One boring day, I was sitting idle on my office chair, had less burden of work and no idea of what-to-do was existing. Then I began clicking my old Facebook albums and I found few albums of my past trips with my globetrotting buddies. And I realized that the year 2015 was empty of any attempt of exploration. Then my brain cells discovered a puffy cloud of thought that I should dig some interesting sites on Google Maps. Minutes later, I found a route between Rabigh and Yanbu, opposite to Mastourah which lead towards two ancient villages of Al-Abwa and Khuraybah. The pictures of ruin sites on the Google Maps looked very interesting. I marked the place and informed my fellow Pirates of the Arabian the new spot to dig the treasure of history.
Weeks passed by, and our commitments didn’t match to drive any weekend till 18/9. Our plan was to reach the destiny at the time of sunrise to avoid unbearable temperature. But somehow the plan didn’t work and left Jeddah by sunrise. The place is 257km away from Jeddah but if you drive between 120kph-140kph, you can easily reach within three hours. The chosen transport of legitimacy was Mazda 6 2014.
Route to al-Abwa & Khuraybaah
Our first stopping was at the Raheli station where we bought a can of Pringles, few Bison energy drinks, couple of Kit-Kat chunky, Max-Chili flavor of Lay’s, bottles of cold water, half kg of bananas and a packet of seeds.
Some plans hesitate our desires and get delay and that was the very same case with us when we left by sunrise at 6 am but the advantage of leaving late was that we had all benefits to get our eyeballs seduce to the nature’s beauty existing on our left and right. The sun rising on my right promised mountain eclipse with the light rays waking the land and our sleepy mission. I didn’t sleep that well because I generally am much used to of sleeping maximum 1 am but for this plan, I had to change my normal routine and off to bed at 11 pm and coming out of grave at nearly 3 am.
My friends, Athos and Porthos, have been in major contribution in all my/our expeditions that include Madain Saleh, Johfa Fort, Thee-Ain Village and Wahbah Crater. This Abwa-Khuraybah plan was our first expedition since Nov.2014. Yeah, commitments and responsibilities have delayed/postponed our plans to that amount of time. This was the first time that we three drove the same car in any trip. Most of the time, not more than two were driving in any trip. I always had issue of mobile battery charging as my Xperia Z is always spitting life faster than blood due to tremendous use of making high-quality videos and images. But this time, my buddy brought a battery charger.
The temperature was touching in mid-30s and was promising that the heat will folk us hard. We three always share common understanding of playing roadies musical tracks in our vehicle. Mostly these are trance and house music. So we basically have no musical disagreements while the destiny is breathing.
We never realize that the time passed so fast as the destiny was less than a dozen kilometers. Our first mission was to spot a site of religious significance; the grave of Bibi Aminah (R.A.), the mother of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.). Aminah (R.A.) was Qurayshi by tribe from Banu Zahrah clan. When the prophet was 5 or 6, Aminah introduced him to Yathrib (Madinah) and his extended family. While traveling back towards Mecca (Makkah), she fell ill and died. And she was buried in the village of Al-Abwa God knows where this grave is? Hellooooo anyone!! I am in the middle of the road! On my left were some suspicious mountains which make me feel the probability of her grave and on my right was a small village where my fellow diggers were using the toilet.
It was pretty silent place and I saw few children playing until they stared at us and ran towards their guardian. Didn’t know if I scared them *feeling annoyed*, do my face carry a haunting image? Oh I also noticed a herd of sheep staring at us. They do respond and speak in God knows very very strange voice. I did ask one of the kind if it knew the grave but failed to understand its gesture.
Baa-Baa Interrogated…
We actually were too urban for the place and its inhabitants as the car approached towards us and began interrogating. He was a very rude man who had no intention to help us in locating the spot and told us to leave asap. We did leave and relied on the Google map.
