The Road to Ubar (11 page)

Father Jamme advised that "C. Foster's contribution is best forgotten; its only value being that of a tiny historical dot." The good Jesuit signed off with a hearty "Cheerio!!!" So much for Lieutenant Wellstead's and the Reverend Mr. Foster's inscription. But give Foster credit, at least, for transforming a politician's plaque into a haunting myth. I imagined Charles Foster in a leaky-roofed Victorian parsonage, fitfully preparing a sermon for an indifferent congregation but secretly dreaming of an ancient people in a faraway sunny land, who once were favored by the grace of God.

What initially appealed to me about Foster's version of the inscription was that, had it been as he imagined, it would have bridged the divide between life today and life in the distant past. This, to me, was myth's great promise. Reading his wishful translation, you could fleetingly put yourself in the sandals of a people who "hunted the game, by land, with ropes and reeds" and yet endured "years barren and burned up" and suffered "as though we had never seen a glimpse of good." Though steeped in the fantastic, myth allows you to reach back to touch the lives of ancient people. To smell their spices, get the dust of their towns in your eyes. To dream, even, their dreams. Perhaps Foster felt the same way and was driven to invent what he could not find. His tale was cautionary.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that the Ubar myth offered a realistic promise. Already (I reassured myself) it had offered tangible clues as to the character and location of the site. And some cards remained to be turned over—in particular, the legend's grand flowering in Egypt and Persia in the 1100s. I looked forward to researching this period. There was the prospect that Ubar could convincingly become a real place ... but it could also prove to be a city that never was, a concoction of medieval and ancient imagination.

The myth of Ubar, I was to find, had all the certainty of a desert mirage. It would draw you on, a vision of unexpected wonder rising from distant sands. Then suddenly, as you advanced just one step too far, it vanished. But then, as with a mirage, if you stepped back, the vision would return.

Were not mirages—despite their distortions and shimmering inversions—images of actual places, of palm trees and dwellings hidden beyond the curvature of the earth?

T
O FURTHER EXPLORE
the myth of Ubar, let us journey now to Cairo in medieval times...

From across the desert, the traveler's view of the city's minarets and domes is filtered by a silvery sepia haze rising from the kitchen fires of palaces and hovels. Nearing Cairo and passing through the Bab al-Futah, the Gate of Conquest, the traveler plunges into a dusky, teeming labyrinth. Merchants crouched in tiny stalls cry out to a stream of passersby to smell their spices and cinnamon, sample their pomegranates and pistachio nuts. Down a crooked street, doctors prescribe leeches for bile in the blood and horse oil for broken bones. Caged birds twitter and shriek. A dark alley becomes so narrow that two people can barely pass, then opens onto a square where ten thousand souls praise Allah in the Great Mosque of ibn Tulun.

In the shade cast by the mosque's walls and pillars,
rawis,
itinerant storytellers, practice their street theater. Their tales are by turns bawdy, romantic, pious, and edged with suspense. The story of Iram/Ubar is a favorite, oft-told and popular. Says one rawi, "Were I to tell you of Iram's splendors and miraculous works, I fear you would be calling me a liar, and by doing that you would be committing a sin!"

By great good fortune, a sampling of rawis' tales of Iram/Ubar has been preserved.
¹
The most engaging is by a certain Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Kisai, of whom little is known. A guess would be that he was a streetcorner rawi who at some point was adopted by the opulent court of the city's Abbasid pasha and thereby had the time and resources to commit his stories to writing.

In Cairo in 1180, we listen to his tale, which features the life and travails of Iram/Ubar's best-known figure and is therefore called the tale of...

The Prophet Hud

Know that in the beginning there were twelve male children of 'Ad son of Uz son of Aram son of Shem son of Noah, and God gave them power He has given to no one else.

1. Hud and the Idolatrous People of 'Ad

Wahb ibn Munabbih [a prior chronicler] said: the greatest king of 'Ad was Khuljan; and he had three idols, Sada, Hird, and Haba, in the service of which he had placed one man for every day in the year. Among these, the noblest and best was Khulud. When this Khulud was asked why he had not married, since he had reached the accustomed age, he replied, "Because in a dream I saw coming out of my loins a white chain, which had a light like the light of the sun. I heard a voice saying, 'Look well, Khulud, for when you see this chain come out of your loins again, marry the girl you will be commanded to marry.'" He was puzzled by this until one day he heard a voice say, "Khulud, marry the daughter of our uncle!" While he was asleep, suddenly the chain came forth from his loins.

