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Title: The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (Modern Library Paperbacks)
ISBN: 0375757546
Author:
Freya Stark
Publicate Date: 2001-07-24
Publish: 2001-07-24
List Price: $13.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.50
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1: The previous obsession...
Once before in recorded history "the West" had an obsession with a product of the Arabian Peninsula - then it was frankincense. This was burned in the funeral rites of the deceased, particularly in the Roman Empire, and for the rich, it was often burned in significant quantities. Supplying this need made the territories of South Arabia, where it is grown, and the cities along the trade routes, quite wealthy. In particular the town of Shabwa, a key point on the route, where it turned from the westward direction, and started north to Gaza, enjoyed the benefits of monopoly control. This was the ultimate destination of Ms. Stark when she undertook her journey.
The year was 1934; it was the winter months, when so many Westerner travelers wisely choose to travel, with the inadvertent consequence of projecting a more pleasant quality to the life in the area. Ms. Stark had inherited some money, and was thus able to give up her "day job." She established her reputation traveling and writing about the "Valley of the Assassins" in western Persia. Her portrait of South Arabia, principally the Hadhramaut comes just before the discovery of the second obsession - oil. And it is a memorable one, since her erudition is stunning, and her descriptive prose original and incisive. The book was written for the educated class of her time, and assumes a fluency in French, German and Latin; she does graciously provide translations for the Arabic.
She traveled alone, as a single woman, a remarkable feat in the Arab world, rarely duplicated. Her journey began in the British "protectorate" of Aden, where she took a steamer to Mukulla. From there she traveled the 150-200 miles inland to the Wadi Hadhramaut. Unlike the travels of Dervla Murphy or Wilfred Thesiger, she traveled in the milieu of her social class, being passed along from one tribal sheikh to another. Her fluency in Arabic enabled substantial interactions with her "handlers," plus, unlike the male travelers, she had access to the women in the "harem." Once in the Hadhramaut she traveled by car - it was just the beginnings of their use - there were no roads, and they all had to be packed into the Wadi, disassembled, by camels. She was able to visit the classic cities of Shibam, Sewun, and Tarim, benefiting from the recent truce among the tribes.
Illness, which she originally thought was malaria, but proved to be angina pectoris and dyspepsia, forced her to forego her ultimate goal. The R.A.F. airlifted her back to Aden, probably saving her life. In the appendix she is dazzling in her summation of the historical sources of knowledge of the ancient Incense Road.
Her descriptive passages, of the topography, the botany, or human features and clothing are a major strength, but she can also suddenly shift into philosophical insights, certainly as valid today as then. Consider: "...far less are we happy to give our lives for finance, however clothed in names of honour. But for a selfless cause, for some vision built out into the misty future of mankind, people will die as they have always died, wherever the penalty. They are led astray by will o' the wisps, charlatans, pressmen and dictators; these have the peace-lover denounced and watched against..."
"The fish swimming in water," might be the best defense for her lack of comment on the existing world order, for example, why should Britain have made Aden a protectorate, what was the actual role of those airbases scattered around the rest of the Yemen, and the impact of the Great Depression on her own life, and those of the other citizens. It just was the existing "inertial reference frame" from which to observe the "natives', by in large, with sympathy.
Over 70 years later it remains a remarkable book, to be read for many reasons, including obtaining a view of the roots of the Osama bin Laden family.
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2: Fascinating Tale of a Time of Adventure, Lost Forever
I found this book absolutely fascinating as it described a time, only 70-odd years ago, when there truly were unexplored reaches, where legend and history still co-existed, and where a culturally sensitive and aware, and properly respectful traveler could find peaceful and fulfilling adventure. This book is even more interesting now, given the changes in the Middle East in the past ten years. Can one imagine making the same kind of journey in Yemen now? Of course not; it would almost be suicide. That time has long since been destroyed, everything about this book but its pure physical setting gone, so this memoir is even more poignant and compelling.