We stopped to the opposite site of the mounts where we were predicting the possibility. We climbed one of the easiest low-altitude mountain and began sniffing around for 20 minutes. There was no help and we googled the site and found some images of her grave with the stones colored green and some had the stones covered with green cloth. With confusion arousing and rising temperature welcoming, we left the spot with disappointment. Fate was not with us to stand near the grave of prophet’s mother and I was scared of our plans meeting further failure when the village of al-Abwa was nothing but a wasteland with few dozens of people holding their heart and walking on the street. As it was Friday morning, so there was an understood silence with all the shops closed. There were many ruins and wild bushes installed to make the place look either interesting or distressful enough to expect a zombie by our next stopping.
After 10 minutes drive, things became lively when we saw a small farm. In our surrounds, there were mostly private properties with land cruisers. Google Maps was confusing us in picking an exact route towards Khuraybah where I had my target for the purpose of this trip to view the old ruins what I viewed in my first attempt while sitting idle at office once. Those were improper roads going towards Khuraybah but it wasn’t that hard. Reaching such hard tracks with ease is comfortable if you have a SUV.
Yesssss we made it!!! By some distance I stared an ancient mosque which was in google maps. There was some life back in our mission as we reached the spot. The place surely is not well-known to the common travelers as we found an ancient mosque and some 63 same-dimension ruins of most probably shops or houses. There is some sign of civilization far a distance but there is no sign-board to explain us what history lies here. Sun heat was getting worse as I began sweating and our mobiles warming. Making videos became a problem as we tried to cover most of the important figures of the site.
Spot Discovery…
I explored the interior and exterior side of the ancient mosque with no dome and minaret above the ceiling. The ceiling work is all wooden furnished which gave us some idea that the work is not that ancient as compared to the houses built on marble mountain in the Thee-Ain village where the ceilings were made from juniper trees. The same juniper case was in Deira City of al-Ula, the old town consisting of 1032 houses.
Presentation…
Presentation 2…
My fellow pirates decided to climb a nearby mountain to explore and have a complete look of the view on an altitude. Meanwhile, myself down near the mosque, I spotted a large rock with ancient Islamic calligraphy with the words of Shahadah. And that was the only rock I found. I tried to locate more familiar rocks but that was the masterpiece.
Some historians or archaeologists should dig this place and come with some useful results. This place is inviting and explorers like us did feel the heat but found an amazement in checking such a historic place. I have tried to research this place on the internet and some literature sources are indicating that sites of Rabigh, al-Abwa, Khuraybah and Johfah were once a pilgrim station for Syrians and Egyptians.
The mountain climbers descend down as we approached towards the vehicle to take rest. Minutes later, we left towards the ruins again. These are 63 ruins, each carrying almost same width as the height cannot be considered because some of these are incomplete. Each ruin is consisted of black stones. There was nothing in these ruins. Only few were covered with thorns and wild plants. None of the ruins had ceilings which creates further more doubts of its ever being houses or shops. How come the houses or shops never have ceilings? Out of 63 ruins, 23 were partitioned. Yeah we did count below the teasing sun. Our stay at Khuraybah was not more than 90 minutes but exploring with such amount of time at the temperature somewhere near 40s is still some craziness.
We left the spot with some great experience and while we were taking u-turn towards Jeddah, we swiftly decided to check Masturah beach. Masturah sea is located exactly opposite road of the targeted site. We were hoping to witness heaven of sea-view in Masturah but happened contrary. It was unexpectedly a very dull and boring place with no life at sea. Not a single human existed on the beach and it was understood.
Masturah is not only a beach under the surface of Red Sea but carries historic significance. Islamic geographers and travelers in old times have mentioned few way stations and one of them existed long time ago in Masturah where water was abundant. It also was a small sea port in early Islamic period. Masturah today is differed with new and old areas divided by old road that leads between Makkah and Madinah. The old Masturah was a station as mentioned above, and there were huts and plenty of wells. Each well was 8 meters in depth and its wall 1 meter thick.
Anyhow we left the spot with no change in emotions. While returning back, I was driving and my fellows were extremely tired and taking a nap. It was a wonderful trip and folk yeahhh!! we did miss Friday prayer lol.
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 