Yemen: The Unknown Arabia

by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

A country long regarded by classical geographers as a fabulous land where flying serpents guarded sacred incense groves, while medieval Arab visitors told tales of disappearing islands and menstruating mountains. Our current ideas of this country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula have been hijacked by images of the terrorist strongholds, drone attacks, and diplomatic tensions. But, as Mackintosh-Smith reminds us in this newly updated book, there is another Arabia. Yemen may be a part of Arabia, but it is like no place on earth.

Genres: Travel, Middle East, History, Nonfiction, Asia, Cultural, Society

280 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

About the author

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is an eminent Arabist, translator, and traveler whose previous publications include Travels with a Tangerine and Yemen. He has lived in the Arab world for thirty-five years and is a senior fellow of the Library of Arabic Literature.

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yemen as she always/never was

I've given up my long-held dream of traveling in Yemen. Once I thought I might even study Arabic and try to do some anthropological research there on the shrines visited by Indian Muslims. But my fate was always centered in India. I'd collected as many books about Yemen as I could and now, since I won't be living those travels or doing that work, I've started reading them all. They are gathered around two poles: academic and travel writing. I've read Steven Caton, Paul Dresch, and Engseng Ho. These books give you a solid, more "professional" view of Yemen, though Caton's "Yemen Chronicle" is as far from "dry academic" as you can get and still be serious. In the field of travel writing, I've read Claudie Fayein's book from the 1950s plus Kevin Rushby and Eric Hansen. Now I've just finished Mackintosh-Smith's travel opus. I must say that taken together, this is a most impressive body of work for a country that on a world scale does not loom large.

Mackintosh-Smith seems to be a man who found another part of himself in a faraway land and never went home. There must be something in the UK that drives or attracts certain men to take up life in the Arab world. The author had lived in Yemen many years by the time he wrote this book and spoke fluent Arabic. Like Kevin Rushby, who frequently "ate the flowers of paradise", Mackintosh-Smith adapted to all facets of Yemeni life and walked through the mountains and deserts of his adopted homeland as well as through the crowded streets of San'a and the various villages and small towns he came across. In the book he goes to the north, through the mountains and down to the Tihama coastal plain, to Aden (where he views the strange debris of British occupation crossed with Marxist government overthrown), to the far reaches of the Hadramawt, and finally to the remote, but fascinating island of Socotra. He may not have been the only one to do this, but he has certainly written the most poetic, literary book to come out about Yemen so far. Coupled with a fine, wry British sense of humor, YEMEN: THE UNKNOWN ARABIA cannot fail to please readers. If you are looking for a book that presents INFORMATION, for God's sake, go someplace else. This is a romantic work. I think there is room for romantic works in this world. In fact, a world without them would be awful. Mackintosh-Smith does not pretend to write a scholarly tome, but still, historical and political information does flesh out his personal experiences together with legends, tall tales, and weird details. All in all, this is a wonderful book; a must-read for anyone interested in Yemen. It does not intimate anything of what has unfolded since 2011 and it does not present Yemen as a Third World country in need of health care, education, and population control, not to mention a solution to serious water problems. I wonder what has happened to the author. Perhaps the Yemen he has described so well will persist, but I fear not in the same form. For him, this may be a tragedy, but I'm not so sure Yemenis would entirely agree.

P.S. The drawings scattered throughout the book are as insipid and uninteresting as the text is vivid and interesting. I cannot understand why he didn't use photographs or at least some more finished work.

[Katrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was. . . a slow start. The subject material is or should be fascinating but somehow the author's style just makes the narrative drag until the last three chapters or so when it picks up and becomes a good read. Am not so sure the initial slog is worth it.

[Rubli Carran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've got to stop reading white men travels abroad expecting something unique. reads like a travel guide

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Mackintosh-Smith offers a loving, meandering account of a region that these days is only in the news for terrible - if unfortunately real - reasons. As I all too often fall pray to the monolithic portrayals of the Arab and Muslim worlds, it is refreshing to read about wondrous, unheard-of places in Yemen that have nothing to do with Anwar Al-Awlaki or the Bin-Ladens. Aden, a major port and one-time seat of the Arab world's only Communist regime, and Suqutra, an island closer to Somalia than the rest of Yemen with a unique language and sui generis flora, are described beautifully. Mackintosh-Smith's digressions into pre-Islamic mythology (in many ways still going strong) and genealogy are likewise stunning. Topping it off, there are intriguing tidbits on Arabic linguistics scattered throughout the book, so if you are a student of the language (perhaps a dilletantish one like myself), then you will enjoy this rambling tour even more so.

