There’s a place high in the Sarawat Mountains of southwestern Saudi Arabia where the air is scented with strawberries and juniper, and the howls of wild baboons reverberate through the valleys.
Up here, even in the middle of summer, it’s cool. As the relentless heat continues in other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, videos circulate of leaden skies over the ancient stone village of Rijal Alma’a, and fat raindrops falling on jacaranda trees in Abha, capital of the Aseer province. I wanted to see it – and feel it – for myself, so I took a three-hour flight from Dubai to Abha and joined a trip organised by UAE- and Saudi-based travel company Tamashee Experience.
Like many mountainous places around the world, Aseer is a region where remoteness and a singular topography have given birth to a distinct and closely guarded heritage, with art, music and dress that differ significantly from those in other parts of the kingdom. Abha is closer to the Yemeni capital Sana’a than to the Saudi cities of Jeddah and Riyadh. Stone palaces and forts still stand strong in the mountains, a reminder of the battles that took place in centuries past. This is a land where men wearing flower crowns stop their pickup trucks to buy bread cooked on streetside hotplates, and where women still paint the interior walls of their homes with intricate Al-Qatt Al Aseeri art.
I get my first real taste of the region sipping freshly crushed strawberry juice at Abdulaziz Aal Wayman’s farm on a cliff close to Mount Soudah, Saudi Arabia’s highest peak at a fairly breathless 3,000 metres. Days up here start clear and bright; by late morning clouds start to rise from the valleys. I sit on the jagged cliff edge to watch the mists roll in, obscuring the terraced farms and narrow tracks that traverse the sharp contours below. Fluffy and wispy at first, by early afternoon these clouds cover the entire sky, but rain remains elusive; we don’t even feel a sprinkle. With a collective sigh, we continue on our journey, our guides Ali Alhamadi and his brother Khalid keeping their eyes trained on the horizon. The brothers know how to read the weather. Coming from the village of Bahat Rabia, high in the mountains, they’re used to observing the elements and, as a keen paraglider pilot, Ali is even more sensitive to the changing conditions.
We stop at the top of a pass, letting the swirling mists envelop us, mindful of the wild baboons waiting for snacks beneath the “do not feed the baboons” signs. Ali stops to buy tiny sweet figs, cups of habaq tea brewed from local herbs, and big flatbreads so hot they burn our fingers as we tear them apart. We do finally catch up with the rain in the tiny 900-year-old Rijal Alma’a, recognised by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation in 2021 as one of the “world’s best tourism villages”. To get there, we descend from 3,000 metres down countless switchbacks on a road that requires nerves of steel. There’s a rally-esque approach to the driving here, with people overtaking wherever and whenever the mood takes them, phones thrust out of windows to film the white-knuckle ride. Somehow, we make it down in one piece – views of layered peaks, vertiginous valleys and vegetation that becomes more tropical the closer we get to the bottom serving as a helpful distraction.
Rijal Alma’a’s stocky, multi-storey stone buildings appear almost out of nowhere. But as remote as it may feel, it’s part of a historical corridor linking Yemen with Makkah and Madinah, an ancient commercial centre for travellers and traders, and a strategic spot that was fought over numerous times. The villag- ers took it upon themselves to protect and celebrate their herit- age long before Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 tourism plans were launched, and in the late 1980s started work on restoring one of the larger forts, turning it into a museum. Today, it houses farming tools, old radios and other everyday objects. Our guide to the village, Ibrahim Ali Fathy, greets us with a cheery “marhaban alf” (one thousand welcomes), his head crowned with a headdress, known locally as eisaba, of marigolds, jasmine blossoms and herbal plants, worn, he tells me, for their scent, and as a symbol of health and beauty. He’s also wearing the traditional dress of the region, an embroidered shirt and striped sarong-like skirt, with a long dagger tucked into his belt. The skirt’s six colours are based on those that were sourced from plants and rocks, Fathy explains, gathered by his grandmother’s generation and also used for Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri paintings.
Fathy operates a simple guest house, Heritage Inn, out of his restored 250-year-old family home, with a balcony that looks out over the village. It’s here, after a walk past the handsome buildings in the centre and more rundown ones on the edge where creepers and prickly pears have taken over, that we finally welcome the rain. With a deep, growling rumble of thunder that echoes around the village square and a flash of lighting that makes us all jump, the skies release a solid, satisfying downpour, and we huddle closer to the edge of the balcony, letting the heavy drops fall on our faces and into our coffees. As if summoned by the rain, we’re joined by Hudaish Asiri, a friend of Fathy and another Rijal Alma’a resident, who has become something of a celebrity for his flute playing. With a gentle smile and a head topped with flowers, he plays shepherd’s tunes to the rhythm of the downpour, blowing into an instrument that seems to be made of nothing but a length of plastic plumbing pipe.
