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Abstract
This essay is constructed as a constellation of episodes composing a brief history of the Orientalist discourse focused on dryness as a condition of either ruin or inferiority. The deliberately fragmented narrative draws on sources such as Orientalist travel literature, historical events, popular culture, and findings from scientific journals to highlight how environmental imaginaries can be constructed and assembled differently, subsequently shaping problematic practices around the built environment.
Acknowledgments
Portions of this text along with some of its arguments have appeared in: Faysal Tabbarah, “Curator’s Not,” in In Plain Sight: Scenes from Aridly Abundant Landscapes, ed. Faysal Tabbarah and Meitha Almazrooei (Beirut: Kaph Books, 2023), 9–23; Faysal Tabbarah, “A Goodly and Clean River Runneth,” in Architecture of the Territory: Constructing the National Narrative, ed. Shereen Doummar, Elias Tamer, Edouard Souhaid, and Lynn Chamou (Zurich: Park Books, 2022), 285–301. The portion on the desert truffle has appeared in: Faysal Tabbarah, “Ghostly, Counterfeit Fruit,” in Space Wars, ed. Asaiel Al Saeed Aseel Al Yaqoub, Saphiya Abu Al Maati, and Yousef Awaad (Kuwait: NCAAL, 2021), 92–102.
Notes
1 Abdelrahman Munif, Cities of Salt (New York: Vintage, 1989), 1.
2 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 2019), 27.
3 Said, Orientalism, 2.
4 Said, Orientalism, 5.
5 Diana K. Davis, “Imperialism, Orientalism, and the Environment in the Middle East,” Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East and North Africa (Ohio University Press, 2011): 1–22.
6 I have explored ideas around environmental Orientalism and the built environment in: Faysal Tabbarah, “A Goodly and Clean River Runneth,” in Architecture of the Territory: Constructing the National Narrative, ed. Shereen Doummar, Elias Tamer, Edouard Souhaid, and Lynn Chamou (Zurich: Park Books, 2022), 285–301.
7 Said, Orientalism, 3.
8 William Makepeace Thackeray, Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo (Project Gutenberg, 1999), chap. 13, “Jerusalem” (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1863/pg1863-images.html).
9 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 13, “Jerusalem.”
10 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 2, “Lisbon-Cadiz.”
11 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 4, “Gibraltar.”
12 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 5, “Athens.”
13 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 7, “Constantinople.”
14 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 13, “Jerusalem.”
15 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 11, “A day and night in Syria.”
16 Thackeray, Notes on a Journey, chap. 15, “To Cairo.”
17 Eugene Fromentin, Un Eté dans le Sahara (Libraire Pilon, 1856; Project Gutenberg, 2011), chap. 1, “From Medeah to El-Aghouat, 22 May 1853” (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37914/37914-h/37914-h.htm).
18 Fromentin, Un Eté dans le Sahara, chap. 1, “22 May 1853.”
19 Fromentin, Un Eté dans le Sahara, chap. 1, “22 May 1853.”
20 Linda Nochlin, The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 33–59.
21 Fromentin, Un Eté dans le Sahara, chap. 1, “22 May 1853.”
22 Fromentin, Un Eté dans le Sahara, chap. 1, “22 May 1853.”
23 Diana K. Davis, “Desert ‘Wastes’ of the Maghreb: Desertification Narratives in French Colonial Environmental history of North Africa,” Cultural Geography 11 (2004): 359–87.
24 Perier uses Latin to remark that “Rome was largely supported by the fertility of Africa.” See J. A. N. Perier, Commission d’Exploration Scientifique d’Algérie (Paris: Imprimerie Royal), 29–30. A portion of this passage was first encountered in Davis, “Desert ‘Wastes’ of the Maghreb,” 362.
25 Perier, Commission d’Exploration, 30.
26 Faysal Tabbarah, “A Goodly and Clean River Runneth,” in Architecture of the Territory: Constructing the National Narrative, ed. Shereen Doummar, Elias Tamer, Edouard Souhaid, and Lynn Chamou (Zurich: Park Books, 2022), 285–01.
27 Cabinet Danger and Michel Ecochard, “Damas, Syrie: Dossier d’un Plan D’aménagement et Extension,” 1936, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, 6. Part of the Aga Khan Collection.
28 T. F. C, “Les Forets du Sahara by L. Ladauden,” Empire Forestry Journal 7:1 (1928): 91. A portion of this passage was first encountered in Diana K. Davis, “Desert ‘Wastes’ of the Maghreb: Desertification Narratives in French Colonial Environmental history of North Africa,” Cultural Geography 11 (2004): 360.
