​Hidden treasures of ​Tabuk Province

Mahajah is a rocky desert located on the southeast of Tabuk Province  where erosion of sandstone formations created out-of-this-world landscapes.  It lays on the southwest of the large sand dune desert, the Nefud Al-Kebir, an ancient area known for having hosted early humans for several millenia, leading to the rich rock art found in Mahajah.

Mahajah is not well known  because of its remoteness and difficult terrain that dictates slow progress when travelling, even to the mightiest of four-wheel drive cars. That means that this part of the Saudi desert remains relatively untouched. As a result it hosts many incredible pristine sites, and it should remain that way.

The Land of Natural Arches

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is full of amazing but little known sites. Among its unknown features are natural arches that are found in many parts of the country, even in Riyadh Province. Mahajah hosts the most spectacular ones, however, especially around Jebel 'Uwayqir. There, the erosion from wind and rain sculpted a sandstone formation into three arches, the tallest reaching as high as 40 meters.

Seen from the distance the arches look tiny, but when arriving from the western side of the rock formation an impressive diamond-shape arch reveals itself. The size is striking and the symmetry of this natural sculpture is incredible.

When looking through the incredibly regular arch, the top of a second one - even higher - appears. If the first arch requires a bit of climbing to reach, this second one can be crossed by several cars simultaneously! Its elegant, slender silhouette is a beauty.

​Ancient Rock Art

The stunning natural arches of the Jebel 'Uwayqir have attracted humans for millennia, as attested to by the numerous drawings and texts carved on its sides. The truly amazing rock art in Mahajah is found at Hafirat Laqat. There, a natural rock wall, more than 160 meters long, is covered with thousands of carvings showing life-size camels, horsemen, goats, buffaloes, abstract shapes, and even a boat!

There is an incredible concentration of so-called Thamudic inscriptions. Thamudic describes the script used by Bedouins some 2 000 years ago. There are also few Nabatean texts, proving that this place, which even today is very remote, was once regularly crossed by travellers and caravans.

A Land of early European explorers

In 1883, Charles Huber, a French explorer, led his second expedition into Arabia, up to Hail Province, and went through Mahajah several times.

​How to visit Mahajah

By yourself

Mahajah is a very remote area because of its tough, rocky terrain, with fields of soft sand that dictates slow progress. Also, it is full of dead-ends, so it is only for experienced and fully equipped drivers! We strongly advise to go with one of our tour guides that know the way, and the great spots!

​With our guides

Of Sand and History

The Nefud Al-Kebir (النفود الكبير) is a large sand dune desert in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula. In Arabic its name means ‘The Great Sand Dune Desert’ and it is also known simply as the desert of Al-Nefud (صحراء النفود). It stretches over 290 kilometers from the ancient city of Tayma’ on the west until the city of Hail on the east and is 225 kilometers wide between Hail and Dumat Al-Jandal on the north.  It covers an area of an area of 103 600 square kilometers in the provinces of Hail, Al-Jawf, and Tabuk. From its eastern tip, the Nefud Al-Kebir is connected to the Dahna, a narrow corridor of sand dunes that stretches over 1 300 kilometres and reaches largest sand dune desert in the world, the Rub' Al-Khali.

As the Nefud Al-Kebir is the last large area with sand dunes before Iraq and the Levant it has for long held the reputation of being an impassable and inhospitable desert that kept the Arabian Peninsula out of reach from the rest of the world. But this is a myth. A famous example is found in the book ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by T. E. Lawrence, where he describes a daredevil crossing of the Nefud Al-Kebir in order to attack Aqaba. But Lawrence’s tale is not consistent with the reality of the terrain as there is simply no need to cross the Nefud to go to Aqaba, regardless where you start from.

Instead, the Nefud Al-Kebir played a great role in the history of the Arabian Peninsula and still carries some traces of very old human activity.

