AS its title, “Passing Brave”, most clearly and evidently explains this book, by William R. Polk, is a tale of a dying culture. In fact this book could be considered to be the joint efforts of Polk and his friend William J. Mares, two Americans who in a “tale of sand-choked palate, saddle-sore back and sun-reddened eye” retrace ancient Arabian caravan routes on camelback.
The writers vividly and in an iconic way recapture the final glimpses of desert Bedouin culture, which is fast approaching diminishment under the impact of modern life in the 1970s. On every step of this tedious and dangerous journey the travelers allow themselves to become dazzled and dazed by the serene beauty and mesmerizing attractions of the desert. The very sense of wonderment as described in a serene and romantic way touches a soft spot in the heart of the reader.
As a travelogue, the book also sheds interesting light on the role played by camels in the rise of Arabian civilization. Noticeably, this provokes us to question how fragile camels are in this modern period just like modern man.
In an eloquent manner the authors describe “the horse-shoe-shaped map of the Middle East” which “extends from Jerusalem to the northward along the ancient Phoenician cities at the Mediterranean coast and Mount Lebanon, passing Damascus to Aleppo, eastward along the Turkish frontier to Mosul and then south through the mountains of Kurdistan into the valley of Tigris and Euphrates rivers through Baghdad to Basra where it touches the Arabian Gulf.”
In the present day, Arabian deserts have become wetter than before. But that does not mean that desert life has also become easy. Like inhabitants of other dry lands, only those who are skilled and fit can survive in the Arabian Desert.
In the book the writer explains how as a desert animal, the camel has been perfectly designed and bred to endure the difficulties of the desert — tolerating the dry and arid climate and simultaneously able to go for long periods without water. With water rather scarce the Polk explains how the camel can survive by drinking salty water and eat thorny plants.
In ancient times people came and settled in the deserts to enjoy a sense of liberation and freedom which could not and perhaps still cannot be comprehended by those that dwell in an urban setting. Perhaps there were population pressures, the tyranny of governments, or famine, which drove people to adopt the sand of the desert as their beds and the starry open skies as their roofs. Nomads from across the Middle East and Asia gained a safe haven in Arabian Desert oases. Some came from Syria and Mesopotamia while others moved north from Yemen and across from Ethiopia and some even migrated from afar as Persia and India.
In his book William Polk describes the desert Bedouins in the light of both the Qur’an and the travelogues of Orientalists, mainly European. Polk often presents the Bedouin as a snobbish but also hospitable and avaricious people, a people concerned with honor and driven by a desperate need to avoid shame. Through his writings we learn that Polk is an admirer of the ancient Arab poet Labid, whose poetry is recognized in the Arab world to be one of the seven great poems of pre-Islamic tradition. And it was with an aim of traversing the routes taken by Labid and the places he visited centuries before, as mentioned in his poetry, that instigated Polk to undertake this arduous journey. It is with this unique historical perspective that William Polk describes the Bedouins of the 1970s.
He compares the Arabian and Bedouin civilizations with other civilizations and writes about the changes that have taken place in their lives and the challenges that face traditional Bedouin life. He insists that the desert still has the power to sharpen an individual’s personality. But then after crossing Great Nafud at the last encampment, the lines of the Golden Ode of Labid, which were recited by the writer’s companion, have a sense of loss in them.
“Then I stopped and stood asking them. But how can our questions be answered.
Deaf things, rocks of the ages, unintelligible is the speech of them.”
William Polk ends his book by saying, “Labid is dead. You were right about the truck. It has killed us all.”
In terms of content William Polk, like the famous Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and Arnold Toynbee, compares Arabian civilization and especially the Bedouin lifestyle with other civilizations. In great details they show the differences between life in an urban setting and the life in a rural desert location.
What are those salient features that have made the Bedouin so independent and individual? Why do Bedouins love their freedom more than the luxuries of city life? Why do they, or did they, raid towns situated at the edges of deserts? Why did the Arabian tribes fight each other for so many centuries? How were those disputes finally settled?
Details of the minute historical details of the Arabian tribal system, before and after Islam; the impact of Islam on the lives of the Arabs; the way by which the Arabs became a super tribe through the guidance and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) which ultimately led to the defeat of two ancient superpowers; are all questions the answers of which lie in this book.
As the winds of change, democracy and liberty howl like a desert storm in the Middle East, William Polk’s positive and negative observations from the 1970s are a source of great value for both occidental and oriental readers.