The Road to Ubar (32 page)

Curer: "Djinn, will you remove the evil from the eye?"

Djinn: "Yes."

Curer: "Djinn, swear that you will remove it."

Djinn (its hold lost, its voice choking): "Eh, eh."

Curer: "Be gone!"

Djinn: no answer.

With a sweep of his dirty, blood-stained robe, the curer turned to the assembled and proclaimed, "It has fled. The djinn has fled." The afflicted pulled off his blindfold and began to wobble away, only to be followed, tapped 011 the shoulder, and reminded, "Gold binds fast the djinn."

Riding on a few paces and dismounting, Khuljan entered Ubar's temple compound. It was as much a house of commerce as a house of the gods. Storerooms and corridors were stacked with sacks of frankincense. Where safer to store it? The temple's garrulous kahin pointed out to the king the measures that belonged to various merchants and those belonging to the temple. Khuljan had the previous year upped the temple's share of the trade from a tenth to a quarter of a caravan's load. The merchants had grumbled and whined, but, as they themselves often said, "The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on."

We may never know exactly what went on in any temple of ancient Arabia, let alone that of the Ubarites. The identity, nature, and ranking of gods is conflicting and uncertain. It's a mystery which were male and which were female. Temples may have been staffed by regimented orders of priests and priestesses, or they may have been the haunt of soothsayers, even witches.

In Ubar's temple, Khuljan proceeded to a large plastered basin filled with water fresh from the Shisur spring.
⁵
With a ritual ablution, he purified himself, then mounted the stair to the airless dark sanctuary, the holy of holies, where the gods of his people dwelt in squat stone blocks. These may have been roughly squared off and given suggestions of eyes and mouths, or they may have been uncut. The names of the principal deities of the 'Ad have been mythically reported to be the trio of Sada, Hird, and Haba or the quartet of Sada, Salimah, Raziqah, and Hafizun. Whatever their names, Khuljan would have circled them, chanting an invocation, obsequiously addressing them as masters of Ubar, masters of lands remote and near.

Khuljan was wary of his gods. They, like djinns, could inflict mischief and misery if they were angry, so they had to be kept happy. Sometimes public ceremonies were called for, accompanied by the blood sacrifice of goats and sheep. Today it was sufficient to anoint the stones with oil and offer a burner of frankincense.

As gods brought grief, they also brought benefits. Along with their proper names, they were known as "the rain bringer," "the food-giver," "the savioress," and "the healer." Properly flattered, they would grant benefits in exchange for ritual attention. This year they were in Khuljan's debt, for had he not renovated and enlarged their temple?

This day Khuljan needed a single answer, from the savioress. What should he do about the tribute demanded by the Persians? Was it worth it? Could the 'Ad stand up for themselves? He called for the arrows. The kahin came running with a goatskin bag containing three arrows, each of which had a name: "the enjoiner," "the forbidder," and "the vigilant." The arrows had no heads or feathers, but on one was written "My Lord has commanded me." Another was inscribed "My Lord has forbidden me." The third said nothing. At the king's order the kahin shuffled the arrows and mumbled, averting his eyes from Khuljan, "May you be happy with prosperity and esteem and blessings and—"
⁶

Khuljan cut him off as he reached into the bag and withdrew a single arrow. He turned the shaft in his fingers. It was blank. He dropped it back into the bag. The kahin again shuffled the arrows. Khuljan drew again. It was the same arrow, blank. The king's jaw tightened; his eyes narrowed.

The kahin trembled as he shuffled the arrows a third time. He well remembered the time that Khuljan had asked the gods whether to avenge a cousin killed in a dispute over a camel. The king had drawn "the forbidder." Flying into a rage, he had flung the arrow at a sacred stone block and shouted, "You would avenge
your
cousin! Bite your cousin's
zibb!
" Later, though, Khuljan came to his senses, begged forgiveness, and took the unusual step of sacrificing a prize camel in honor of the god that dwelt in the offended rock.

The king withdrew the arrow on which was written "My Lord has commanded me." The soothsayer let out a sigh of relief and said, "The gods know best." Khuljan said nothing and left the temple. He chose to walk rather than ride to the knoll beyond the fortress, where his royal tent was pitched.

