arts and Crafts
One building in the ‘Villa Moderna’ not built by the Italians, is the School of Islamic Arts and Crafts. Built in 1898 in traditional courtyard style, it was paid for by local Libyans who wanted to educate and train the poorer members of society in ways that would enable them to earn a living. (Legend says that every woman in Tripoli gave up a piece of gold towards it.) The school first opened in 1901 and today it still educates orphans (male) and boys from low-income families. The boys are trained in carpentry and furniture-making, ceramics, leatherwork, tailoring and metalwork, graduating after 3-4 years.

In the summer computer courses are held and girls can attend those and different other classes. I walked in on one mixed class of boys and girls being trained in calligraphy – the exquisite art of Arabic script being fashioned into something far beyond mere writing. The class is taught by Abdul Majeed Shafah who designed the calligraphic form of my name that can be found on my website title. I was very graciously, at short notice, given a private tour by architect, Azza Al-Shahah, who teaches at the school. The school is located on September 1 street and within its arches are small shops, the rent of which pays for the running of the school. It receives no other funding other than this and charitable donations. The school will shortly have its own website detailing its considerable history, and examples of the students’ work is available for sale in the school. What is required is ongoing funding as well as work for the students when they graduate.