Ḥaʼil

Location of Ha'il, Saudi Arabia.

The extent of Al Rashid's rule

Ha'il (Arabic: حائل) is an oasis city in Nejd in northwestern Saudi Arabia and is the capital of the Ha'il Province. The city has a population of 267,005 (2004 census). Traditionally Ha'il derived its wealth from being on the camel caravan route of the Hadj.Ha'il is largely an agricultural centre, specializing in grains, dates and fruits. A large percentage of the kingdom's wheat production comes from Ha'il Province, where the area to the northeast, 60 km to 100 km away, consists of irrigated gardens. Ha'il is well-connected to other urban centres to the south, by road. Buraydah is 300 km southeast, Riyadh is 640 km southeast and Madina 400 km southwest.

History

Ha'il was the center of the Rashidi emirs from 1836 until 1921. The first Ibn Rashidi emir, Abdullah bin Rashid, took power with his brother emir Obaid and their far cousin and close friend emir Zamil(1st) Al Sabhan in 1836 from the former ruler of Hail, Mohammad Ibn Ali, who was a fellow member of the Jafaar linage of the Abde section of the Shammar tribe. Abdulla bin Rashid continued constructing the Barzan Palace in Hail which had been started by Mohammad Ibn Ali. After the death of Abdullah bin Rashid (in 1847 or 1848) his son and successor, Talal (or Telal), completed the palace.

During the ibn Rashid period many foreign travellers visited Ha'il and the ibn Rashid emirs, and described their impressions in different journals and books, including those of Georg August Wallin (1854), William Gifford Palgrave (1865), Lady Anne Blunt (1881), Charles Montagu Doughty (1888), and Gertrude Bell (1907).

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Barzan Palace

The Rashidi emirs were considered relatively tolerant towards foreigners, including traders in Ha'il:

"Many of these traders belonged to the Shiyaa sect, hated by all good Sonnites, doubly hated by the Wahabees. But Telal affected not to perceive their religious discrepancies, and silenced all murmurs by marks of special favour towards these very dissenters, and also by the advantages which their presence was not long in procuring for the town". William Gifford Palgrave, 1865.

The opening of the Hejaz railway between Damascus and Medina, together with new inexpensive steamship routes to Jeddah, undermined the traditional camel caravan economy of Ha'il.

The last Rashidi emir was ousted from power by Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia in 1921. Ibn Saud then gave orders to destroy the Barzan Palace and also ordered the Rashidi leaders to move from Ha'il.

After this Ha'il fell into steep decline, as witnessed by E. Rutter in 1931:

"Hail seem like a city marooned among the sand...the population of Hail was plainly in decline. Numbers of houses in the northern quarter of the town were in ruins...many people of Hail had fled to the comfortable realms of King Faisal of Iraq..."

Today Ha'il is the center of Saudi Arabia's agricultural program, and most of the wheat crops of the kingdom come from the area surrounding the city.

References

• G. A. Wallin (1854): Narrative of a journey from Cairo to Medina and Mecca, by Suez, Araba, Tawila, al-Jauf, Jublae, Hail and Negd in 1845, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol 24: 115-201. (Reprinted 1979).
• William Gifford Palgrave (1865): Personal Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-1863), 2 vols (London: Macmillan & Co). (Reprinted many times, last(?) in 1985.)
• Lady Anne Blunt (1881): A Pilgrimage to Nejd, The Cradle of the Arab Race: an Visit to the Court of the Arab Emir and `our Persian Campaign` (Reprinted 1968)
• Charles Montagu Doughty (1888): Travels in Arabia Deserta. (Reprinted many times)
• Gertrude Bell (1907): The Desert and the Sown (Republished 1987)
• E. Rutter (1931): Damascus to Hail. Journal of Royal Central Asian Studies, vol 18: 61-73.
• D. G. Hogarth (1905): The Penetration of Arabia: a Record of Western Knowledge Concerning the Arabian Peninsula.
• Madawi Al Rasheed: Politics in an Arabian oasis. The ibn rashid Tribal Dynasty. I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, London -New York 1991 (based on a Ph.D. thesis presented to Cambridge University, 1988). ISBN 1-85043-320-8
• Lonely Planet: The Middle East, 3rd edition 2000. ISBN 0-86442-701-8

27°31′N 41°41′E