29 Davis, “Desert ‘Wastes’ of the Maghreb,” 360.
30 T. F. C, “Les Forets du Sahara,” 91.
31 “Dry.” Wiktionary. Accessed June 6, 2021. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dry.
32 Michael Williams, Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis, an Abridgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), xvii.
33 Williams, Deforesting the Earth, 67.
34 Richard H Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 27.
35 Frederic Chapin Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934), 222.
36 Chapin Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders, 220.
37 Chapin Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders, 220.
38 Chapin Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders, 220.
39 Grove, Green Imperialism, 27.
40 Grove, Green Imperialism, 26. Geographer and environmental historian Clarence J. Glacken noted a progressive “transition from purely negative prohibitions to positive measures for forest care,” where efforts had been slowly building, and protecting, a forest imaginary through a series of forest protection orders. Specifically, already between the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century CE, German kings had issued several orders to control timber extraction, with some evidence suggesting that these laws aimed at protecting forests for shipbuilding and hunting. See Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1967), 338.
41 Donald J. Hughes, “Theophrastus as Ecologist,” Environmental Review 9:4 (Winter 1985): 296–306.
42 John Scarborough, “Theophrastus on Herbals and Herbal Remedies,” Journal of the History of Biology 11:2 (Autumn 1978): 353–85.
43 Grove, Green Imperialism, 20.
44 Grove, Green Imperialism, 175–76.
45 Grove, Green Imperialism, 3–4.
46 Oxford Dictionaries, s.v. “physiocrat,”, accessed May 22, 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20140704162049/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/physiocrat?q = physiocracy#physiocrat.
47 Yves Charbit and Arundhati Virmani, “The Political Failure of an Economic Theory: Physiocracy” Population 57:6 (Nov.–Dec. 2002): 855–83.
48 More specifically, “the number of men, their geographical distribution, and their living conditions are determined by the land.” See Charbit and Virmani, “The Political Failure,” 855–83.
49 Quesnay identifies a productive class (those working in agriculture and other extractive practices), a proprietary class (landowners), and a sterile class (including all that do not directly engage with agricultural activities, such as craftsmen and merchants). See Oxford Dictionaries, “physiocrat.”
50 John Craven Wilkinson, Water and Tribal Settlement in South-East Arabia: A Study of the Aflaj of Oman, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 12. The use of Oman here is historical and does not refer to the current Sultanate of Oman. The area of focus in the book includes parts of the mountainous interior that lie in the Western Al Hajar within the Trucial States that formed the UAE in 1971.
51 S. M. Zwemer, ‘Three Journeys in Northern Oman,” The Geographical Journal 19:1 (January 1902): 54–64.
52 Duarte Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, vol. 1, trans. Mansel Longworth Dames (London: Bedford Press, 1918), 73.
53 S. M. Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 54–64.
54 Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 58.
55 Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 57.
56 Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 62.
57 Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 60.
58 Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 58.
59 Zwemer, “Three Journeys,” 58. A version of this section appears in: Faysal Tabbarah, “Curator’s Note,” in In Plain Sight: Scenes from Aridly Abundant Landscapes, ed. Faysal Tabbarah and Meitha Almazrooei (Beirut: Kaph Books, 2023), 9–23.
60 Abdelrahman Munif, Endings (Interlink Books, 1998), 1, translated by the author.
61 Munif, Endings, 19, translated by the author.
62 Munif, Endings, 22–23, translated by the author.
63 Munif, Endings, 21, translated by the author.
64 Munif, Endings, 23–24, translated by the author.
65 Updike, “Satan’s Work and Silted Cisterns,” 117.
66 Updike, John. “Satan’s Work and Silted Cisterns.” The New Yorker, 1988.
67 Updike, “Satan’s Work and Silted Cisterns,” 117.
68 “Ibrahim Al Koni: In the Desert we Visit Death,” interview with Ibrahim Al Koni, Louisiana Channel, May 22, 2023, https://channel.louisiana.dk/video/ibrahim-al-koni-desert-we-visit-.
69 “Ibrahim Al Koni: In the Desert we Visit Death.”
70 Ibrahim Al Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone (Interlink Books, 1990), 1.
71 Al Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone, 24, translated by the author.
72 Al Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone, 69, translated by the author.
73 Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias,” The Poetry Foundation, accessed February 13, 2023, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias.