When he awoke he went to his cousin, spoke for her, and was married to her. When he had lain with her, she conceived 20 Hud the prophet.

The ponds and rivers, the birds and beasts, wild and tame, rejoiced at the conception of Hud. The trees of the tribe of'Ad became green and brought forth fruit out of season by the blessing of Hud. And when his mother's days were accomplished, he was born on Friday.

One day, while he was at prayer, his mother saw him and asked, "My son, whom are you worshipping?"

"I am worshipping God, who created me and all creation," he answered.

"Do you not worship the idols?" asked his mother.

"Those idols bring neither harm nor profit," he said. "Neither do they see nor do they hear."

"My child," she said, "worship your God, for the day I conceived you I saw many strange things. When I was delivered of you in the valley, there were dry trees that became green and bore fruit. When I put you on a black rock, it became whiter than snow. Then I carried you home and saw a man whose head was in the sky and whose feet were in the vast expanses of the earth. He took you from me and raised you up to a people in the sky whose faces were white. Then they returned you to me, and on your head were rays of light and on your arm was a green pearl. I heard one of them say, 'God has made you a prophet.' So act accordingly with what has appeared to you."

Kaab al-Ahbar [another chronicler] said: When Hud was four years old, God spoke to him, saying, "O Hud, I have selected you as a prophet and have made you a messenger of the tribe of 'Ad. Go therefore to them and fear them not. Call upon them to witness that there is no God but I alone, who have no partner, and that you are my servant and my messenger."

Hud went out to his people on the day of their great festival, held in the sandy regions called Ramal-alij [an old name for the Rub' al-Khali], Their king, Khuljan, was seated on a golden throne.

"
O my people,
" said Hud, "
worship God: ye have no other god than him
" (7.65).
²
So saying, he let out a great shout, and from afar the wild beasts and lions drew near and said, "We are at your service, O Hud. Inform us and have no fear."

But the hearts of the people were filled with fear; their faces turned pale, and they shuddered. They asked, "What are your 60 God's features like, his form, his length? Is he made of gold or silver?"

Hud described God's majesty. When he had finished his speech, the king said to him, "Do you think your Lord is more powerful than we are, considering the multitude of our numbers and the strength of our forces? Or do you not know that there are born to us every day and night one thousand two hundred male and female children?"

Hud replied: "
Did they not see that God, who had created them, was more mighty than they in strength?
" (41.15).

The first person to believe in Hud that day was one Junada, forty of whose cousins also believed. But the rest of the people rebuked and cursed Hud. He continued to indulge them, though, for a long time. Then God caused the women's wombs to become barren, and not a single woman among them bore a son or daughter. Hud never ceased warning them until he had been calling them to worship God for seventy years, but still they had no faith.

Kaab al-Ahbar said: Hud finally lifted his gaze to heaven and said, "O God, I ask thee to strike them down with famine and drought. Perhaps then they will believe. If they do not, then I ask thee to destroy them through torment such as no one has been destroyed by before or will afterward."

So it was that God took away the rain and caused the earth to shrivel up, and no green thing grew in their fields and their beasts died; but they bore all this with patience for four years, until, despairing of themselves, they were about to believe. Thereupon King Khuljan told his subjects, "You must not enter into Hud's religion even if you be eating sand and drinking urine. If this suffering has afflicted us because of the multitude 90 of our sins, why then have the wild beasts and animals of burden, which have no sin, been afflicted as much as we?"

Hud answered, calling out from a mountain-top, saying, "O children of'Ad, if you have faith in your Lord, I will ask Him to send the heavens to you to pour down rain and to cause the earth to send forth her fruits."

II. The Delegation to Mecca

Ibn Abbas [yet another cited chronicler] said that in those days it was the custom, when a people was afflicted from heaven or from an enemy, to take offerings to the Sanctuary of the Ka'aba 100 and to ask God for release from suffering. They would enter the Sanctuary mounted on she-camels adorned with diverse jewels.

