Sari Street is one of the main arteries of Jeddah and is heavily laden with commercial premises on both sides of the road. During the day it is easy to drive past Rugs Oasis, directly opposite Sawary Superstore, and not notice it. However, after sunset Rugs Oasis catches the eye as its artificial lighting softly illuminating the hanging wool and silk carpets makes them look like ancient manuscripts.

Tucked in amongst this kaleidoscope of color are alluring vegetable dyed carpets from Shirvan in the Caucasus, emitting a multitude of rich and sharp colors like shimmering diamonds that bounce reds, greens, blues and yellows off their facets. Once inside the shop, you will only discover top quality carpets form Russia, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan. Further investigation reveals folded piles of old and antique Turkoman tribal textiles, such as jollars, khourjeen and chuvals that emit that unmistakable smell of age and history. Located upstairs on the newly erected first floor are tightly rolled, upright rows of curvilinear silk Qums. In sharp contrast to the elegance of the Qum carpets, a madder-root red, village-produced, Turkoman Tekke gul design carpet is laid before them.

A very charming Afghan Turkoman, Muhammad Akbar Ismail, manages the shop. His character is as colorful as the rugs he sells, and his knowledge about everything on display is as detailed as a finely woven Nain charlah. Muhammad has carpets and dyes running through his veins. The shop has been in business for almost six years and attracts a very large number of Western expats.

“Seventy percent are Western customers compared to 25 percent Saudi and 5 percent from elsewhere,” says Muhammad who is in his national dress consisting of a handmade silk turban and a grass-green colored cloak similar to the one worn by the Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Green tea is offered and warmly accepted.

“Turkoman hospitality is second to none,” declares Muhammad.

Muhammad was born in Andkhoy in northern Afghanistan. He is of Turkoman decent. His grandfather was born in Kerki in Turkmenistan and the family belongs to the famous Ersari Turkoman weaving tribe. The Soviet invasion of Turkmenistan during the early 1920s and the suppressive and oppressive rule that followed was an anathema to the freely roaming, highly independent, fiercely proud and artistically creative Turkoman tribes.

The Tekke and the Ersari tribes fled the Soviet control of their country and crossed the border moving into northern Afghanistan and northern Iran. Many Turkoman Ersari tribes found sanctuary in the far northern Afghan town of Andkhoy and to this day the majority remain.

Muhammad’s grandfather was a rangemeezi (master dyer) as well as a carpet weaver. All of his secret formulas for producing jewel like colors have been passed on down to Muhammad courtesy of his father Ismail. Muhammad vividly remembers as a child in Andkhoy his responsibility for keeping the fires raging underneath the large dye vats and the intermittent stirring of the bubbling dyes.

“My father used the esparek leaf to produce soft yellows, madder root for the world famous glowing reds and oranges, as well as rich dark blues from the indigo plant imported from India and various hues of greens produced by mixing the exact amounts of esparek and indigo,” he recalls. “When the dyes were ready to use, large amounts of ivory wool would be immersed into the dye vats and bubbled away for an exact amount of time in order to produce a particular hue of color.”

The image of Muhammad’s father pulling out the naturally dyed wool from the dye vats evokes childhood memories of a fairytale Rumplestiltskin working his magical spinning wheel and producing the reds, greens, yellows and blues of rubies, emeralds, diamonds and sapphires.

Muhammad looks toward his Andkhoy carpets on display and stares momentarily at them, as if for inspiration. A telling smile of recollection breaks and he describes how his father, fearing Russian expansion into Andkhoy during the 1980s, packed up his family including himself and moved to the relative safety of Kabul.

“My father left all of his dye vats and looms in Andkhoy as they were too big and cumbersome to carry with us. However, after settling down in Kabul, my father was soon acting as a carpet middleman selling the locally produced carpets to visitors to Kabul.”

At the same time, Muhammad was concentrating on his studies. He had an ear for languages and he learned Russian at school and English at home. Today, he speaks another seven languages that include Turkoman, Persian-Derri, Pashto, Arabic, Urdu, German and Uzbek. Considering that Muhammad can speak nine languages and is able to naturally dye wool and weave a carpet, he is more competent than the majority of carpet dealers not only here in Jeddah but all over the world.

All of this expertise allows him to personally travel to Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey and China and view all carpets at their source. He will know instinctively which carpets are synthetically dyed and which ones are naturally dyed. He will be able to distinguish the varying degrees of qualities and of course he is able to distinguish a copy from an original. He says that he gets a lot of pleasure and personal satisfaction when he visits remote villages and views and buys carpets from the village weavers.

“My dealing with the weavers directly cuts out the middlemen. The money I pay for a carpet goes to the weaver only and that me makes me happy.”

When it was suggested to him that maybe some intrepid Westerners would like to visit remote villages and buy carpets, he laughed out loud. He adjusted his cloak and with his eyes fixed squarely on mine, he roared, “When carpet dealers or village weavers see Western people the price of their weavings quadruples!”

Furthermore, the endless search for that special carpet does have its risks. For example, Muhammad traveled to Afghanistan during the height of the Taleban rule. While in Kabul he decided to board a very dusty, dilapidated, windowless bus and make the long, hot, arduous journey to Mazar-e-Sharif in search of carpets. Before the bus approached Mazar-e-Sharif it arrived at a checkpoint that was manned by black turbaned Taleban that were menacingly endowed with AK-47s.

“The people inside the bus fell silent and everyone was doing their best to avoid eye contact with the Taleban soldiers,” he remembers.

The Taleban boarded the bus and spotted Muhammad immediately because he did not have a beard. Beards were mandatory in Taleban-controlled Afghanistan. Numerous questions followed and feeling very nervous, Muhammad reached for his Afghan passport and explained that he was just visiting Afghanistan and that he lived in Jeddah. Pointing to the Saudi visas, the Taleban were convinced and allowed the bus to continue.

When it was put to Muhammad that carpets from Kunduz in Afghanistan are probably the best carpets in terms of the quality of materials used and high standard of weave, he looked very surprised. He mentioned that carpets from Kunduz were the best some 20 to 30 years ago. Today, however, Turkoman Ersari carpets from Andkhoy are the best Afghan carpets available.

He stresses that he is not saying that just because he is from Andkhoy. For example, he says that the wool used in today’s carpets from Kunduz is lacking luster and is generally inferior when compared to the finely spun, soft Belgium lamb’s wool that is used in the Turkoman Ersari carpets from Andkhoy.

Moreover, he continues, “the Andkhoy carpet weavers use soft Belgium lamb’s wool for the warps and the wefts which helps give the carpets a soft and supple feel almost like a silk carpet. Many carpets from Kunduz, however, now use cheaper cotton for the wefts. This use of cotton for the wefts stiffens the carpet.”

In line with Turkoman tradition, Muhammad has his family with him in Jeddah: His wife, four daughters, son and stepbrother.

“I will build my wife a loom and she will weave a carpet which I will display in the shop window,” he says excitedly and adds that the carpet will not be for sale.

Unfortunately, his daughters do not know how to weave and are busy with their studies. But his only son, who is 10 years old, is keenly following in his father’s footsteps, ensuring that the Ismail family presence will remain in the carpet world for many more decades to come.

***

(Send comments to [email protected], or visit www.warpsandwefts.com.)

Arab News Features 16 January 2003