Al-Ukhaydir (also spelled al-Akhthar, al-Akhdar, al-Akhider, Akhizer), also known as Haydar or Aqabat, is a site in the Tabuk Province in Saudi Arabia, located southeast of Tabuk. During early Ottoman rule, a fort was built at the site, part of the larger network of fortifications along the Hajj caravan route to Medina and Mecca.
Etymology
The fort's name al-Ukhaydir is Arabic for "the small green place". According to archaeologist Andrew Petersen, the exact origin of the name is unclear. A likely possibility is that it was linked to the tradition of Elijah, who is commonly identified by Levantine Muslims as al-Khadr. Al-Khadr is also the subject of local Arabian legend. The association with al-Khadr was mentioned by travelers and visiting historians throughout the Ottoman era (1517–1917) and a shrine dedicated to al-Khadr was situated within the fort's walls.
Petersen suggests that "the name may reflect the greenness of this site, in an area of overwhelming aridity". Historian Richard Blackburn also relates that the "sparse greenery thereabouts is said to account" for its name, "little green place or Wadi al-Ukhaydir (slightly green valley)".
Location
Al-Ukhaydir is located south of Tabuk in the Tabuk Province of Saudi Arabia. It was a midway point in the Syria–Hejaz route, being south of Damascus and north of Medina. It is situated on sandy grounds in a deep gorge surrounded by rocky slopes, partly covered by lava.
History
Al-Ukhaydir is first clearly mentioned in the early 13th century, during Ayyubid rule, by Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, who noted that the Islamic prophet Muhammad prayed at the site on his way to Tabuk in 630. A mosque was built at the place where he prayed, which was located in the center of a wadi (dry riverbed) called "Wadi al-Ukhaydir". The 14th-century traveler Ibn Batuta remarked that Wadi al-Ukhaydir was isolated in the wilderness and referred to it as a "valley of hell" where many Hajj pilgrims had died one year because of a water shortage at the site. Moreover, he recorded that the story of the deadly episode had been inscribed on a rock at the site by one of the pilgrims.
The Ottoman Empire conquered Hejaz, including al-Ukhaydir, from the Mamluks by 1517. Not long before then, a reservoir had been built at al-Ukhaydir, because in 1517 an anonymous source described intertribal fighting at the pool, which rendered it unusable by the Hajj pilgrims that year. As an unprotected rest stop and watering place on the Hajj route from Damascus to Medina, the Ottomans sought to fortify the site, along with numerous others throughout the 16th century. A particularly urgent reason to fortify al-Ukhaydir was due to the poisoning of its reservoir with colocynth by a certain Mulhim, the chieftain of the Bedouin tribe of Banu Lam al-Mafarija, in 1530. Mulhim continued to sabotage the Hajj caravan's rest stops until being defeated by the pilgrim caravan at al-Mu'azzam at significant loss of life to the pilgrims.
To prevent recurrent sabotage by the Bedouin, including al-Mafarija and Banu Uqbah, Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent decreed the construction of a fort at al-Ukhaydir in 1531/32. Accordingly, the governor of Damascus, Mustafa Ablaq Pasha, commanded the Lajjun-based Arab strongman, Turabay ibn Qaraja, to build a fort at the site, which was completed in forty days. Twenty local Janissaries from Damascus were regularly posted at al-Ukhaydir, and a tax on pilgrims' goods was collected at the fort to contribute to the troops' wages.