As for music, even hotel lifts were banned from broadcasting any music. Yet here I was, a blond-haired woman from London doing the unthinkable travelling in Western attire passing freely through the ultra-modern King Khalid International Airport in the capital Riyadh having my passport stamped by a female whose face was not obscured by a niqab.įor the longest time, there were no cinemas screening western films and now I see billboards advertising them. Yet from its inception as an absolute monarchy in 1947, the borders have been closed to non-Muslim tourists jealously guarding its Islamic culture, effectively keeping its UNESCO sites, such as the ruins of the Nabatean Kingdom in Al-‘Ula, away from Western eyes.Ĭlerics bolstered the power of the royal family ensuring religiosity paved the way for secrecy while religious police (mutawa ) ensured women were hidden behind an abaya and certainly not seen working or walking with members of the opposite sex in public.įor 75 years the only stories heard by the west were of controversial human rights issues, capital punishment and the headline news of the alleged assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. ![]() This, after all, is Saudi Arabia, a young country of 13 provinces, whose people have been living nomadically on this land for thousands of years. ![]() I never imagined that I would ever follow in the footsteps of Laurence of Arabia in any way shape or form to the world’s 12th largest country and the largest in the Middle East.
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