The rains feed the rich vegetation that finds its way into many elements of life here, including Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri art, recognised by Unesco as intangible cultural heritage in 2017. No one seems to be able to say with certainty when the region’s women first started painting their homes with these signature geometric patterns, but it’s thought to have been at least 200 years ago. The frescoes were originally made with natural colours – red from ochre, yellow from turmeric and pomegranate peel, green from freshly cut grass, black from charcoal mixed with resin for extra shine and longevity – painted with brushes made from acacia thorns and goat-tail hairs. Enter pretty much any building in Aseer and you’ll see examples of the art form. But some of the most evocative examples are in the abandoned mud and stone houses in Al Jahamah village in the east. Surrounded by farmland, it has keen vantage points over the surrounding landscape and into the hills of Yemen, an hour’s drive away. I keep an equally keen eye out for snakes and scorpions as I step gingerly through long grass, trying to follow tracks made by grazing goats, and trying not to get caught in the thorny acacia trees.
While the rains bring much benefit to the area, they have also softened the mud walls and ceilings of these houses, causing many of them to collapse. But there are still examples of Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri to be found in crumbling rooms that leave red dust on your shoes and clothes. In one house are the remains of a majlis, its walls painted yellow, green and red. In another are walls the same colour as the sky above. To gain a deeper understanding of the history of Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri, we head to Fatema Gallery and Museum in Abha. Husband and wife Ali Moghawi and Fatima Fayea, both from Rijal Alma’a, opened it about 10 years ago. “We didn’t plan for it to be a cultural place or a museum,” says Moghawi. “At the time, it was just a hobby for us, and it was only afterwards that we thought about how to improve the place for visitors.”
Fayea learnt her Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri skills from observing her relatives and their female friends painting when she was growing up, and her works are mesmerising in their intricacy, bursting with colours, lines and patterns that represent everything from girls in triangular form to palm fronds, ears of wheat and Quranic references. She takes the art form from walls to canvases, and even chairs, coffee pots and stones, contemporising it into some- thing that can be incorporated into modern homes. She also provides training and mentorships to younger generations, and her daughter Alaa is following in her creative footsteps.
It’s not only the traditional arts that are thriving in Aseer. On my last evening, I pay a visit to Phi Studio. Established in 2017, it’s the base of Abha-born artists Saeed Gebaan, Hatem Al-Ahmad, Jameelah Mater and Shahd Yousif. From the outside, on a dark street on the edge of town, there’s no hint that this one-time school sports hall houses an art-filled space, and it’s not until the smiling faces of Gebaan and Al-Ahmad appear at the door that I realise I’m in the right place. Inside, it’s filled with packing crates, works in progress and finished pieces. In one corner, beneath an Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri canvas, a seating area is strewn with cushions and throws made from traditional textiles, alongside a startlingly realistic model of a zombie’s head and arms crawling out of the floor. In another, a vintage TV is topped with a stack of books next to an old sign salvaged from a barbecue restaurant and a medical model of a torso.
Gebaan’s workspace is filled with gadgets and wires, his kinetic art based on his teenage love of invention, and studies in dynamic science and industrial engineering. Al-Ahmad shows me works he’s made from vintage film used as teaching mate- rial in classrooms, enlarged and recaptioned to imagine how they’d be interpreted by students today. A large-scale piece by Yousif is made from gypsum and dyed paper pulp that changes colour with the passing of time. Mater makes the bees in her family apiaries artistic collaborators, turning different-shaped hives into sculptural honeycombs. “We all find ourselves drawing from this diverse geographical tapestry of Aseer, and it provides us with a fascinating source of inspiration,” says Gebaan.
There are plans afoot to develop Abha and the Soudah Mountains area into modern tourism destinations, but I hope that, among the sleek new developments, these old traditions will be allowed to shine. Like many others, I may have been drawn here by the simple promise of rain, but it’s the scent of a flower crown, the warmth of a smile, the sound of a flute and the fading colours of a century-old Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri painting that will bring me back.
What to do
Head to Fatema Gallery and Museum to gain insights into the culture and art of Aseer, and to pick up hand-painted canvases, coffee pots and items of furniture. @fatema_gallery
The old police station in Abha’s historical Al Basta neighbour- hood has been turned into Husn Abha Al Torathi, a retro restaurant with cheery Al-Qatt Al-Aseeri art on the walls and breakfasts of Saudi favourites. Al Basta District, Abha
Visit the Tamniah Heritage Museum in the village of Tamniah or the 180-year-old Abu Sarrah Palaces in the Soudah hills outside Abha for rich history and beautifully painted walls, as well as Turkish flatbreads, local desserts and coffee at the onsite café. @sarrah_palaces
In spite of its name, Abha’s Souq Al Thulathaa, or Tuesday Market, is open daily, with stalls selling everything from embroidered Aseeri dresses to Rijal Alma’a skirt fabric, local honey, clay pots, and piles of dates and dried herbs. King Khalid Road, Al Muftaha, Abha
The Rijal Alma’a Heritage Inn, in Ibrahim Al Fathy’s 250-year- old family home, offers the best views over the village. Even if you’re not staying in the simple rooms here, you can still stop by for photos, Saudi coffee and thareef, a comforting, stodgy sweet millet porridge with milk, honey and ghee. @heritage_inn_