Chapter IV: Hît to Kerbelâ (2)

Of all the wonderful experiences that have fallen my way, the first sight of Kheiḍir is the most memorable. It reared its mighty walls out of the sand, almost untouched by time, breaking the long lines of the waste with its huge towers, steadfast and massive, as though it were, as I had at first thought it, the work of nature, not of man. We approached it from the north, on which side a long low building runs out towards the sandy depression of the Wâdî Lebai’ah (Fig. 77). A zaptieth caught me up as I reached the first of the vaulted rooms, and out of the northern gateway a man in long robes of white and black came trailing down towards us through the hot silence.

“Peace be upon you,” said he.

“And upon you peace, Sheikh ’Alî,” returned the zaptieh. “This lady is of the English.”

“Welcome, my lady Khân,” said the sheikh; “be pleased to enter and to rest.”

He led me through a short passage and under a tiny dome. I was aware of immense corridors opening on either hand, but we passed on into a great vaulted hall where the Arabs sat round the ashes of a fire.

“My lady Khân,” said Sheikh ’Alî, “this is the castle of Nu’mân ibn Mundhir.”

Whether it were a Lakhmid palace or no, it was the palace which I had set forth to seek. It belongs architecturally to the group of Sassanian buildings which are already known to us, and historically it is related to the palaces, famous in pre-Mohammadan tradition, whose splendours had filled with amazement the invading hordes of the Bedouin, and still shine with a legendary magnificence, from the pages of the chroniclers of the conquest. Even for the Mohammadan writers they had become nothing but a name. Khawarnaḳ, Sadîr, and the rest, fell into ruin with Ḥîrah, the capital of the small Arab principality that occupied the frontiers of the desert, and their site was a matter of hearsay or conjecture. “Think on the lord of Khawarnaḳ,” sang ’Adî ibn Zaid prophetically--

“---- eyes guided of God see clear--
He rejoiced in his might and the strength of his hands, the encompassing
wave and Sadîr;
And his heart stood still and he spake: ‘What joy have the living to
death addressed?
For the open cleft of the grave lies close upon pleasure and power
and rest.
Like a withered leaf they fall, and the wind shall scatter them
east and west.’”

But for all its total disappearance under the wave of Islâm, the Lakhmid state had played a notable part in the development of Arab culture. It was at Ḥîrah that the desert came into contact with the highly organized civilization of the Persians, with the wealth of cultivated lands and the long-established order of a settled population; there, too, as among the Ghassânids on the Syrian side of the wilderness, they made acquaintance with the precepts of Christianity which exercised so marked an influence on the latest poets of the Age of Ignorance, some of whom, like ’Adî ibn Zaid himself, are known to have been Christians, and prepared the way for the Prophet’s teaching.[80] So little have the eastern borders of the Syrian desert been explored that except for the ruin field of Ḥîrah, a town which was destroyed in order to furnish building materials for the Moslem city of Kûfah, and a cluster of mouldering vaults, said to represent the castle of Khawarnaḳ,[81] not one of the famous pre-Mohammadan sites has been identified, and it is possible that important vestiges of the Lakhmid age may lie unsuspected within a few days’ journey from regions familiar to travellers and even to tourists. Meanwhile Kheiḍir (the name is the colloquial abbreviation of Ukheiḍir = a small green place) is the finest example of Sassanian architecture which has yet been discovered. Its wonderful state of preservation is probably due to the fact that it was some distance removed from the nearest inhabited spot. Shetâteh is separated from it by three hours of naked desert; the canals that feed Kerbelâ are yet further away, and the water supply of Ukheiḍir, derived from wells in the Wâdî Lebai’ah, is too small to have tempted the fellaḥîn to establish themselves there. Nowhere in the vicinity, so far as I could learn, are

there more abundant springs, and the palace has therefore been allowed to drop into a slow decay, forgotten in the midst of its wildernesses, save when a raiding expedition brings the Bedouin into the neighbourhood of Shetâteh.

