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Tuesday 2007-04-10 - Mashhad Ali, Yemen
Holy men of the Hadramawt
Near Tarim we already saw the tomb of Ahmad bin Assa and his son (from the outside). But there were many holy men in this area: it’s actually famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for it. The point is that the concept of holy men, saints, or any intermediary between one person and God (Allah) is foreign to Islam. But in this area there were indeed holy men who did act as a kind of intermediary — as legends have it, some even after their death. So their tombs are considered holy places here, and draw pilgrims at certain times of the year.
Today we are going to see more of that: we are going to Wadi Do’an and to reach it we have to first drive all the way back from Wadi ’Adim to the main road from Sey’un to Al Mukalla, then turn off into Wadi Do’an: that’s because both these wadis are actually tributaries of the Wadi Hadramawt. On the way, we have lunch at the junction in Hawra’ again, this time downstairs; it may be coincidence, but the food tastes a lot better than last time when we ate upstairs in the tourists room.
A little south of Hawra’ we turn right into Wadi Do’an. In the first village we pass through, Mashhad Ali, our driver Khamal stops and shows us something special: “A chewing gum tree,” he says. Sure enough, the tree secretes some resin from the stem; you can pry it off and chew it. Marie Josee tries it and confirms it does taste like chewing gum. Then we note that the other cars have stopped a little farther on next to a small mosque, which Khamal thought was closed.
In fact, the mosque proper is closed (to us at least) but there is a room with four graves in it, and its door is open. More Hadramawt holy men lie buried here: The Sai’ed Ali bin Hassan, his two sons and his grandson. We are allowed to visit the tomb. Unfortunately, only one of the wooden shrines is uncovered, the others are wrapped in green cloth (possibly to protect them); the wood is decorated with simple but beautiful geometric carvings.
The tiny village of Mashhad Ali has become a pilgrim’s village; the number of houses is deceptive: most stand empty at this moment and serve only to house the pilgrims when they come. But these pilgrimages, and the reverence for these holy men is looked upon unfavorably by the Wahabites, another branch of Islam (and state religion in Saudi Arabia). In my guidebook I read that next to the tomb with the four shrines we could have a peek in, there’s another room with more graves, but their grave stones were demolished by Wahabites who condemn the reverence of these holy men.