Stark has an eye for detail, as jaundiced as it is with the unavoidable Orientalism of her time and socio-cultural context. This can be forgiven/overlooked, and she's a lot more fair and obliging when describing those she encounters than the majority of her contemporaries. She's at her best when describing the landscapes she is encountering, the stark desert and wadis, the unexpected lushness of the oases and tucked-away mountain crevices where all the shades of green burst forth.
More than anything, what comes through in this book is Stark's grace and abiding respect for the people she meets. She has taken the time to learn their language, and is familiar with their culture, and takes pains to encounter them in terms that will make them comfortable. She does not attempt to bend anyone to a Western European point of view. This is not to say she is subservient or fawning; she most certainly stands up for herself when it is required. But throughout the book and on this journey, her continued success comes from her honesty tinged with her respect for the region and the people with whom she is interacting. This engenders respect for her in return.
I found the three maps in the beginning of the book at first absolutely invaluable as references to Stark's locations and progress. I then found the maps to be absolutely infuriating, due to their black/white printing, the too-small script, the confusing order of the maps, the contradictory scales and place-name differences, etc. I ended up abandoning the book's maps and opening my unabridged atlas to Yemen and tracking her movement there. Editors: if you're going to offer maps in a book like this, make sure the maps are actually worthwhile and readable.
Two scholarly additions to the book are good. Stark's appendix on the "Southern Incense Route of Arabia" is a fascinating account of exactly what she was looking for, and what brought her to the Hadramaut in the first place. It's her indirect formal scholarly statement of motivation. This appendix would have been well-placed as a foreword to this book, serving to establish her motivation and objective. Stark lists her sources, and they're offered as a listed bibliography immediately after the appendix. There is also an index, but for whatever reason, many of the persons and places in the text are not included, and there is no cross-referencing. For example, the names of individual wadis are placed in the index as "Sidun, Wadi," and are not cross-referenced with a "Wadi Sidun" entry.
Bottom line: If you're one of the many readers newly interested in Islam, Arabs and the Middle East, and are looking for some context beyond the latest book on extremism or terrorism, something to add depth to what you think you understand, then this book will do you well. If you're looking for some insight into the cultures and traditions of Islam, this also will move you in that direction. If you're looking for a glimpse into a time when the West and Islam actually got along on a basis of mutual respect, this enjoyable book will tell you about it.
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3: existentialist trek through Hadhramaut
Trekking over the desolate, rocky plateau that lies between the coast and the interior valleys of Hadhramaut, Freya Stark travelled in 1935 with a group of Bedu and a government slave-soldier. The area has been known as Aden Protectorate, the Qu'aiti State of Shihr and Makalla, South Arabia, the People's Democratic Republic of South Yemen, and is now part of united Yemen. She visited several of the interior towns, almost never seen by Europeans at that time (though the RAF did maintain a presence), and has written beautiful descriptions of the unusual physical environment as well as a kind and sympathetic treatment of the people she met. She talked in Arabic with the ladies of the harim as well as with the rulers, scholars, and ordinary men of the communities. Stark aimed to travel to Shabwa, a long-lost ancient city much further in the interior of the Arabian peninsula, to an area then contested between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Illness prevented her from doing so. This book then, is an account of her curtailed trip. She was evacuated by airplane from the interior, lucky to be alive. I always like travellers who respect the people they visit and who do not condescend. Freya Stark is certainly among them. For a travel book that describes a time long gone and a place still far from the beaten track-do you know many people who have been to Shibam, Makalla, Tarim, or al Qatn ?---you cannot do much better. You might use it as a guide as to how you could get along with people of a very different culture to your own---step number one, don't try to force them to adhere to your value system.
However, one thing about this book puzzled me. Compared to most travel literature, it is a most existentialist piece. "Here I am, travelling through remote Hadhramaut." That's cool, but we never find out why she was travelling to Shabwa-well, OK, it is old, it is a kind of `forbidden city', and it might hold ruins of interest---but why her ? Who was she ? What was her purpose ? What were her qualifications ? I realize full well that we can read her biography, we can look her up in the encyclopedia or on Google, that she wrote many other books. But, I had never read anything else by her, knew nothing of her life. I wondered who she was. The book offers absolutely no clue. Why did the rulers all welcome her ? How did she have such good connections with the powers that be in Aden ? I put this existentialist atmosphere down to a kind of British reticence, a reluctance to reveal much about oneself, not the proper form, etc. That is all well and good, each to her own culture, but it does cast a cloud of vagueness over the whole book. Compared to Wilfred Thesiger in his "Arabian Sands", Stark tells little of her aims or background, but is more willing to accept the Arabs as they were, not as she wished they would be.
