Saudi 'hanging villages' once offered shelter from Ottoman raids

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As Saudi Arabia and Turkey remain entangled in rivalry over their regional political differences, which has escalated into a full-blown diplomatic spat following journalist Jamal Khashoggi's brutal murder, Riyadh is looking to throw open for tourism a remote and historic southwestern part of the Gulf kingdom that had once offered shelter to people fleeing the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey).

The spectacular Asir mountain ranges in Saudi Arabia's southwestern province with an identical name are home to several "hanging villages," comprising assortments of dwellings made of large stones and plasters which were built a few centuries ago but now sit abandoned at the edge of cliffs that are nearly inaccessible to normal travelers.

And now, in line with the kingdom's Vision 2030 that also calls for a vibrant travel and tourism industry, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) is planning to develop the fascinating "hanging villages" in Asir Province as a lively tourist and heritage destination.

The inaccessibility of the region was precisely the reason why the early inhabitants founded these hamlets sometime during the Ottoman period. /SPA Photo via CIC

The inaccessibility of the region was precisely the reason why the early inhabitants founded these hamlets sometime during the Ottoman period.

"These villages were supposedly built by people fleeing the Ottomans, which is why they are called hanging villages because everything had to be accessed by ropes to deter invaders. Anything being brought into the village from the outside had to be brought up by ropes, so an attack by soldiers was very difficult,” explained cultural anthropologist Michael Bou-Nacklie, who has done some extensive work in the region, in a communique to CGTN Digital via the Saudi Ministry of Media's Center for International Communication (CIC).

In fact, the best-known of these hanging villages Al Habala is named after the Arabic word for rope. Perched 2,270 meters above the sea-level and about an hour's drive from the provincial capital Abha (the former regional seat of the Ottoman Empire until World War I), Al Habala could be reached only through a precarious climb up a rope ladder until about the early 1990s, hence the apt name. The original inhabitants of Al Habala, it is said, took refuge there from the long reach of the Ottoman Empire.

Cable cars run through the Al Habala "hanging village" in Saudi Arabia's southwestern Asir Province. /VCG Photo

A family attends a fair near the Al Habala village in Saudi Arabia's southwestern Asir Province. /VCG Photo

"Abandoned some time in the 1970s or 1980s – both voluntarily and eventually by government mandate – the empty village played host to only the most adventurous of tourists until 1990, when a cable car was built to ferry visitors to Al Habala to experience unparalleled vistas that are truly stunning – magnificent mountain landscape peppered with juniper trees and other green vegetation, a rarity in the Gulf desert kingdom," a CIC official told CGTN Digital.

Today, the old stone structures serve as restaurants and coffee shops during the high season when temperatures drop, and Saudis make the trip to one of the only truly verdant refuges in the country. The area today sports a Ferris wheel in a small amusement park built to entice families to make the ascent.

A glimpse into the past

An abandoned house in the "hanging village" of Rahwat Al Sumayd in Saudi Arabia's southwestern Asir Province. /SPA Photo via CIC

If the SCTH has its way, Al Habala will no longer be the only “hanging village” accessible to the general public. Some 180 kilometers from Abha, the village of Rahwat Al Sumayd sits at the 1,524-meter summit of the Khat mountains, a rugged but stunningly exhilarating drive from the provincial capital.

The trip entails negotiating a road that traverses soaring mountains, waterfalls and cultivated terraces while affording astonishing views of wide valleys adorned with palms, cedars and other tall trees.

Although ropes do not come into play when making the final ascent from the village of Khat to Rahwat Al Sumayd, four-wheel drive vehicles do. According to local residents, the village once included mountaintop palaces and castles with artifacts and rock inscriptions from the time the village was still inhabited.

An uphill drive to the villages entails negotiating a road that traverses soaring mountains, waterfalls and cultivated terraces while affording astonishing views of wide valleys adorned with palms, cedars and other tall trees. /Photo from Michael Bou-Nacklie's book 'Asir: Sand in an Hourglass' via CIC

Abandoned houses and a tower in a village in Asir Province, Saudi Arabia. /Photo from Michael Bou-Nacklie's book 'Asir: Sand in an Hourglass' via CIC

From a 21st century perspective, life at Rahwat Al Sumayd looks difficult, but a local resident, now 70, who grew up there said that no one complained.

Inhabitants grew corn, tobacco and bananas. Large basins to capture rainwater for drinking and irrigation were dug into the surrounding rocks. And residents were accustomed to traveling to nearby villages for some services and simply accepted as normal the ascent and descent that characterized their lives.

“Life was simple here,” one long-time resident of the area recalled, “and people at that time were able to overcome the roughness of the region and its difficult terrain to provide daily necessities.”

Today, around 150 houses of stone and plaster still stand in Rahwat Al Sumayd, suggesting the possibility of major development to accommodate a future of both domestic and international tourism.

Fayez Dahdough poses for a portrait at the museum he built celebrating food and culture, in Tanomah, in Saudi Arabia's Asir Province. /Photo from Michael Bou-Nacklie's book 'Asir: Sand in an Hourglass' via CIC

“These towns, as well as others in Asir, have seen growth recently as some people have returned to build modern homes near or next to their ancestral family homes,” said Bou-Nackli, the founder of Fancy Hat Multimedia, who has also authored a book titled "Asir: Sand in an Hourglass."

The hardscrabble lives of those living in the vicinity of the hanging villages could well be transformed by the arrival of tourists and the accompanying accouterments - hotels, restaurants and entertainment facilities.

While it is not clear how prepared local residents are for an invasion of 21st-century development that will transform lives long dependent on the fruits of the local terrain, some improvements are eagerly awaited. Developing the village as a major tourist destination would help the people in the Asir region, said one resident, and then followed up with a wish to see roads in the area paved to prevent flooding.

(Cover: Abandoned houses in the "hanging village" of Rahwat Al Sumayd in Saudi Arabia's southwestern Asir Province. /SPA Photo via CIC)

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