In accordance with this custom, the Ad chose from among their nobles seventy men. Seven were chosen as leaders, and their names were Qayl, Luqman, Jahlama, Ubayl, Marthid (who believed in Hud), Amr, and Luqaym. While they were departing from their land, they heard a voice saying, "Despair and misery for you, O House of 'Ad! You shall perish, and a destructive, shifting, icy gale, turbulent with dust, will descend upon you." They paid no attention to the voice, however, and no went along their way.

When the delegation arrived seeking entrance into the Sanctuary, they heard a voice saying,

"May God vanquish the delegation of'Ad:
They have traveled to pray for rain;
May they quench their thirst with hot water!"

The king of Mecca at that time was called Muawiya ibn Bakr. The delegation descended on his house and remained there for one month, eating and drinking, and forgot what they had come for. But Muawiya was loathe to ask them to leave his 120 house, although it was said that all this hospitality had grown burdensome for him. Therefore, he sent them two slave-girls, called the Two Locusts, who were singers in his service. He said to them, "While they are eating and drinking, sing to them and make them desirous of praying for rain." The two girls sang,

"Woe unto you! Woe unto 'Ad!
Because of great thirst neither grand lord nor slave
has hope.
O delegation of drunks, remember your tribe,
parched with thirst."

When they heard what the slave-girls said, they bathed themselves, put on clothes not soiled by wine, approached the Sanctuary, and draped it with their robes; but the Sanctuary would not accept them.

One of the men said, "Shall we abandon the religion of our noble and meritorious fathers, and follow the religion of Hud?"

"O God," said Marthid (who believed in Hud), "you are right to send torment to those who believe not!"

III. God's Vengeance

God commanded the angel of the clouds to spread over them 140 three clouds, one white, one red, and one black. When the delegation returning from Mecca saw these clouds, they rejoiced. But one of them was ordered, "O Qayl, choose for your people one of these three clouds!" He chose the black one and was told, "O Qayl, you have chosen the black cloud, in which are ashes and lead. 'Ad shall perish to the last from the heat!"

The cloud moved until it had emerged from Wadi al-Mughith. When the people of'Ad saw it, they said, "This cloud has come to give us rain!"

God's angel Gabriel said, "O cloud of the Barren Wind, be a 150 torment to the people of 'Ad and a mercy to others!"

On the first day the wind came so cold and gray that it left nothing on the face of the earth unshattered. On the second day there was a yellow wind that touched nothing it did not tear up and throw into the air. On the third day a red wind left nothing undestroyed. And the wind kept on blowing over them for eight unhappy days and seven hapless nights. On the eighth day the 'Adites lined up and began to shoot arrows at the wind, saying, "We are mightier than you, Lord of Hud!"

Thereupon the wind ripped them apart and went into their 160 clothing, raised them into the air and cast them down on their heads, dead. The wind snatched their arrows and drove them into their throats. Thus it continued until there was left of them only their king, who remained to be shown what had become of his people. He fended the wind with his chest and said, "Woe on this terrible day! Sons and thrones are destroyed!"

Then the wind entered his mouth and came out his posterior, and he fell down dead. The wind hurled the palaces together and killed all the women and children that were in them. It passed on to the sanctuary and raised them into the air 170 and cast them down on their heads, dead. As God hath said:
And when our sentence came to be put in execution, we delivered Hud, and those who had believed in him, through our mercy
(11.58).

Hud and those believers who were with him traveled to the Yemen, where they camped. They remained there for two full years, then death took him and he was buried in the Hadramaut.

Kaab al-Ahbar said: One day I was in the Prophet's Mosque during the caliphate of Othman. A man entered the mosque, 180 and everybody stared at him because of his height.

"I am from the Hadramaut," he said, and he spoke of Hud's grave.

"In my youth I went with a group of lads of my own people, and we traveled through the land of the sandy desert until we reached a high mountain, where in a cave we found a huge rock stacked on top of another rock, and between the two was an opening through which only a thin man could pass. As I was the tiniest of the group, I entered and found a throne of red gold on which sat a dead man. I touched his body; he was Hud. 190 I looked at him and saw that his eyes were large and his eyebrows met. He had a wide forehead, an oval face, fine feet, and a long beard. Over his head was a rock shaped like a board, on which were written three lines in Indian letters. The first of these said, There is no god but God; Muhammad is God's messenger.' On the second was written, 'I am Hud ibn Khulud ibn Saad ibn 'Ad, God's apostle to the tribe of 'Ad. I came to them with the message, and they denied me. God took them with the Barren Wind.'"