My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I only came to know of the existence of the place known as the ‘Empty Quarter’ a few years ago. It suddenly made perfect sense. Of course most of civilisation is built upon arable land with access to water, of course the land with little to no ability to grow food would be uninhabited and deserted, and of course this would apply to the vast deserts of Arabia. After all, it is what put the ’empty’ into ‘Empty Quarter’.
It turns out, this quarter is not so empty as we might imagine.
Since time immemorial, Bedouin Arabs have lived in and been embraced by these sands. It is a world completely isolated from the modern world, one where life never remains static and is characterised by patience and trust in God. It is a world where the commotion of global happening are obliterated by the bulwark of dunes. For while the Bedouins therein may be able to tell the tribe of a man by his camels footprints, they may simultaneously never know if the existence of a neighbouring country.
Wilfred Thesiger was a man who all too appreciated this way of life. He was born in 1910 and spent his childhood in Ethiopia.
He had enjoyed the world before the onslaught of more modern technology had begun to shape the habits and behaviours of the world around him. He had a taste of the desert during some escapades in Ethiopia and when he had an opportunity to visit the Empty Quarter (‘The Sands’ as the Bedouin called them) to gather some information about locusts on behalf of a research institution he leapt at the opportunity. Information about locusts was the least of his concern but it gave him an opportunity to be sponsored to cross the desert that seemed to call his name.
What followed was an unthinkable journey across vast swathes of uninhabitable desert, with dunes acting as mountains and camels as his companion. Thesiger did not cross the desert alone however, such a feat would have been impossible even for someone with burnin ambition like him. Crossing the desert required copious amounts of supplies and knowledge of the routes and surroundings. To this end he employed the help of local tribes, trusting specific men as his riding companions above all others.
What pushes ‘Arabian Sands’ to stand out in its category is the level of detail that Thesiger manages to capture both of his surroundings but also of the daily life and occurrences amongst the Bedouin Arabs. Without any consistent written culture between them, what reaches us in the outside world of their lifestyle and happenings is scarce. Thesiger’s account of living and travelling with them provides an exclusive, fascinating insight into their lives and how the enveloping nature of their customs allow them to live and roam freely while bringing a level of order to the chaos of the desert.
Some notable instances and observations include how rather than develop a sense of selfishness and greed in a world of scarcity, the Arab Bedouins would instead showcase their mesmerising (and to Thesiger often frustrating) levels of generosity.
One example is narrated where after being without food for numerous days, Thesiger and his companions capture a hare which they are voraciously eager to divide and eat. Right before they can do so, they spot another small travelling group of Bedouin who come to greet them. Without a second’s hesitation they offer the hare they caught and cook it and serve it to their guests. This action was not done merely to abide by custom, but out of a sense of genuine hospitality and generousity. At the time of reading this myself, I was myself travelling in Jordan, wondering if I would be mentally able to give away food being starving myself. I mentally concluded that I would. A few days later I fell ill and was unable to eat anything, the intensity of the hunger I felt after just one day of not eating was enough to keep me up at night. I immediately garnered a new respect for the life and generosity of the Bedouins I had previously read about.
Other anecdotes give us an insight into how the Bedouin saw themselves and just how highly they valued their way of life compared to settled Arabs.
”The Bedu themselves never doubted their superiority. Even today such tribes as the Mutair and the Ajman would not regard it as an honour to give a girl from their tents in marriage even to the king of Arabia. I remembered asking some Rashid, who had visited Riyadh, how they had addressed the king, and they answered in surprise, ‘We called him Abd al Aziz, how else would we call him except by his name?’ And when I said, ‘I thought you might call him Your Majesty’, they answered, ‘We are Bedu. We have no king but God.’“
It is clear from the entirety of Thesiger’s book that this was the demeanour which had so attracted him to the Bedouin in the first place.
This way of life however, was under a new threat unlike had ever been experienced before. The rapid advancement of technology in the modern age had meant that what was previously mysterious and impenetrable became clear and conquered. No longer was the vast desert a place of refuge, the introduction of cars, radio and aeroplanes had tipped the balance of power in favour of the government once and for all. The desert was a place of retreat no longer, but just another area for the government to extend its influence and control.
Thesiger arrived at a time where this control was just about consolidating, and he asserts throughout the book that his journey would never be able to be repeated again since he completed it at a time where the Bedouin lived as they had without the conveniences of modern technology. Not long after his travels, in his later years he revisited parts of Arabia and found it utterly transformed. He called this the ‘final disillusionment’.
While there is no doubt that much of modern technology allows us to live more comfortably, many others have echoed Thesiger‘s thoughts that bit by bit, these comforts tend to erode the freedom that man is by nature bound to seek.
Thesiger writes:
”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 tranquillity was to be found there. I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which springs from abstinence: the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving for sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.”
It was this appreciation for life in its rawest form that drove him to the desert and that kept him there on his journey.
As with many accounts however, it is sometimes easy to get lost in the thicket of who is who. Thesiger naturally met many people along his journey. Some were friendly, others hostile, some were guide and others became his companions. One does not expect Thesiger to omit any of these details, but it is oftentimes laborious for the reader to keep track of every single person throughout different events.
I also found myself skipping back a few pages in confusion as when it seemed I was following along with Thesiger through the desert, within the space of one page he would suddenly arrive at a large town or city. Often the transition between the two was very sudden, but I remind myself that this work is not a work of fiction, it is not a story to tell but a journal of what Thesiger was able to see, do and accomplish. It may have been that not much occurred in the gaps between such transitions, and if it did, it has certainly been lost to history.
Another notable theme throughout is that Thesiger knows he completed his journey during the last phase before the modern world encroached upon the very sands he walked upon
Modernity has laid siege even to the deserts of Arabia, and Thesiger sees himself as the last traveller who shut the door behind him.
He writes:
“If anyone goes there now looking for the life I led they will not find it, for technicians have been there since, prospecting for oil. Today the desert where I travelled is scarred with the tracks of lorries and littered with discarded junk imported from Europe and America…”
And in another place:
“I went to Southern Arabia only just in time. Others will go there to study geology and archaeology, the birds and plants and animals, even to study the Arabs themselves, but they will move about in cars and will keep in touch with the outside world by wireless. They will bring back results far more interesting than mine, but they will never know the spirit of the land nor the greatness of the Arabs.”
Though the time may have passed for anyone born after him, Arabian Sands provides a fascinating insight into the life of the Arab Bedouins. It is a life that most of us will never experience, but one that we can glimpse through the window that Thesiger has opened for us.
To end with Thesiger himself:
“For me this book remains a memorial to a vanished past, a tribute to a once magnificent people.”
Recommended read.