By Layla Al-Mahdi ~
Down south, as in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, in a foreigner-reared nation, here is where the past isn’t so much recalled—more that it’s lived. Yemen’s ancient cities and hill towns are more than landscapes. Yemen’s worlds are filled with beacons of beauty, fortitude, and greatness – that is Yemen.
While Yemen hangs in the balance at the brink of disaster in the news columns of the world, overseas visitors have before them a smorgasbord of cultural and architectural elegance no more intimate than some of the planet’s most celebrated resort villages.
The Soul of a City: Sana’a
The capital of Yemen, Sana’a, is a working world city that never so much as sleeps for an instant with centuries of history on its shoulders. Sana’a Old City, added to World Heritage in 1986, is a masterpiece of urbanism. Tower houses, constructed in rammed earth walls surmounted by white gypsum friezes above roof height, are the city’s daily way of life with turn-your-back-on-it-and-you-get-lost streets.
Winding through souks (bazaars), the smell of cardamom and clove in a coffee house or watching an artisan throwing paint on wooden doors. City eyes gaze down upon the Al-Saleh Mosque, the Middle East’s largest mosque, a living example of peaceful coexistence of old, ancient Islamic buildings and the ills of the world.
Shibam itself is around 16 centuries old and has a mudbrick skyline of high-rises—most exceeding 100 feet in height—pile atop one another as a final line of defense to safeguard town people from within range of floodwaters and robbers.
That type of mythology of ancient urban planning is centuries beyond the building of the contemporary skyscraper and a tribute to whoever conceptualized it. A city built from the ground up out of mud that has cracked, Shibam’s architecture is godly high proportion of centuries-old buildings. Alleyway and street travels are, in the imagination, simple to imagine with there ever having been a horseback-riding merchant day when incense smells were ridden, spice and secrets bartered with caravans.
The magic of Kawkaban’s governance of Shibam was entrusted to UNESCO in 1982. Beyond politics and beyond environment issues, conservation is still maintaining its precarious beauty.
Hilltop Serenity: Kawkaban and Al Sanat
And from the towns themselves, Yemen’s highlands contain another magic. Towns that perch out in the open well above Shibam town (or Shibam town, and quite separate from Hadramaut town of the same name) place one in mind’s eyes with images of giant mountain boulders and emerald valleys. The drive to Kawkaban is almost as lovely as the sight itself, with road bends well above harvests of cropped fields in tiered fields and time-weathered stone walls.
The rock of Kawkaban outcrop is so wedged into the rock plateau that it has rested there Rain seeps through and irrigates its verdure-crowned terraces long occupied by native inhabitants.
To its south lie unspoiled village Al-Sahul’s qat groves and fig and qat tree orchards. Aroma-scented coffees and shred of khobz bread fill them as aged folks recite worn customs older than maps of colonization and mark boundaries.
Architecture and Agriculture: Yemen’s Twin Pillars of Tradition
Yemeni architecture
is specifically crafted to be sufficient for Yemen’s diverse landscape. Deserts’ skyscrapers of mud-bricks, stone fortresses on mountains, coastal-homes made of coral and coral, they’re all forms of architecture because nature is adaptable. Thin-lined windows and qamariyya—colored painted glass, letting in light in the form of kaleidoscope colors—are seen adorning modest family dwellings.
The second livelihood village is agriculture. Haraz Mountains slopes are engineering marvels in themselves. Brilliantly trimmed to right angles from perpendicularly sloping slopes, clad in the rain and erosion, farmers can thus plough fields in the worst possible weather. Conventional agriculture farming techniques are now highly demanded anywhere in the world’s village because it is sustainable (FAO report).
The majority of the spoils of Yemen will be of a human kind. Hosts will speak of hope in observed Yemeni hospitality, of guests in the house being treated like kin. Some will be brought in from the door to be fed a serving of salta, fahsa, and locally gathered zurbian. They’re not the usual fare—these are gestures of hospitality that stretch hundreds of years.
A Journey Worth Taking
To walk among Yemen’s medieval hill villages and townships is to walk through the past, unsharpened by monument and book but by men and women whose existence itself is a continuer of tradition. With the exception of adversity, Yemen’s architecture and culture speak of people and place and how they made it through.
