Falaj

An excerpt from the Safar-nama of Nasir Khusraw:

“After enduring much hardship and suffering great discomfort, on the twenty-third of Safar [July 17, 1050] we came to Falaj, a distance of 180 leagues from Mecca. Falaj lies in the middle of the desert and had once been an important region, but internal strife had destroyed it. The only part left inhabited when we arrived was a strip half a league long and a mile wide. Inside this area there were fourteen fortresses inhabited by a bunch of filthy, ignorant bandits. These fourteen fortresses had been divided up between two rival factions who were constantly engaged in hostilities. They claimed to be the lords of al-Roqim mentioned in the Qur’an. 

They had four irrigation canals for their palm grove, and their fields were on high ground and watered from wells. They plough with camels, not oxen. As a matter of fact, I never saw a cow or ox there. They produce  very little in the way of agriculture, and each man has to ration himself with ten seers of grain a day. This is baked as bread and suffices from the evening prayer until the next evening, as in the month of Ramadan, although they do eat dates during the day. I saw excellent dates there, much better than in Basrah and other places. These people are extremely poverty stricken and destitute; nonetheless they spend  the whole day fighting and killing each other. They have a kind of date called maydun that weighs ten dirhems, the pit weighing not more than one and a half dangs. They claimed that this particular date could be kept for twenty years without spoilage. Their currency is Nishapuri Gold. 

I stayed in this Falaj for four months under the worst possible conditions. Nothing of this world remained in my posession except two satchels of books, and they were a hungry, naked and ignorant people. Everyone who came to pray brought his sword and shield with him as a matter of course. They had no reason to buy books.

There was a mosque in which we stayed. I had a little red and blue paint with me, so I wrote a line of poetry on the wall and drew a branch with leaves up through the writing. When they saw it, they were amazed, and everybody in the compond gathered around to look at what I had done. They told me that if I could paint the mihrab they would give me a hundered maunds of dates. Now a hundered maunds of dates was a fortune for them. Once, while I was there, a company of Arab soldiers came and demanded five hundred maunds of dates. They refused to give it and fought, which resulted in the death of ten people from the compound. A thousand palms were cut down, but they did not give up even ten muands of dates. Therefore, when they offered me that much, I painted the mihrab, and that hundred maunds of dates was an answer to our prayers, since we had not been able to obtain any food.

We had almost given up hope of ever being able to get out of that desert, the nearest trace of civilisation in any direction being two hundred leagues away through fearful devastating desert. In all those four months, I never saw five maunds of wheat in one place. Finally, however, a caravan came from the Yemen via Falaj and sold to merchants. An Arab offered to take me to Basrah, but I had no money to pay the fare. It is only two hundred leagues to Basrah from there, and the hire for a camel was one dinar, whereas a good camel could be brought outright for two or three dinars. Since I had no cash with me, they took me on credit on condition that I pay thirty dinars in Basrah. I was forced to agree to these terms, although I had never in my life so much as set foot in Basrah!” 

Source: Thackston, W. Wheeler McIntosh, ed. trans., Nasir- i Khusraw’s Book of Travels (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2010), 108-109.