Three Favorite Passages

1. "Somebody once said that every Arabic word means itself, its opposite or a camel."

2. "I remembered the baboon I had met in a San'a street. It was blocking the way, teeth bared. I picked up a stone. So did the baboon. We stood glaring at each other until a group of men came calling, 'Sa'id! Sa'id!', and it scampered off down a side alley. Pet baboons are always called Sa'id, which means 'happy'. They are usually catatonically depressed or in a snarling rage."

3. "It was during Tahirid times that the great Sufi holy man of Aden, Abu Bakr ibn Abdullah al-Aydarus, lived. His superhuman doings, in addition to the toothstick exploit, included making the sky rain milk during a famine. Today, the saint's annual festival is still by far the largest in Aden. Al-Aydarus, however, did not monopolize the miraculous. His predecessor Shaykh Jawhar had a cat called Sa'adah, Felicity, which would indicate how much lunch to prepare by miaowing the number of guests. One day Felicity was found to have miscounted, until it was realized that she had subtracted two of the guests because they were Christians."

[Harry Rutherford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was originally considering Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land as my book from Yemen for the Read The World challenge, but I’ve tracked down a novel by an actual Yemeni writer which is available in English, so I’ll read that at some stage. I still wanted to read Travels in Dictionary Land, though, because I very much enjoyed Mackintosh-Smith’s two books following in the footsteps of the medieval Arab traveller Ibn Battutah.

I’m not quite sure how long Mackintosh-Smith had lived in Yemen when this book was published 10 years ago, but he still lives there; he is clearly deeply engaged with Arab culture, history and language generally and Yemen in particular — in fact, living in San’a and chewing qat, I think in the terminology of the Empire they would have said he has gone native — and the book mixes what you might call straight travel writing with historical context and snippets of literature and mythology.

I think it’s easiest to just quote a couple of passages.

Very occasionally they [scorpions] are found in bunches of qat. Once, a baby one walked out of my bundle and across my lap, and disappeared among the leavings in the the middle of the room. I have never seen qat-chewers move faster. Another creature that sometimes pops up in qat is the fukhakh, the hisser — the Yemeni name for the chameleon. Its blood taken externally is a cure for baldness, but its breath makes your teeth fall out.. The gecko too is often killed, as it eats the remains of food from around your mouth as you sleep, pisses and gives you spots. Despite this I have been attached to several that have grown up in my house as they are clever flycatchers and converse, like the Hottentots, in clicks.

Or, in a bar in Aden:

Then the band broke into a sort of Egyptian glam-rock number and, unexpectedly, the floor filled with young men dressed in Paisley pattern shirts and pleated trousers. The number of pleats seemed to reflect their prowess at dancing. One particularly energetic youth — a twenty-pleater — shone out: his pelvis was articulated in extraordinary places, and spurts of sweat shot from his forehead. These were the mutamaykalin, the Michaelesques — the fans of Michael Jackson.

So, generally speaking, enjoyable stuff. Some of the political/history passages are less gripping than the travel anecdotes, but at least I now know a lot more about Yemen.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this book last year because of a new job and slowly made my way through it. As I got more familiar with the Yemen for work, the book got easier and easier to read. At first, I thought Mackintosh-Smith was the pinnacle of a classical Orientalist, with way too many references to classical antiquity and European history for me as someone from North America to be able to properly follow without additional academic training. But as the book progressed, it became clear that this is not really a travel book; it's the writing of someone who migrated to Yemen and stayed, and when I looked up Mackintosh-Smith's background, my sense of his connectedness to Yemen was confirmed. (He apparently still lives there, almost 30 years after this book was originally published.) And though I wish we had quite a lot more books about Yemen, written by Yemenis, accessible in English, we do not, at the moment, so this is much better than many other options. I especially appreciated the chapters on the parts of Yemen I've been to, of course, but also the Socotra chapter, which was adept at demonstrating that even in a country much of the world perceives to be fairly homogeneous, that is certainly not the case. This book is an excellent choice for those who may have a good understanding of the Arab countries generally and want a more specific dive into Yemen particularly, and the glossary at the back makes it relatively accessible to those with little previous knowledge of the region generally. I do not like, however, that its US subtitle is "The Unknown Arabia" - essentializing and back to the Orientalism I mentioned at the beginning.

