Arabian Sands

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Summary: About the spirit of the land and the greatness of the Arabs
Review: A book about "the spirit of the land and the greatness of the Arabs."

This is a must read for anyone interested in the tribal Arabs of the desert (southern Arabia). I had this book for many months until I got around to reading it and then I absolutely couldn't put it down. The excursions of Wilfred Thesiger (Umbarak) take place during the 1940s. Thesiger loved the Bedu tribes (Rashid)and he writes from the heart, which is why I think the text is so readable. You relive this phenominal experience with him. Thesiger never fit in with his own people of England. He couldn't bare to live amongst the materialistic culture he found in the western world and felt more akin with his Arab friends yet as a "Christian" he could never be one of them. His relationships with two of the Rashid in particular, bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha and the love, admiration and loyalty he had for these two young men was very moving. Amazingly Thesiger survives many dangerous encounters while traveling in the desert with his Arab companions. How he ever survived some of these excursions is astonishing; between the lack of food, water, heat and cold exposure but mostly other hostile Arab tribes. His companions and he escape being killed by mere hours. By our western standards many people would think Thesiger's companions to ultimately be murderous and barbaric yet I have met very few westerners that held the same unbreakable code of honor that many of Thesiger's Arab companions lived by. Their generosity, faith in god, honor, dignity, strength and endurance is nothing short of amazing. They would give a stranger who stumbles upon their camp the last scrap of food and final cup of water even when starving in the desert for days. As a "westerner" reading this book I realized the immense differences in what we as a culture think is barbaric and immoral compared to these tribes of Arabia. Of course the ease at which they would kill between tribes to settle blood feuds and their "habit" of stealing camels was truly mind boggling when contrasted with their overwhelming personal ethics. As a female reader I didn't miss the lack of discussions about Arab women although I would have been very interested in the various tribal Arab woman's role as mother, wife and sister. What little I did find in the book about women sent chills up my spine. I do feel that female readers would enjoy this book none the less. Many readers will empathize with the author's sentiment as he writes about his dismay and disgust in the way the Western world has invaded the lands of these nomadic people with new mechanical inventions and infiltrated and ruined the unique beauty of this desert tribe (as well as many other indigenous tribes) which are now completely lost and irreplaceable.

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Summary: The Spirit of the Desert Arabs
Review: An extraordinary book, by an extraordinary man, about an extraordinary people - the desert arabs (Bedu) - before the outside world encroached on their way of life. Thesiger travelled through that inhospitable desert between the Yemen, Oman and the south of Saudi Arabia ('The Empty Quarter') in the 1940s, most of it then unmapped.

He account of exploring this unknown hostile territory, against a background of tribal raids and blood feuds and tensions where many tribes would have considered it an act of merit to kill the foreigner 'infidel', gives these travels an additional level of drama beyond the excitement of new exploration.

The harshness of the Bedu life amid the driven sands with its intense cold, heat, and blinding glare in a land without shade or cloud is the everpresent backdrop to these travels and adventures between scant and bitter wells. Sometimes travelling for up to 16 days between wells, death was often a palpable presence at the very edge of the camel's endurance.

The book is also a valuable anthropological log of these tribes, and their differing customs. The men is his party come alive in the sparse prose and a narrative pace as steady as the unfolding days. Thesiger's companions live in the anecdotes and black and white photographs. Listening to their talk the reader comes to love and admire those 'ships of the desert' (camels) for their patience and endurance and individuality, and to marvel at the simplicity and standards of honour of the Bedu tribes.

This is one of the truly great books of exploration. It is even more significant however as a journal of human encounter, and a unique and tenderly perceptive record of a people whose way of life, which had endured unchanged for 4000 years, was to become irrevocable changed by roads and the impact of oil exploration.

A book that educated Arabs give to Westeners to help them understand the Arabs. (That's where my copy came from). Contains a comprehensive index.

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Summary: A key to understanding the Arab world
Review: Besides being a wonderful book, as other reviewers have remarked, 'Arabian Sands' is important reading for anyone who wants to understand the culture and history of the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa.

The Bedu are, and always have been, a small fraction of the Arabs; historically, they have been disliked, mistrusted and often hated by the settled Arabs of the Middle East. In North Africa, the Berbers (a completely different people, with non-Arabic languages) have sometimes been confused with the Bedu. The Bedu way of life is now nearly extinct; Thesiger's book, which describes his travels with the Yamani Bedu of Southern Arabia, is the only careful account of Bedu culture and Bedu peoples I have ever come across. I know of no similarly illuminating study of the Qaysi Bedu of Northern Arabia, not even the works of T. E. Lawrence.

The historical importance of the Bedu in the Arab world is that on several occasions from the 8th century to the 20th century, Bedu tribesmen formed the core of armies that swept across the Middle East and/or North Africa. Invading Bedu armies overthrew decadent regimes in North Africa in the 13th century, and effectively destroyed Berber power on the North African coast. Bedu formed the core of the Arab armies that defeated the Turks in the First World War, and were the core of the army which Ibn Saud created that turned him from being a refugee into being the founder of Saudi Arabia as it is today. How did the small number of people who comprised the various Bedu tribes exercise such military power throughout the Arab World? Read "Arabian Sands" to understand this.

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Summary: A remarkable story
Review: Had he been born in the 18th or 19th century, Wilfred Thesiger would have explored the Nile or mapped uncharted territory in North America. His mid-twentieth century journeys in the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, related in this book, confirm him as an acute observer of humanity and an untrained but brilliant amateur anthropologist. This book is unparalleled.