Most of us who have had opportunity to become familiar with some site that has once been the theatre of a vanished civilization have passed through hours of vain imaginings during which the thoughts labour to recapture the aspect of street and market, church or temple enclosure, of which the evidences lie strewn over the surface of the earth. And ever, as a thousand unanswerable problems surge up against the realization of that empty hope, I have found myself longing for an hour out of a remote century, wherein I might look my fill upon the walls that have fallen and stamp the image of a dead world indelibly upon my mind. The dream seemed to have reached fulfilment at Ukheiḍir. There the architecture of a by-gone age presented itself in unexampled perfection to the eye. It was not necessary to guess at the structure of vaults or the decorative scheme of niched façades--the camera and the measuring-tape could register the methods of the builder and the results which he had achieved. But it was evident that no satisfactory record of Ukheiḍir could be made within the limits of the day which I had allowed myself for the expedition. We had exhausted our small stock of provisions, and the materials necessary for carrying out so large a piece of work as the planning of the palace were at Kerbelâ with the caravan. Fattûḥ disposed of these difficulties at once by declaring that he intended to ride into Kerbelâ that night and bring out the caravan next day. The truth was that he yearned for the sight of the baggage horses, and for my part I longed for a bed and for a table more than I could have thought it possible. I was weary of sleeping on the stony face of the desert, of sitting in the dust and eating my meals with a seasoning of sand--so infirm is feminine endurance. An Arab called Ghânim, clean-limbed and spare, like all his half-fed tribe, offered himself as guide, and ’Alî assured us that he knew every inch of the way. But when the zaptiehs heard that one of them was to accompany the expedition they turned white with fear. To ride through the desert at night, they declared, was a venture from which no man was likely to come out alive. I hesitated--it requires much courage to face risks for others--but Fattûḥ stood firm, ’Alî laughed, and the thought of the bed carried the day. They started at eight in the evening, and I watched them disappear across the sands with some sinking of heart. All next day I was too well occupied to give them much thought, but when six o’clock came and ’Alî set watchers upon the castle walls, I began to feel anxious. Half-an-hour later Ma’ashî, the sheikh’s brother and my particular friend, came running down to my tent.

“Praise God! my lady Khân, they are here.”

The Arabs gathered round to offer their congratulations, and Fattûḥ rode in, grey with fatigue and dust, with the caravan at his heels. He had reached Kerbelâ at five in the morning, found the muleteers, bought provisions, loaded the animals, and set off again about ten.

“And the oranges are good in Kerbelâ,” he ended triumphantly. “I have brought your Excellency a whole bag of them.”

It was a fine performance.

The Arabs who inhabited Kheiḍir had come there two years before from Jôf in Nejd: “Because we were vexed with the government of Ibn er Rashîd,” explained ’Alî, and I readily understood that his could not be a soothing rule. The wooden howdahs in which the women had travelled blocked one of the long corridors, and some twenty families lodged upon the ground in the vaulted chambers of princes. They lived and starved and died in this most splendid memorial of their own civilization, and even in decay Kheiḍir offered a shelter more than sufficient for their needs to the race at whose command it had been reared. Their presence was an essential part of its proud decline. The sheikh and his brothers passed like ghosts along the passages, they trailed their white robes down the stairways that led to the high chambers where they lived with their women, and at night they gathered round the hearth in the great hall where their forefathers had beguiled the hours with tale and song in the same rolling tongue of Nejd. Then they would pile up the desert scrub till the embers glowed under the coffee-pots, while Ma’ashî handed round the delicious bitter draught which was the one luxury left to them. The thorns crackled, a couple of oil wicks placed in holes above the columns, which had been contrived for them by the men-at-arms of old, sent a feeble ray into the darkness, and Ghânim took the rebâbah and drew from its single string a wailing melody to which he chanted the stories of his race.

“My lady Khân, this is the song of ’Abdu’l ’Azîz ibn er Rashîd.”

He sang of a prince great and powerful, patron of poets, leader of raids, and recently overwhelmed and slain in battle; but old or new, the songs were all pages out of the same chronicle, the undated chronicle of the nomad. The thin melancholy music rose up into the blackness of the vault; across the opening at the end of the hall, where the wall had fallen in part away, was spread the deep still night and the unchanging beauty of the stars.

