Jeddah
From Free net encyclopedia
- This article is about the Saudi Arabian city. For the Australian movie, see Jedda.
Jeddah (also spelled Jedda, Jiddah, or Juddah; جدّة Ǧiddah) is the major urban center in western Saudi Arabia, the largest in Makkah Province, and the second largest city in the Kingdom after the capital city Riyadh. The population of the city currently stands at over 3.4 million.
Located on the Red Sea (Template:Coor d), the city was founded as a fishing village over 2,500 years ago, but first achieved prominence in 647 A.D., when the Muslim caliph Uthman ibn Affan turned it into a port for Muslim pilgrims making the required hajj to Mecca. Today, it serves as the gateway par excellence for the millions of pilgrims who arrive by air or, more traditionally, still by sea.
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Etymology and spelling
There are two explanations for the etymology of the name 'Jeddah'. One is that name means "seashore," since Jeddah is located along the Red Sea coast and is Saudi Arabia's most important commercial port. The more common account has it that the name is derived from jaddah, the Arabic word for "grandmother". According to Arab folk belief, the tomb of Eve, considered the grandmother of all humanity, is located in Jeddah. The supposed tomb of Eve was sealed with concrete by the religious authorities in 1975 as a result of some Muslim pilgrims breaking Wahhabi Islamic tradition by praying at Eve's tomb.
On official Saudi maps and documents, the city name is transcribed "Jeddah". The British Foreign Office, however, still insists on using the older spelling of Jedda, contrary to all other English-speaking usage -- including other branches of the British government.
Locations
The Old City with its traditional multistory buildings and merchants' houses has lost ground to modern development, but recent generations have come to appreciate its traditions more, and many older buildings are carefully preserved.
The city has several popular beaches, including Durat Alarous, Alremal, Shums, Bait Albahar and Alnakil and is renowned for the Red Sea marine life of its many offshore coral reefs.
Modern Jeddah is renowned for its lavish shopping malls, such as Jeddah Mall, Tahlya mall, Le Mall, and Heraa Mall.
Jeddah is served by King Abdulaziz International Airport, a special outdoor "tent" terminal of which was constructed to handle the more than 2 million pilgrims who pass through the airport during the Hajj season. Image:Jeddahcityaerial.jpg Image:Space Jeddah.jpg
History
Jeddah was for centuries the main city of the historic Hejaz province and historic port for pilgrims arriving by sea on their pilgrimage or hajj to Mecca. In 1924, King Ibn Sa'ud, whose clan originated in the central Najd province, conquered Mecca, Medina, and Jeddah, and deposed the Sharif, or ruler, of Mecca and the Hejaz, Hussein Bin 'Ali Al Hashem, who fled to Cyprus, settling eventually in Amman, Jordan, where his descendents became the Hashemite royal family (current king Abdullah II). In this way, as part of Hejaz, Jeddah came under the sway of the Sa'ud dynasty. In 1926, Ibn Sa'ud added the title King of Hijaz to his position of Sultan of Najd. Today, Jeddah has lost its historical role in peninsular politics, historic Hejaz province along the west coast having been subdivided into smaller provinces, with Jeddah falling within the new province of Makkah with its provincial capital Mecca (official spelling "Makkah").
Diversity
Popular Saudi opinion regards Jeddah as the most liberal and cosmopolitan of Saudi cities in spite of its historic role as port and gateway to the holy city of Mecca. For over one thousand years, Jeddah has received thousands of pligrims of different ethnicities and backgrounds -- from Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia -- many of whom remained and became citizens of the city. As a result, Jeddah is much more ethnically diverse than most Saudi cities and its culture more eclectic in nature (in contrast with the more geographically isolated and homogeneous -- and religiously strict capital Riyadh). Different nationalities of Muslims often prescribe to different sects of Islam, and the presence of these sects in Hijazi culture has helped make the city relatively more tolerant traditionally. Added to the traditional diversity, the oil-boom of the past 50 years has brought hundreds of thousands of new economic immigrants and foreign workers from non-Muslim countries such as the US, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Gallery
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Open-air art
During the oil boom in the late 1970s and '80s, there was a focused civic effort at bringing art to Jeddah's public areas. As a result, Jeddah contains an unusually large number of modern open air sculptures and works of art, typically situated in traffic round-abouts which makes it to this day the largest open-air art gallery in the world. Sculptures include works by a variety of artists, ranging from the obscure to international stars such as Jean Arp, Cesar, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Victor Vasarely and often depict elements of traditional Saudi culture -- coffee pots, incense burners, palm trees, etc. The fact that Islamic tradition prohibits the depiction of living creatures, notably the human form, has made for some very creative modern art, ranging from the tasteful to the bizarre, to the down-right hideous. These include a mounted defunct propeller plane, a giant geometry set, a giant bicycle, and a huge block of marble with several cars protruding out of it at odd angles.
References
- Farsi, Hani M.S. ( Mohamed Said): Jeddah: city of art: the sculptures and monuments. London: Stacey International, 1991. ISBN 0905743660
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