Once, centuries before, the religion of the 'Ad may have been more meaningful: it may have had an aura of wandering shepherds reaching for the stars. Once, a temple and its rites may have symbolized the world and its destiny, offering a glimpse of eternity. But no longer.
⁷
Khuljan and his people were haunted by djinns and consumed by superstition. The gods in their dark chamber were irrational, crass, greedy. Truth be told, Khuljan cared more for his horse.

As it does in the desert, darkness came quickly to Ubar. One by one, oil lamps flickered to life in the king's tent, lit by his fool. The envoy recently returned from Persia awaited Khuljan, nodding gravely as the king announced that the requested tribute would be sent. The gods had ordained it. The envoy thought this prudent and wise, even if the Persian demand was usurious. He had seen for himself the might of Artaxerxes and the splendor of his new palace being built at Susa. It had an oven that could bake an entire ox or camel, so it could be served up whole at dinner. The envoy spoke of what it took and meant to be a Persian king: "an excess of greed, corrupt force, bold daring, momentary success."

Khuljan and his envoy went on to discuss the increasingly complex alliances and enmities of the People of 'Ad. This was not the first mission for the envoy. With his camel stick, he drew a map in the sand and pointed out the territories of rival and friendly kingdoms (see the map on
[>]
).

In the half of Arabia beholden to the Persians, the envoy noted that the Gerrhans were pirates by sea and brigands by land. Yet the 'Ad were on good terms with them; they were active trading partners. The Rhambanians were a no-account tribe with a puffed-up king. And the people of the Persian Gulf Island of the Two Springs were too distant to matter.

In the half of Arabia under the sway of Greece and Rome, the kingdoms of Ma'in, Saba, and Qataban were too far away to present problems, at least for the time being. It was the increasingly powerful kingdom of the Hadramaut that was troublesome. It was uncomfortably close to the land of 'Ad, and the envoy did not have to remind Khuljan of the adage "If on the trail you meet up with a Hadrami and a deadly snake, kill the Hadrami."

What a puzzle of kingdoms and peoples for such a remote land.

"Enough!" said Khuljan, dismissing the envoy.

The king clapped his hands and called for the wives and children who had accompanied him to Ubar. They were richly arrayed. His wives were unveiled and much freer than in Arabia of later days. Still, they had been painfully marked on their betrothal to Khuljan. He had ordered his fool to make a wide part in their hair by using a razor to remove a strip of skin from their foreheads to the back of their necks. It was a sometimes fatal operation.

Khuljan clapped his hands a second time, and his fool brought forward a gourd of water. The king dipped his right hand in it as if to wash, but did not. Like most of his countrymen, he believed bathing damaged the body. (Although he washed on entering the temple, it was for appearances only.) Thank the gods for frankincense. With a burner, the fool perfumed the king's garments and beard.

The king clapped his hands a third time, and servants brought forth bowls of squash, roasted beans, and meat both raw and roasted. There were flat breads and honeycakes, richly flavored by the nectar of the flowering
elb
tree. There was wine, too, pressed from the grapes that grew high in the Dhofar Mountains. Though the royal company ate well, they ate with haste, a custom born of the ancient reality that mealtime was the best time for lurking enemies to stage a surprise attack.

As the remaining food was cleared away, to be shared by the servants and the king's animals, the fool rubbed the soles of Khuljan's feet and his calves with butter. The king relaxed and whiled away the desert night. From where his tent was pitched, he could take pleasure in looking across at Ubar's fortress, bathed in the light of the moon and set in a diadem of twinkling campfires. Some nights he would send the fool off to recruit camel drivers who could entertain him with their riding chants and songs of memory and love. Other nights the fool would entertain the king's family with jokes and riddles.

"Which is there more of, land or sea?" asked the fool.

"The sea," ventured one of the king's children, "for it goes on forever."

"No," answered the fool, "it is the land, for the sea itself is set upon the land. And what is the sweetest thing in creation?"

"A horse or a camel?" replied the king, only half joking.

"A king's favorite wife," ventured the king's favorite wife.

"Close," said the fool. "The sweetest thing is love from the heart. On this earth it is all we can expect."