“My lady Khân,” said Ghânim, “I will sing you the song of Ukheiḍir.”

But I said, “Listen to the verse of Ukheiḍir”--

“We wither away but they wane not, the stars that above us rise;
The mountains remain after us, and the strong towers when we are gone.”

“Allah!” murmured Ma’ashî, as he swept noiselessly round the circle with the coffee cups, and once again Labîd’s noble couplet held the company, as it had held those who sat in the banqueting-hall of the khalif.

One night I was provided with a different entertainment. I had worked from sunrise till dark and was too tired to sleep. The desert was as still as death; infinitely mysterious, it stretched away from my camp and I lay watching the empty sands as one who watches for a pageant. Suddenly a bullet whizzed over the tent and the crack of a rifle broke the silence. All my men jumped up; a couple more shots rang out, and Fattûḥ hastily disposed the muleteers round the tents and hurried off to join a band of Arabs who had streamed from the castle gate. I picked up a revolver and went out to see them go. In a minute or two they had vanished under the uncertain light of the moon, which seems so clear and yet discloses so little. A zaptieh joined me and we stood still listening. Far out in the desert the red flash of rifles cut through the white moonlight; again the quick flare and then again silence. At last through the night drifted the sound of a wild song, faint and far away, rhythmic, elemental as the night and the desert. I waited in complete uncertainty as to what was approaching, and it was not until they were close upon us that we recognized our own Arabs and Fattûḥ in their midst. They came on, still singing, with their rifles over their shoulders; their white garments gleamed under the moon; they wore no kerchiefs upon their heads, and their black hair fell in curls about their faces.

“Ma’ashî,” I cried, “what happened?”

Ma’ashî shook his hair out of his eyes.

“There is nothing, my lady Khân. ’Alî saw some men lurking in the desert at the ’aṣr” (the hour of afternoon prayer), “and we watched after dark from the walls.”

“They were raiders of the Benî Ḍafî’ah,” said Ghânim, mentioning a particular lawless tribe.

“Fattûḥ,” said I, “did you shoot?”

“We shot,” replied Fattûḥ; “did not your Excellency hear?--and one man is wounded.”

A wild-looking boy held out his hand, on which I detected a tiny scratch.

“There is no harm,” said I. “Praise God!”

“Praise God!” they repeated, and I left them laughing and talking eagerly, and went to bed and to sleep.

Next morning I questioned Fattûḥ as to the events of the night, but he was exceptionally non-committal.

“My lady,” said he, “God knows. ’Alî says that they

were men of the Benî Ḍafî’ah.” Then with a burst of confidence he added, “But I saw no one.”

“At whom did you shoot?” said I in bewilderment.

“At the Benî Ḍafî’ah,” answered Fattûḥ, surprised at the stupidity of the question.

I gave it up, neither do I know to this hour whether we were or were not raided in the night.

Two days later my plan was finished. I had turned one of the vaulted rooms of the stable into a workshop, and spreading a couple of waterproof sheets on the sand for table, had drawn it out to scale lying on the ground. Sometimes an Arab came in silently and stood watching my pencil, until the superior attractions of the next chamber, in which sat the muleteers and the zaptiehs, drew him away. As I added up metres and centimetres I could hear them spinning long yarns of city and desert. Occasionally Ma’ashî brought me coffee.

“God give you the reward,” said I.

“And your reward,” he answered gravely.

The day we left Kheiḍir, the desert was wrapped in the stifling dust of a west wind. I have no notion what the country is like through which we rode for seven hours to Kerbelâ, and no memory, save that of the castle walls fading like a dream into the haze, of a bare ridge of hill to our right hand and the bitter waves of a salt lake to our left, and of deep sand through which we were driven by a wind that was the very breath of the Pit. Then out of the mist loomed the golden dome of the shrine of Ḥussein, upon whom be peace, and few pious pilgrims were gladder than I when we stopped to drink a glass of tea at the first Persian tea-shop of the holy city.