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Summary: Best of the adventure/hardship chronicles
Review: Having traversed the Antarctic with Shackleton, Scott, and Mawson, the Himalayas with Maurice Herzog and others, and the high seas on the doomed whaling ship, Essex, I can say that for non-fiction adventure, nothing beats Thesiger in the deserts of Arabia, before they were tamed by oil money.

Each page is gripping, whether Thesiger describes the desert environment itself, his own adventures, or the Bedu camel herders with whom he lives and travels. This last theme is the most important in the book, and Thesiger's 1940s travels uncover the ways and even the mind of these most Arab of Arabs as well as anyone can. Thesiger understands and praises the Bedu's better aspects, but is not blinded to their faults. He points out the differences among the ways, thought and even religious practices and tolerance of the desert tribes, and their even greater differences with Arab townsfolk.

Read it to understand the places we are sending our troops, or read it to be taken away completely from whatever troubles your urban or susburban psyche, but read Arabian Sands.

Rating:
Summary: must-read for Middle East visitors
Review: I had the opportunity to meet Sir Wilfred Thesiger while I was working in the United Arab Emirates. He had come to the city of Al-Ain to promote his book "My Kenya Days". He was about 85 years old at the time and his hearing was impaired. Yet when someone mentioned something about an incident he had written his eyes lit up and his voice got louder, and it was as if he had been taken back to the Empty Quarter amidst the camels and the bedus. I read Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs, (which was, in my opinion, better than Arabian Sands), after I met Thesiger, and I was moved to see a country that had changed so rapidly in such a short time. Thesiger is definitely anti-west, anti-development, anti-modern; he has lived a life that far few of us could ever imagine. I think he became anti-modern because of what wealth was doing to the Arabs and how it was eradicating vestiges of a culture that would be hard put to replace (I believe that there are currently one half of one percent of people who would classify themselves as Bedouins on the Arabian Peninsula) It is a kind of life that far few of us would want to live; going for days without water in the middle of nowhere; not bathing, not having any of the 'comforts' of life, it is hard to imagine doing what he did. Yet as I read Arabian Sands, and walked in parts of the desert around the U.A.E, I could hear, almost smell, the life Thesiger came to admire and the life that really he became for him one with the Bedu.

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Summary: Dancing Sheik To Sheik
Review: I like this book very much, but the style was very dry so I had to drink a lot of Hawaiian Punch to get through it.

Often it made me very nervous, so I smoked a lot of Camels.

I think after reading it I will be a more interesting person and maybe get a lot of dates.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Rating:
Summary: an objective book
Review: i read so many books and novels about the Arabic world and people..i was trying to figure out how other nations look at us and what they know about our culture and people...but unfortunately..many writers wrote about the surface and didn't describe our culture deeply....and i guess i can say that this is the first book among the ones i read that describes this unique culture honestly.. although i agree with Wendy Kreitzer that it lacked the mentioning of women's role in the Bedu's life...but as an Arabic woman i can tell u Wendy that it was and is still a very great role...it is true that the world that Thesiger described in his book had nearly vanished....but many Bedu tribes are still there...maybe they don't have now to suffer and struggle as before....but they still have the same ethics and beliefs..some of them chose to change their way of life..but some were forced to

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Summary: You have to "want" to read this book
Review: If you like true adventure (not fiction), have a spot in your heart for nature, different cultures and personal hardships and challenges with a goal of self improvement and introspection, then this book should be in your personal library. If you don't have the above, you will probably find the text slow and boring, and put the book down before the half way mark.

The author goes into some detail that is minutia, irrelevant, and tedious, and then all of a sudden, you find yourself re-reading the same few sentences several times in order to fully grasp the magnitude of what he just said. Amongst all the sand that he describes in the book, he'll also provide golden nuggets of insight into the human soul and spirit, and done so very elequently, just like an Oasis in the midst of a bleak desert. That is to say, it's worth the effort to get there.

This is not a book with a "plot". It's a personal account of an individuals travels with the Bedu. You can read into it Protagonists and Antagonists, but again, this is not a fictional work. Nonethless, you find yourself rooting for "Umbarak", as the author is called, and worrying about other Arabs who would kill him given the chance, and there are many chances and near misses.

Surprisingly, there are also bits and pieces of insight into the Arab world that help put into perspective some of the tensions we see today in the Middle East. While that is certainly not his intentions, he does touch on some things that are relevant today in respect to the Muslim attitudes towards Christians and Jews.

This is not a book that can be glossed over and read during TV commercials, on the bus, or while the kids are screaming up and down the hallways... you need to focus and concentrate, and if your heart yearns for nature and adventure, you'll find it well worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: A Valuable Book To Read
Review: In this slender book Thesiger recounts several of his journeys though the Peninsula including the two crossings of the vast deserts of the Rub-al-Kahli. A fascinating tale, this book not only manages to skillfully capture our attention about a bleak and desolate region of the world, but it also brings our attention to the people who live in these lands. Inhabited by fierce, fanatical, and aggressive war-like tribes, the feat that Thesiger managed to achieve -- that of cris-crossing this bleak region -- is further accented by the fact the he was Christian traveling through a fundamentally lawless region ruled by a series of very suspicious and ruthless sheiks. Add to this that Thesiger was a Christian, and you can appreciate the great efforts he took to disguise himself and use elaborate cover stories. Thesiger spent many months travelling with the Bedu and over time became accepted as one of them among the tribes. Along with Marsh Arabs and the first part of his autobiography, My Life, My Choice, he paints what is best described as a human but often sterotypical picture of the Arab world. While he is quick to dismiss many of the myths associated with the Arabs, he still uses the harshness of the desert to keep impressing upon you the hardships and the bleakness of the terrain and how he still manages to survive it all despite terrible and grating thrist.