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4: a woman adept at cross-cultural encounters
As a Christian worker in China, I had first-hand opportunity to see how we "foreigners" interacted cross-culturally. (Usually, the most successful of us were those who were not on a Mission from God.) Having seen people badly suited to live abroad and admiring those who were very able to do so, the joy of this book by Freya Stark was reading about a woman operating cross-culturally with a world-class ability to encounter persons with a much different backround than her own. Her sheer delight in her Bedouin companions is vicariously enjoyable.
Of course, this book journeys not just across cultures but across times, beginning with the author's introduction, which discusses the antiquity of the regioun she explores, especially in the time of great trade in frankincense, which made the region, for a time, wealthy. It is also reflected in the ancient culture and historical monuments and artifacts the author encounters.
Moreover, Freya Stark writes (wrote) beautifully. This book will appeal to anyone who is curious about other peoples, other lands and other times or who enjoys good writing.
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5: Amusing and Enlightening Tales of Travel
In 1934, Freya Stark determined that she would follow the ancient frankincense routes through the fertile Hadhramaut valley to locate and record what was left of the legendary lost city of Shabwa. In 1936 she published _The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut_ which, as did many of her thirty-odd books, became a best seller. It is now republished by the Modern Library, and is a welcome reminder of a brave, erudite, and witty explorer. The current volume has as an introduction a capsule description of Stark's life by her biographer, Jane Fletcher Geniesse. Born in 1892, Stark was only able to indulge in travel in her thirties; she realized that there was a hunger for knowledge about exotic Arabia, and she schooled herself in the language and history of the area, through which she traveled by foot, car, donkey, and camel well into her eighties. She lived to be 101.The explorations of these exotic lands are rendered now more strange and lovely by time. Few of us will get to see the lands Stark loved, but we will never see them as she did. For most of the steps along the trail described in this book, Stark was the first European woman to come that way, and that she did so unaccompanied by a European escort gave the Bedouin, the learned men, and the sultans something to admire and wonder at. One who thought himself a leader of her group attempted to exclude her by bringing her meals to a separate area. "He was showing a Victorian disapproval of females who do not keep themselves to themselves, a thing I find dull and difficult to do." She finds that she very much likes being in the middle of the group, even as an outsider. "To sit over the fire with one's fellows in the evening, when the work is over and the talking begins, is the only sure way of keeping harmony and friendship. I never had any difficulties with my beduin and found nothing but friendliness and an anxiety to serve in every way, and I attribute this chiefly to the fact that we had our meals together..." On the last night being with one group, one of the Bedouin thanks her for sharing food together (rather than keeping separate as he had expected the European traveler to do), and says it has been pleasant traveling with her. "'Here we are now,' he said, 'all together. And tomorrow?' - he opened his hand out wide - 'all scattered, where?' After this question, so sad, ancient, and universal, we looked in silence to the darkness and the stars." Stark's quest was unfulfilled because of all things, measles. The discovery of Shabwa awaited a German traveler the next year, for she was too sick to continue toward her goal. One of her hosts, as she was ailing, reassured her: "Here we have no sickness; we are well or we die." She was carried off in a plane of the Royal Air Force, to whom in gratitude she dedicated her book. Her work is a perfect illustration that journeying well, and not achieving the destination, is the better accomplishment. It is impossible to come away from this volume without admiring this spunky, amused and amusing woman, nor to share in her admiration for those among whom she traveled. "The magic of Arabia," she writes, "which so many have felt, is due perhaps less to the sun-wrinkled arid land itself than to the innate peculiar nobility and charm of its people."
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