74 Shelley, “Ozymandias.”
75 James Corner, preface to Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, ed. James Corner (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 1.
76 Corner, Recovering Landscape, 1.
77 J. E. Asis Spencer, “East by South: A Cultural Geography,” quoted in Landscape Planning for the Arid Middle East: An Approach to Setting Environmental Objectives, by Safei-Eldin A. Hamed (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), 20.
78 Hamed, Landscape Planning, 20.
79 I am trilingual, with Arabic as my so-called first language. I have also consulted experts in both the language as well as native Arabic speaking planners about the absence of a direct translation with similar results.
80 C. Wilson, J. R. Feucht and Susan Carter, “Xeriscaping: Creative Landscaping,” Colorado State University extension, accessed October 18, 2021, https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/yard-garden/xeriscaping-creative-landscaping-7-228/.
81 Wiktionary, s.v. “xeri-,” accessed June 6, 2021, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xeri-.
82 Cooking Sections, Becoming Xerophile, Sharjah Architecture Triennial 2019, accessed October 18, 2021, https://www.climavore.org/seasons/becoming-xerophile/.
83 Linda Chalker Scott, The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (Seattle: University of Washington Press: 2010), 101.
84 Cooking Sections, Becoming Xerophile.
85 Cooking Sections, Becoming Xerophile.
86 Chalker Scott, The Informed Gardener, 101.
87 Bedu (plural), or Bedouin (plural), is the Arabic word describing nomads or pastoral nomads.
88 Hilary Gilbert, “Bedouin Ethnobotany: Plant Concepts and Uses in a Desert Pastoral World by James P. Mandaville,” Review of Middle East Studies 47:1 (Summer 2013): 115–17.
89 Gilbert, “Bedouin Ethnobotany,” 115.
90 Gilbert, “Bedouin Ethnobotany,” 115.
91 Gilbert, “Bedouin Ethnobotany,” 115.
92 Martin Brandt, Compton Tucker, Anti Kariryaa et al., “An Unexpectedly Large Count of Trees in the West African Sahara and Sahel,” Nature 587 (2020): 78–82.
93 Brandt et al., “An Unexpectedly Large Count,”: 78–82.
94 “Chapter 3: Desertification,” IPCC, accessed March 28, 2021, https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/
95 “Chapter 3: Desertification,” IPCC.
96 “Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF),” Department of Environmental Science Aarhus University, accessed March 28, 2021, https://envs.au.dk/en/research-areas/air-pollution-emissions-and-effects/air-emissions/reporting-sectors/land-use-land-use-change-and-forestry-lulucf/.
97 Lennart Olsson, “Desertification in Africa—A Critique and an Alternative Approach,” GeoJournal 31:1 (September 1993): 23–31.
98 J. Feeney, “Desert Truffles Galore,” Aramco 53 (September/October, 2002): 22–27.
99 John Lewis Burckhardt, “Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys Collected During his Travels in the East, by the Late John Lewis Burckhardt,” [34v] (59/470), British Library: Printed Collections, W 2259, in QDL.
100 Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du goût (Paris: Charpentier, 1838), https://archive.org/details/physiologiedugo02savgoog/page/n122/mode/2up.
101 Feeney, “Desert Truffles Galore,” 22–27.
102 Persian Gulf News Summary, 1926–1930, East India Company [220r] (446/902), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/1177, in QDL.
103 See Donald Banks, “Field Notes on Sa’udi Arabia, 1935” [26v] (57/248), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/R/15/5/384, in QDL. A portion of this section has appeared in: Faysal Tabbarah, “Ghostly, Counterfeit Fruit,” in Space Wars, ed. Asaiel Al Saeed Aseel Al Yaqoub, Saphiya Abu Al Maati, and Yousef Awaad (Kuwait: NCAAL, 2021), 92–102.
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Notes on contributors
Faysal Tabbarah
Born in Aleppo, Faysal Tabbarah is an associate dean and associate professor of architecture at the College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and cofounder of the experimental architecture and design studio, Architecture + Other Things (A + OT), which is based in Sharjah. He is also the curator for the National Pavilion United Arab Emirates at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. Tabbarah’s work, across teaching, research, and practice, explores the relationships between regional environmental and architectural imaginaries, or how people bring their natural surroundings to bear on how they understand and shape their world, to develop alternative building practices that are rooted in their surrounding material and cultural environments. To achieve this, Tabbarah’s work moves between computational tools, emergent technologies, materials research, and historical archives.