On rare and special nights, the king was favored with the presence of a poet. The crafting of verse was considered a great skill, a way to preserve tales of a tribe's history and glory, to immortalize its bold warriors and their dark-eyed women. Poets admitted to being possessed by
shaytan
djinns; how else could they produce anything so complex in rhythm and rhyme, so entrancing?

Enthralled by a woman of the oasis, a poet versified:

Were it not for her whose wily charms and love
My heart have captured and my soul possessed,
Never would I at Iram have pitched my tent...
⁸

Another poet evoked the melancholy destiny of Ubar and all Arabia: riches may come to you; death will surely come to you. A poem that cites "a man of the race of 'Ad and Iram" might well have portrayed King Khuljan and his court:

Roast flesh, the glow of fiery wine,
to speed on camel fleet and sure.
White women statue-like that trail
rich robes of price with golden hem,
Wealth, easy lot, no dread of ill,
to hear the lute's complaining string.
These are Life's joys. But man is set
the prey of Time, and Time is change.
Life straight or large, great store or naught,
all's one to Time, all men to Death.
⁹

The king's fool ventured the riddle: "Who shall conquer all human races?"

"We all know," Khuljan answered. "It is death. Violent and cruel toward all."

When he had had his fill of poetry and wine, Khuljan selected his beloved for the night and prepared to retire. His fool shooed away the other wives and children and extinguished the lamps of the royal tent. All but one. By its light, Khuljan regarded himself in the sheet of polished bronze that served as his glass. Eyes lined with ashen frankincense, how regal was his gaze. He took two wads of cotton with tassels dangling from them, and with his little finger pushed them up his nose, protection against the djinns that rode upon the night air.

The next week or the next month, Khuljan, mighty king of 'Ad, rode away to the mountains and the coast, to Eriyot, his royal city.
¹⁰
Over the years he and his heirs enjoyed riches and (as far as is known) remarkable tribal stability. Khuljan and his people, in fact, stood at the threshold of classical achievement, even greatness.

It was a threshold they never crossed.

The 'Ad could have established a formal state, yet instead they remained forever a tribe. They could have created mosaics and heroic statues, yet their vision reached no farther than the rock art on the walls of their caves. The 'Ad could have developed a world view, even a transcendent theology, but instead they worried about lurking djinns and the evils of the night air.

T
HE RISE AND FALL
of Ubar spawned a myth of good versus evil. To give it dramatic impact and immediacy, many storytellers have had Ubar destroyed in the very reign of the king who ordered the city's construction. Ubar is barely up before it comes tumbling down. God hardly hesitates before wiping the wicked city from the face of the earth. How better to reward a king who proclaimed, "And people feared my mischief every one."

In reality, following major construction around 350
B.C.,
Ubar thrived for at least six centuries before its destruction and abandonment. A secret city of frankincense, well fortified, splendid in its isolation. In that era the People of'Ad enjoyed an advantageous position in Arabia, even as an increasing number of tribes jostled for power. Classical writers called the collective lot of these tribes "Scenitae." Pliny the Elder tells us: "A singular thing too, one half of these almost innumerable tribes live by the pursuits of commerce, the other half by rapine: take them all in all,
they are the richest nations in the world,
seeing that such vast wealth flows in upon them from both the Roman and the Parthian empires; for they sell the produce of the sea or of their forests, while they purchase nothing whatever in return."
¹

To protect their share of Arabia's wealth, the 'Ad aligned themselves with the Parthians, who likely demanded considerable tribute. Yet the Parthians were a long way away when, beginning in the 200s
B.C.,
the People of'Ad faced increased threats to their control, at its source, of the frankincense trade.

First a migrating tribe, the Omanis, approached from the west and may have threatened Ubar before continuing on their way. Then there was trouble on the coast. Shortly after the time of Christ, the neighboring kingdom of the Hadramaut established a fortified outpost overlooking the best natural port in the land of the Ad. They called it Sumhuram, a word likely meaning "the Great Scheme." That it was, for Sumhuram gave the Hadramis control of the sea trade in frankincense. Further, with military efficiency, the Hadramis built facilities for incense collection and storage inland at Hanun and Andhur.