THE PALACE OF UKHEIḌIR

I do not propose to enter here into a detailed account of the palace of Ukheiḍir, which must be reserved for a subsequent publication, but it is well to give a short elucidation of the plan, and to consider briefly the theories which have been formed with regard to the origin of the building.[82]

The palace consists of a rectangular fortification wall set with round bastions, with larger round bastions at the angles, and of an oblong building surrounded on three sides by a court, together with a small annex in the eastern part of the court (Fig. 79). That part of the oblong building which adjoins the northern fortification wall is three storeys high; the remainder of the palace is one storey high. Outside the enclosing fortification wall there is a structure composed of fourteen vaulted parallel chambers, with a small open court at the southern end. To the west of the small court and of the first five chambers lies a larger court with round bastions on its western side. Between each of these bastions there is a door and either one or two groups of windows, each group consisting of three narrow lights. I noticed foundations of masonry which ran down from near the northern end of this

out-building towards the valley. To the N.W. of the palace there is another small detached building called by the Arabs the Bath (Fig. 80). Near it the surface of the ground is broken by low mounds which may indicate the presence of ruins. The Arabs assured me that by digging here brackish water could be obtained; there is also a well of brackish water in the western part of the palace court, but it is not used for drinking purposes. The water supply of Ukheiḍir is derived from the Wâdî Lebai’ah. It is obtained by digging holes in the sandy bed of the valley.

The fortification wall is arcaded without and within up to two-thirds of its height. These blind arcades support the walls of the _chemin de ronde_. The outer arcade serves the purpose of a machicoulis, a narrow space between its arches and the outer face of the main wall enabling the defenders in the _chemin de ronde_ to protect with missiles the foot of the wall below them (Fig. 83). The _chemin de ronde_ could be reached from the uppermost floor of the three-storeyed block of the palace, as well as by means of four staircases, one in each of the angles of the court (Fig. 84). Two of these staircases have now fallen completely. The _chemin de ronde_ had been covered by a vault (Fig. 86). Arched doorways led into outlook chambers hollowed in the thickness of the bastions. Arched windows open on to the court. In the centre of each side of the fortification wall there is a gate (Fig. 85), that which stands on the northern side being the most important, since it communicates directly with the palace (Fig. 87). It opens into a passage with a guard-room on either side. The passage leads into a small rectangular chamber, A in the plan, covered with a fluted dome (Fig. 88). From this chamber an arched doorway communicates with a vaulted hall, B, which runs up to a height of two storeys and is the largest room in the palace (Fig. 90). The vault, borne on projecting engaged piers, spans seven metres. Beyond the hall vaulted corridors, C C C C, C´ C´ C´ C´, surround an open

court, D, as well as a block of rooms lying to the south of the court. The court D is set round with engaged columns forming vaulted niches (Fig. 91). At the S.E. corner the vault of one of these niches is fluted (Fig. 89). The bracketed setting of these small semi-domes over the angles is to be noted. The block of chambers south of court D is more carefully built than any other part of the palace. It consists of an oblong antechamber, E, leading into a square room, F. On either side of the antechamber there are a pair of rooms, the walls and vaults of those lying to the west, G´ and H´, being finished with stucco decorations and small columned niches. On either side of the square chamber, F, is a room containing four masonry columns which support three parallel barrel vaults (Figs. 92 and 93). South of room F stretches a cloister, J, which was covered with a barrel vault, now fallen. It opens into an unroofed court, K. The corridor C C´ runs to the south of court K, and still further to the south is another open court, L, with vaulted rooms round it.

To east and west of the corridor C C, C´ C´, lie four courts, M M´ and N N´. To north and south of each of these courts there are three vaulted rooms, but in M and M´ small antechambers in the shape of a narthex separate the rooms from the court, whereas in N and N´ the rooms open directly on to the court. In every case there are traces of a vaulted cloister, O O and O´ O´, between the court and the outer wall (Fig. 97). Behind each block of rooms there is a rectangular space, P P P P and P´ P´ P´ P´, two-thirds of which are vaulted, while the central part is left open (Fig. 95). Similar open spaces are left in the corridor C C, C´ C´, which would otherwise be exceedingly dark.

