Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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Ashsha'eeb's topography helped residents in securing a steady, though sluggish and
precarious, development during the last four centuries. According to the 1974 census,
Ashsha'eeb sub-region had a population of 6,030 inhabitants. Huraimla alone claimed
3,870 inhabitants (64%) of Ashsha'eeb's total population. By 1987, Huraimla's
population rose to 5,500.
II. HISTORY: GENESIS
Throughout its relatively short history of five centuries, Huraimla has experienced
crucial episodes giving the town its distinctive character among the A'ard region which
includes Riyadh and Diry'ah, the cradle of the A1 Saud house. For example, Huraimla was
the first nominee for Mohammed bin Abdul-Wahhab's drive for religious reform known in
the West as Wahhabism. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab called for the reestablishment of the pure
teachings of the Prophet Mohammed who lived in the seventh century A.D. His reform
zeal set in motion a religious-expansionist drive which culminated in the creation of modern
Saudi Arabia. Huraimla was also the starting point of the second drive to unify the country
under the Al-Saud dynasty following the razing of Dyri'ah by the Ottoman viceroy in
Egypt, Ibrahim Basha in 1811. In 1259H/C. 1824 Huraimla's ruler, Hamad A1 Mubarak,
hosted Imam Faisal Bin Turky Al-Saud, the grand father of King Abdul-Aziz, the founder
of today's Saudi Arabia, following his escape from captivity in Egypt. Since its
establishment in the ninth century H (c. 15th A.D.), Huraimla secured a leading position in
the ensemble of settlements comprising Ashsha'eeb area. Nearby inhabitants and nomads
visited the settlement for religious advice by its qadi (judge or religious scholar) and for its
market.
Although a reference to Huraimla can be found in pre-Islamic and early Islamic
poems, sources point that the Huraimla area was part of a large territory owned by a
influential Najdi ruler. 4 However, the significant indication for actual physical, building
and agriculture, development goes back to 880H/1460 AD. It is commonly narrated and
accepted that the existing Huraimla was first developed in 1460 by the son of a prominent
tribal chief who lived in Syria. Yousuf Abo-Reeshah was told by his father, who
descended from Najdi origins and probably heard about the location, to immigrate back to
Najd in order to avoid the war then raging between some tribes living in Syria. Putatively,
Abo-Reeshah, following the instruction of his father, found in the relatively bestowed wadi