The Islamic Golden Age is often looked to by Muslims in general and perhaps to Arab Muslims more specifically, as the time when they were great and Western Civilization wasn’t. A time when they were at the forefront of the arts and sciences. A time when they had big bustling cities like those of Baghdad and Damascus. In David Lean’s 1962 classic, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz famously speaks of his longing for ‘the vanished gardens of Córdoba, after he reminds Lawrence of the time when Córdoba was a city that had street lighting and paved streets while London was still just a village. To which replied Lawrence, who was played by Peter O’Toole, “yes, you were great, time to be great again my lord…”
The longing of Arabs to relive this golden age still persists today and there are many reminders of this throughout the Arabian cityscape. Saudi Arabia, which is the largest country in the Arabian Peninsula for example, has districts named after the city of Córdoba, or Qurtuba as pronounced in Arabic, in all its major cities. Córdoba was conquered by Muslim invaders in the year 711 and by the year 852 it was the largest and most technologically advanced city in Europe. There are also districts named after Granada, Seville and even of the still very great Al-Hambra Palace which was recaptured by Catholic Monarchs in the year 1492. Prince Faisal’s claim about lit streets and paved roads of Cordoba has been attested to by British Historian Robert Hillenbrand who mentions that the streets of the city were “remarkably clean by medieval standards”. But the Cordoba of new, has failed, so far at least, to truly exemplify the body and soul of the Córdoba of old.
For starters, there aren’t very many paved roads in the Cordoba of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and this makes walking both difficult and dangerous. This in turn means that people just don’t walk that very often. Safe places to walk are so scarce in Riyadh that municipality have actually designated specific spaces in the city solely for this purpose. The mamsha, or walking area (for the lack of a better translation), is an area where people can come to walk, nothing more. And while this might seem like a very good idea for a city without sidewalks, it is actually a poor solution to a much bigger problem (more on the mamsha in an upcoming article).
I had a neighbor when I lived in the Cordoba district of Riyadh who would often tell me about how much he loved to visit London. “Brother when I go, I don’t drive, I walk everywhere”. But this isn’t the case in Córdoba where the car is king. It isn’t the case anywhere else in Riyadh in fact which is a real shame. Given the fact that ‘paved streets’ was one of the great feats of Córdoba according to Prince Faisal, it’s also very ironic.
In another tale of irony, the man who was responsible for making Córdoba great all those years ago also sought to re-create a city just like Faisal, the prince in the Lawrence of Arabia movie. Abd al Rahman’s the third’s family were rulers of the Islamic world and their capital city was Damascus, around 2000 or so miles eastwards of Córdoba. But in the year 750 the family was overthrown in a brutal affair and the entire family was slaughtered save Adb al Rahman, his brother and a family servant who were able to escape. Fast forward a few years and Adb al Rahman had conquered Córdoba and it was in this city that he would recreate his beloved Damascus. But there was a lot more to Córdoba than just paved roads and lighted streets. It was truly a magnificent city where knowledge and creativity were celebrated. Private libraries flourished in Muslim Spain and it was also said that Córdoba was the greatest book market in the western world in the 10th century. This reverence for knowledge and reading gave birth to a knowledge-based culture where many great inventions took place. Cordoba was home to Abul Qaasim Al Zahrawi, the father of modern surgery and of Abbas ibn Firnas who was the first person to make the first controlled flight when he was sixty-five years old.
I will be the first to acknowledge that it isn’t entirely fair to compare the Cordoba of old to the Cordoba of new since the latter is still a work in progress, and since much of the love for the former is based on an Arab romanticisation of a glorious past which is no more. The American novelist Carson McCullers said it best when she said that “we are homesick most for the places we have never known”. And yet, despite all of this however, I am fearful that there is a great opportunity which is being missed here. Riyadh, which houses the districts of Cordoba, Al Hambra, Granada and Seville has an opportunity to reclaim a piece of lost Islamic history and bring it to life again so that the people of this country can be inspired by the achievements of their ancestors. It is likely that many Saudis who live in these districts are oblivious to the fact that the places where they live today were named after cities in Spain which their forefathers once built and this shouldn’t be the case. Abd al Rahman III never lost sight of what he was trying to achieve in Cordoba when he made it his capital, and his dream was eventually realized. His new home came to rival the empire he lost in Baghdad with respect to its architecture, and in its love for knowledge and innovation. But it appears as if Prince Faisal’s dream of paved roads, lighted streets and luxurious gardens is in danger of being lost.
A 2015 article in the Huffington Post listed Dubai as of the world’s worst planned cities. Among other criticisms, the author wrote that it is “pretty much impossible to walk anywhere, since the entire layout is connected by massive roadways and arterials leading from one giant development to the next”. Riyadh, had it been listed in this article, would have undoubtedly ranked a lot worse. This is since many of the problems cited in the article are also present in Riyadh, except that these problems are greatly exaggerated in Riyadh when compared with Dubai. This isn’t to say that walkability is the sole thing needed to make a great city, nor is it to say that all the urban problems facing cities in Saudi Arabia can be fixed with a few slabs of pavement. The idea is however to emphasize the central role walkability has in making great places.
A city is built for the people who live in it and those people need to be able to walk to maintain healthy and balanced lives. The author of the book ‘Happy City’, Charles Montgomery, writes that “immobility is to the human body what rust is to a classic car”. Therefore, places that give people both the ability and confidence to walk must be built, but this isn’t happening in Saudi Arabia. The Cordoba of Riyadh, which is where I lived for four years, provided barely any pavement for pedestrians and when pavements were provided, they were often provided with a very beautiful date palm tree right in the middle of this pavement, making it difficult to navigate around. Or, they were provided but it was impossible to cross the road for the lack of safe places to do so. This would then push people who lived there to use their cars even for the most mundane errands.
If Prince Faisal’s dream is ever to be realized and his country is to become a center for knowledge, innovation and beauty it must first plan for city which is conducive to these lofty goals. A walkable city makes for a happier, healthy population. It allows people of all ages to enjoy the place they call home. It also allows people to mix more often and this will bring about a mixing of ideas and a mix of cultures and a mix of knowledge. It is these things which helped to make the great city of Cordoba so great in its time. There are also economic benefits to steering away from a city which is built for the purpose of the motorcar and one which is built for the people, but this isn’t the purpose of this article.
With all that has been said in the piece the reader will be forgiven for thinking that I have a dislike for Saudi Arabian cities or that I hate them even, but the opposite is true. I have lived and worked here for six years and I have enjoyed my time very much. But coming from London I was, and still am taken aback by just how difficult it is to get around on foot and despite all the of construction and development I have seen take place, cities in Saudi Arabia still, for the most part at least, remain as “unwalkable” as they were when I first came here in 2014. But things can always get better and all of these problems can be fixed because there is still time. “…time to be great again my lord…”.