To return to the north gate. On either side of the small domed chamber, A, long vaulted corridors, Q Q´, lead to the outer court (Fig. 96). A door on the south side of corridor Q communicates with a small court, R, with chambers to north and south of it and vaulted cloisters to east and west. A group of vaulted chambers is placed between court R and the great hall B. West of hall B there is a smaller group of vaulted chambers. In the south wall of corridor Q´, two doors lead into an open court surrounded on three sides by a vaulted cloister, the vault of which has now fallen except for fragments in the south-east and south-west corners. These fragments are adorned with stucco decorations. I have suggested (in the _Hellenic Journal_, loc. cit.) that this court may be a mosque of a primitive type. (See, too, _Der Islâm_, vol. i. part ii. p. 126, where Dr. Herzfeld points out that a chamber somewhat similarly placed in the palace of Mshatta may also be a mosque.)

No difficulty will be found in following on the plan the arrangement of the upper floors in the northern part of the palace. In the second storey, the space marked B^{2} is occupied by the vault of the great hall B (Fig. 81). At A^{2} three windows open into the hall from the room in the second storey. R^{2} and S^{2} correspond with the two courts R and S. In the third storey the rectangular space A^{3} is unroofed, and the space B^{3}, below which lies the vault of the great hall, is also unroofed (Fig. 82). The eastern part of this storey is completely ruined, but there would appear to have been rooms

round R^{3} similar to the rooms round R^{2}. The _chemin de ronde_, T T´, is on a level with this storey.

Between the main palace block and the eastern fortification wall there lies a group of rooms which is clearly an addition to the original scheme. It is interesting to observe that these rooms are in all essentials of their plan a repetition of the group of rooms to the south of court D. Room U corresponds with the antechamber E; room V with the square room F; W with the cloister J; X, Y, and Z to G, H, and T. But the columns in I I´ are not repeated in the small rooms, Z Z´; room V is covered with a groined vault instead of the barrel vault of F, and the court A is not closed with a wall like the court K. I make no doubt that both these groups of rooms, which are so strikingly similar in arrangement, were intended for the same purposes, and I conjecture that they were ceremonial reception rooms. Herzfeld has compared E and F with the throne room of Mshatta (_Der Islâm_, loc. cit.).

All the rooms and corridors of the palace are vaulted. Some of the finer vaults are built of brick tiles (for example, over the great hall B and over rooms E, F, I, and I´), but as a rule the vaults are constructed with stones set in mortar, the stones being cut into thin slabs so as to resemble bricks as closely as possible. (_Cf._ the Sassanian palace of Firûzâbâd, Dieulafoy, _L’Art Ancien de la Perse_, vol. iv.) All the vaults, whether of brick or stone, are built without centering, and all are set forward slightly from the face of the wall. (The same construction is found at Ctesiphon, see below, Fig. 109.)[83] The groined vault occurs seven times in the corridor C C´ (Fig. 98), and it is also found in room V. (See my article in the _Hellenic Journal_ above cited.) The fluted dome over room A is bracketed across the corners of the rectangular substructure (Fig. 88). In several cases where a barrel vault terminates not against a head wall, but against another section of barrel vault, it is adjusted to the angles of the substructure by means of squinch arches (Fig. 99). A noticeable feature of the vault construction of Ukheiḍir is the presence of masonry tubes running between the parallel barrel vaults (Fig. 100). The structural purpose of these tubes is to diminish the mass of masonry between the barrel vaults. Whenever two barrel vaults lie parallel to one another, a tube will be found between them, and similar tubes exist between the vault of the cloister O O and O´ O´ and the outer wall. (See too Fig. 95, which shows a tube between a barrel vault and a straight wall.) Over the vaults of the rooms of the annex in the eastern part of the court, and also over the vaults of the fourteen parallel chambers outside the enclosing wall to the north, a false roof is laid (Fig. 103). It serves as a protection against the heat of the sun. Under the eastern annex there are some much-ruined subterranean chambers. A staircase at the south-eastern angle of court D leads down into similar cellars (serâdîb).