[Rajat Narula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tim Mackintosh-Smith has a deep love for Yemen and takes us on a journey to the country - both in the north (Sanaa) - and the South (Aden). He introduces the readers to the multiple tribes, communities and historically significant sites through his travels. And when I say he takes the readers there, he does that effectively. The accounts, very commonplace, are so vivid and real that you end up with a glimpse of the enigma Yemen is. The book is pre-civil ware - so it largely keeps away from the politics and the conflict, but does a great job in introducing readers to Yemeni culture. He leaves us at the rooftop of the house he lived in Sanaa, chewing qat and watching out the city and other rooftops hosting fellow qat-chewers.

[Tomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could only give this book two stars because I did learn from it. The author couldn't seem to decide what kind of book he was writing - a travelogue or a history. He didn't achieve either. The bits of information about the people there and their lives were interesting, but the book was disjointed and hard to follow. There were many examples of folklore, which were very colorful. Overall, however, I feel that I could have learned more (and in a more readable style) from a textbook.

[Christine Bowker Osborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absorbing book on Yemen, a country I know myself, but no one, writer or otherwise, could ever know Yemen as well as Tim Mackintosh-Smith, an Arabist who lived for many years in capital San'a. A charming book, filled with interesting historic and literary facts, it ranks next to other classic works on the Arab world by such author-travelers as Wilfred Thesiger and Dame Freya Stark.

[Colleen Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book by a resident since 1982 of this remote corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Terrific travel book

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Wilfred Thesiger was the sand-blasted romantic of Arabia, Tim Mackintosh-Smith is its charming court jester-scholar, with a foot in the past and a twinkle in his narrative eye.
Yemen: The Unknown Arabia is not your usual quick-glance-at-camels Middle East travelogue. Oh no. This book is a slow-roasted stew of history, humour, theology, and tea-house gossip — equal parts memoir, anthropology, and historical detective work.

Mackintosh-Smith lived in Sanaa, Yemen’s ancient highland capital, in a house with carved wooden windows and ghosts for neighbours. He didn’t just pass through — he stayed, and this gives the book its bone-deep richness. His Arabic is fluent, his references are arcane, and his love for Yemen is stitched into every anecdote — even when he's talking about collapsing buildings, tribal feuds, or three-day wedding feasts gone wrong.

The real magic is how he merges medieval Yemeni poetry with modern political commentary. One moment, he’s arguing with a bookseller about the works of al-Hamadhani; the next, he’s dodging bullets in a tribal gunfight or dissecting the linguistic elegance of goat-related insults. You don’t read this book to learn about Yemen — you read it to live inside its layers.

And now, my moment: Lockdown 2021.

The world outside is silent. Sirens, masks, hand sanitizer. Fear hangs like fog. And in that stillness, my mother hands me this book — not just a gift, but a door. While others were baking banana bread, I am sipping qishr with Yemeni scholars, walking the coffee trails of Haraz, dreaming under the star-pricked skies of Hadhramaut.

I see myself on my study desk, ceiling fan slicing the humid air, reading about a land where time moves sideways, where the Queen of Sheba once ruled, and where some houses are older than most modern cities.

And while I couldn’t travel physically, I was were travelling the most deeply I ever had.

Yemen, in my hands, became a symbol of endurance, of beauty on the brink, of the poetry that can survive even war.

I didn’t just learn about a place — I inherited it, through my mother’s gift, through the sacred quiet of pandemic solitude.

[Aira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yemen, a country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, often finds itself portrayed in the media through the lens of conflict. Tim Mackintosh-Smith's "Yemen: The Unknown Arabia" offers a refreshing counterpoint, inviting readers on a journey to discover a land steeped in history, culture, and natural wonders.

Mackintosh-Smith, who has lived in Yemen since 1982, paints a rich portrait of a place that has captivated imaginations for centuries. He weaves together tales from classical geographers who envisioned Yemen as a land of mythical creatures guarding sacred incense groves, with experiences of everyday Yemenis he encounters on his travels.

"The Unknown Arabia" highlights the unique character of Yemen. The author contrasts the fantastical myths with the very real challenges of exploring a country not yet fully on the beaten tourist path. The book sheds light on Yemeni culture, from the social custom of chewing qat (a stimulant plant) to the intricacies of the Arabic language. Mackintosh-Smith's own experiences learning the language offer a window into the warmth and hospitality of the Yemeni people.