The arches over the doorways are usually of an ovoid shape, sometimes slightly pointed. When the door-jambs take the form of engaged columns, the capitals of the columns, roughly blocked out in masonry, carry an arch slightly narrower in width than the opening of the doorway beneath it. But when the door-jambs are formed merely by the straight section of the wall, the span of the arch is wider than the opening of the doorway (Fig. 102 illustrates both types). This set-back of the arch was doubtless employed in order to facilitate the placing of centering beams. Three wide doorways with round arches, b b´ and c, lead from the main block of the palace building into the surrounding court. The arches are usually characterized by double rings of voussoirs (_cf._ Ctesiphon and other buildings of the Sassanian and early Mohammadan period), the inner ring laid so as to show the broad face of the stones or tiles, while the narrow end shows in the outer ring. (See the arch in Fig. 102.) The arch construction in the eastern annex is, however, much rougher in style. The outer ring of voussoirs is omitted there, nor is it invariable in other parts of the palace.

The niche plays a large part in the decoration of Ukheiḍir. A row of narrow niches runs along the top of the outer face of the northern enclosing wall, but very little of it is now left (Fig. 87). The southern face of the three-storeyed block bears an elaborate niche decoration (Fig. 91). Here the lowest row of niches forms part of the series already mentioned which runs round court D. Above these, on the second storey, are remains of another row of arched niches, each of which contains three small niches. So far as I know, this feature of a large niche enclosing groups of smaller niches has not yet been observed in Sassanian architecture. It is found, however, in a certain well-known type of early Christian church (see, for instance, Ala Klisse, published by me in the _Thousand and One Churches_, p. 403). On the third storey of the palace the face of the wall has been left blank, but above the windows there are still traces of a third order of small niches. Pairs of niches flanked by engaged columns are to be seen in room G´. They are set high up in the wall between the transverse arches. On these transverse arches there is a plaster decoration, the same in character as that which occurs in the semi-domes at the ends of the vault in Court S (Fig. 101). The motives there used are the flute (in the squinch arch and in the conical segment of the semi-dome above it), and a pattern which resembles a tiny battlemented motive. Upon the transverse arches the battlemented motive is doubled so as to form diamond-shaped patterns. In the centre of each of these diamonds, and in the centre of the tiny arched niches at the bottom of the vault, and also between those niches, there are small funnel-shaped motives formed of concentric rings. Between the transverse arches there is a boldly worked ribbing. The arch round the eastern of the two doors that leads into corridor Q´ is surrounded by cusps (Fig. 94). (_Cf._ Ctesiphon, Dieulafoy, _op. cit._, vol. v. plate 6.) A blind arcade, borne by pilasters, is to be seen in courts M M´ and N N´. In the antechamber U there are shallow niches on either side of the doors.

With regard to the date of Ukheiḍir there are three possible hypotheses. It may belong--

1. To the Sassanian or Lakhmid period prior to the Mohammadan conquest.

2. To the 150 years after the Mohammadan conquest.

3. To the Abbâsid period, _i. e._ after A.D. 750.

1. In defence of the first theory can be urged the close relationship between Ukheiḍir and other places of the Sassanian age, not only in plan (_cf._ Ḳaṣr-i-Shîrîn, de Morgan, _Mission Scientifique en Perse_, vol. iv., part 2), but also in the technique of brick and stone masonry and in the principles of vault construction (_cf._ Ctesiphon, Firûzâbâd, and Sarvistân, Dieulafoy, _op. cit._). But since it is certain that the arts of the early Moslem era were dominated in Mesopotamia by Sassanian influence, these affinities do not offer a convincing proof of a pre-Mohammadan date. Even if Ukheiḍir belonged to the early Moslem age, it might, and probably would, have been built by Persian workmen. At the same time certain architectural features, such as the groined vault and the fluted dome, have not hitherto been observed in any Sassanian building. The earliest Mesopotamian example of the groined vault known to me, besides the groins of Ukheiḍir, is that of which fragments can be seen in the Baghdâd Gate at Raḳḳah.

There is, further, a passage in Yâḳût’s Dictionary which might help to support the theory of a pre-Mohammadan origin (vol. ii., p. 626, under Dûmat ej Jandal). In the accounts given by the Arab historians of the invasion of Mesopotamia in 12 A.H. (A.D. 633-4), by Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd, frequent mention is made of ’Ain et Tamr, which Yâḳût expressly states to be the same as Shefâthâ (Shetâteh is the modern colloquial form of the name). When Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd had taken the oasis, which was inhabited by Christian Arabs, and appears to have been the one place that offered him serious resistance (Teano: _Annali dell’Islam_, vol. ii., p. 940), he is said to have marched on Dûmat ej Jandal, which he captured, putting to death its defender, Ukeidir ’Abdu’l Malik el Kindî.[84] It is generally admitted that the name Dûmat ej Jandal in this account is an error, and that the fortress which was taken by the Mohammadans in the year 12 A.H. was Dûmat el Ḥîrah. (For the reasons for substituting Dûmat el Ḥîrah for Dûmat ej Jandal in Ṭabarî’s text, see Teano, _op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 991.) Now Yâḳût gives two conflicting traditions concerning the foundation of Dûmat el Ḥîrah, but he expresses no uncertainty as to its position. It was near to ’Ain et Tamr, and its ruins were known in Yâḳût’s day (thirteenth century). According to the first tradition given by Yâḳût, the Prophet sent Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd in the year 9 A.H. against Ukeidir, who was lord of Dûmat ej Jandal. Khâlid captured Dûmat ej Jandal and made a treaty with Ukeidir, but after the death of Mohammad, Ukeidir broke the treaty, whereupon the Khalif ’Umar expelled him from Dûmat ej Jandal. He retired to Ḥîrah and built himself a palace near to ’Ain et Tamr, which he called Dûmah. This Dûmah, near ’Ain et Tamr, is no doubt Dûmat el Ḥîrah which Khâlid besieged and took in the year 12 A.H. The second tradition is substantially the same as the first as far as the Mohammadan invasion is concerned, but Yâḳût here implies that Ukeidir dwelt in the first instance at Dûmat el Ḥîrah, and was accustomed to resort to Dûmat ej Jandal for the purposes of the chase, and he adds that Ukeidir named Dûmat ej Jandal after Dûmat el Ḥîrah. Prince Teano (_op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 262) has exposed the improbabilities which attend this explanation, and he concludes that both traditions are equally untrustworthy, and doubts the authenticity of any part of the story of Ukeidir. It does, however, appear to me to be possible that the ruins of Dûmat el Ḥîrah which were standing in Yâḳût’s day were no other than the abandoned palace of Ukheiḍir, though it is not necessary to accept either of Yâḳût’s versions of the story of its foundation.

2. If the palace is to be ascribed to the period immediately succeeding the conquest, it would be a Mesopotamian representative of the group of pleasure palaces which were built upon the Syrian side of the desert by the Umayyad princes (Lammens: _La Badia et la Ḥîra, Mélanges de la faculté orientale_, Beyrout, vol. iv., p. 91). But whereas it was natural that the Umayyad khalifs should have constructed hunting palaces in that part of the desert which lay on the direct road between their capital of Damascus and the spiritual capitals of their empire, Mecca and Medina, it is difficult to see why they should have selected a site so far from any of their habitual residences as Ukheiḍir. It is true that the Khalif ’Alî made Kûfah his capital for five years. He was assassinated there in A.D. 661. But during those years he was ceaselessly occupied in quelling rebellions, and I dismiss the possibility that he should have found leisure to build or to use the palace of Ukheiḍir.

3. I am not disposed to place Ukheiḍir as late as the Abbâsid period. The Abbâsid princes had lost the habit of the desert which was so strong a characteristic of their Umayyad predecessors. When they moved away from their capital of Baghdâd they built themselves cities like Raḳḳah and Sâmarrâ. Moreover, the architectural features of Ukheiḍir, both structural and decorative, present marked differences from those of the ruins at Raḳḳah and at Sâmarrâ, and on architectural as well as on historical grounds I am inclined to ascribe Ukheiḍir to an earlier age.

Whether that age be immediately before the Mohammadan conquest, or whether it fall shortly after the conquest, during the Umayyad period, I do not think we are as yet in a position to determine. It is to be borne in mind that the ruins of the palace bear witness to two different dates of building. The eastern annex and probably the edifice outside the enclosing wall to the north are an addition to the original plan and must be of a slightly later date.