The book doesn't shy away from the realities of Yemen in the early 1990s, a time of political upheaval following the first Gulf War. The narrative concludes with the author caught amidst these events, leaving the reader eager to learn more about the country's future. Thankfully, "The Unknown Arabia" served as the first of a series by Mackintosh-Smith, offering readers a chance to delve deeper.

"Yemen: The Unknown Arabia" is a captivating read for anyone interested in travel literature, Arabian history, or simply the desire to discover a hidden gem. It's a timely reminder that beyond the headlines, Yemen boasts a rich tapestry of culture, history, and resilience waiting to be explored.

[Rosalind · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vivid descriptions of the Yemen landscape, travelling on foot, by boat or communal taxi, and of a generous hospitable people. He often sees a funny or ironic side to life as well. I enjoyed his description of Arabic too, and the saying that any word means one thing, its opposite, and a camel (just look in a dictionary!). The chapter about Aden is a scathing and funny summary of British attitudes & imperial behaviour. The book was written in 1997, at a hopeful time for Yemen - it's good to know more about a country which now mostly features in international news as a humanitarian disaster zone.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read about a little known land, from a sympathetic western author fluent in arabic. I was always fascinated by the culture and history of the land of the Queen of Sheba, since I read Freya Stark and Gertrude Caton Thompson's memoirs.
One has to wonder what the fate of these people is, now that they've been "bombed back to the stone age" as my newspaper wrote, with massive cholera epidemics and political chaos.

[Hl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it! Great use of language, his puns are adorable, witty, funny at times, tragic at others, filled with interesting anecdotes and important historical and political points. The author shows a deep understanding of his subject as only someone living many years in Yemen and speaking Arabic (the local dialect) could. Thank you for this little jewel.
It appears that the subtitle: “ Travels in Dictionary Land” may not exist in the US version.

[Stephen Mead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating glimpse into a world rarely understood so well by a westerner. I found the description of the actual travels and places visited much easier going than the sections devoted to the history of a particular region, but very enjoyable and I will continue reading the Author, having already purchased Travels with a Tangerine and Hall of a Thousand Columns.

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yemen is a fascinating country, whichbisnwhat the author manages to get across in this book. Tim Mackintosh-Smith is at his best when writing about his travels and meeting people; not so great when relating plain history. Oddly, he mostly chews qat and tries to find things that are not there anymore. However, his encounters with local Yemeni people are what makes this book so fascinating.

[Prayash Giria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A largely engrossing read about little-known Yemen, this book does a decent job of introducing the many moving parts of the country’s landscapes, histories, cultures, and customs. However, it does tend to get caught up in its own minutiae of observations, and many passages will have you zoning out. The book would’ve benefitted greatly from just a little more concision.

[Joy Summers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars seems a little churlish on my part for such a good book. I was expecting it to be more of a tale of linguistics and travel. Living with descendants of the Yemenis, I had hoped to glean more about the dialect I am learning but that does not take away from how enjoyable the book was

[Matthew J Patenaude · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating account!

The author did an amazing job of allowing the reader to feel as though he as traveling along with him through this fascinating country. I enjoyed the historical grounding given to the narrative as well.

[Christopher Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A marvellously erudite account of Mackintosh-Smith's time in Yemen. So full to bursting with facts and information and historical digressions that it took me a few months to read - but I'm glad I did.

[Alan Fricker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this mixture of history, geography, culture and travel. Full of sillyness and learning.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating

Excellent travel writer and historian voyages through Yemen with sometimes amusing, sometimes sad, reflections on the history and the people.

[David Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

chthonic

[Bedbyas Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to know more about Yemen.

[Chris Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful melange of erudite historical and social rumination and personal reflection. The Yemen of today is quite different - sadly, I think - and I wonder what Mackintosh-Smith thinks about that.

[A. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wittily written and informative book.

[Seb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting travel/historical book on Yemen, a country that gets skipped over often in Arabic travel books for the more ancient and modern parts of Arabia. Yemen is a fascinating place and the author makes that clear through his style of writing and exploring the country. The part on Suqutra was particularly interesting. In light of modern conflict in Yemen I’d be interested to see what he thinks of the country now, and what these places look like today.

[Alberto Tebaldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice read on this not-so-well-known Arabian country. I like the idea of un-travel as living the country instead of passing by. Sometimes author's style is a bit over-elaborated, but nice book anyhow.

[Elise Paul-Hus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not finished the book yet but the chapter on Socotra Island is brilliant.