​A land of the first Homo Sapiens

In April 2018, researchers from the the Max Planck Institute announced the discovery at Al-Wusta in the Nefud Al-Kebir of an 85 000-year-old phalanx that is so far the oldest directly dated fossil of  Homo Sapien outside Africa and the Levant. It proves that early human dispersal out of Africa was not limited to winter rainfall-fed Levantine Mediterranean woodlands immediately adjacent to Africa, but extended deep into the semi-arid grasslands of Arabia, facilitated by periods of enhanced monsoon rainfall.

​Still in the Nefud Al-Kebir, the team of Michael Petraglia from the Max Planck Institute discovered a couple of years earlier at the site of Al-Marrat a small lithic assemblage that dates back to 55 000 years ago, emphasizing the long term human occupation of the area, at least during humid phases.

​A host of some of the most brilliant rock art in the world

If the climate became dryer from the 5^th millennia, human presence didn’t disappear from the Nefud. Again in Jubbah, some inscriptions in Thamudic and Nabatean scripts that are probably around 2 000 years old show that the Nefud was still crossed by caravans at that time.

Early European explorers also made the crossing the of Nefud Al-Kebir, such as the Frenchman Charles Huber, who went from Hail to Sakaka in October 1883 and made a stopover in Jubbah. During later trips Huber even carved his name on rocks not far from the Nefud Al-Kebir.

​Exploring the Nefud Al-Kebir

When penetrating the Nefud Al-Kebir, the first striking aspect is the vegetation. Indeed, millions of small bushes actually make the progress by car quite tedious, especially when it is necessary to gain momentum for climbing a sandy slope.

A second interesting feature is the shape of the dunes that are quite hilly yet scalable, unlike the steep mountains of sand of the Rub’ Al-Khali. Even the large crescent dunes that reach over 50 meters high are relatively easy to circumvent.

​Another characteristic of the Nefud Al-Kebir is the variety of color of its sand that ranges from the regular beige to red, but also from yellow to white on its edges.

​How to visit the Nefud Al-Kebir

​The Great Canyon of Saudi Arabia

Tabuk Province has one of the most incredible concentrations of natural wonders in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including many still to be discovered. In between the newly famous Jibal Hisma and Wadi Qaraqir is a more discreet but fascinating place, Al-Shaq. This name means the tear (or rip) which makes sense as here the earth has been literally torn apart by  tectonic forces. That is the reason why this place is also known as the Great Canyon of Saudi Arabia.

Al-Shaq is just 4 kilometers away from the road between Dhiba and the city of Tabuk, near a village called Shiqry. While heading west from the road there is nothing remarkable except the elegant sandstone formations that are found everywhere in that area. After 3 kilometers some large stone circles appear on the ground that are probably another example of the numerous Bronze Age (3^rd millennium BCE) tombs of the Arabian Peninsula.

But once past those tombs, what was just a shallow dry valley on the south becomes a crack in the ground that keeps on spreading until becoming a wide and impressively deep canyon. It is actually possible to be at the exact place where the breach appears and stand with feet on both sides of it.

​Al-Shaq has a little secret feature hidden in the shallow valley that becomes the canyon, a so-called mushroom rock, meaning a rock whose base is narrower than its upper part. Try to find it!

​How to visit Al-Shaq

​Tour operators organizing trips to Al-Shaq

The western tip of Mainland Saudi

​The Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed is a beautiful sandy cape located in Tabuk Province, at the junction between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The sand banks of the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed used to be the westernmost point of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia until the cession of Tiran Islands by Egypt to Saudi Arabia in 2017. Thus it is today only the westernmost point of the Saudi Arabian mainland.

The sand banks of the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed lie on coral reefs that are sometimes visible from the beach, especially on the western side of the sandy cape. They host an incredibly rich marine life which is not surprising as the world-famous diving town of Sharm Al-Sheikh in Egypt is just 30 kilometers away on the other side of the Strait of Tiran.

The beaches of the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed are not only beautiful by themselves but they also offer stunning viewpoints on the Sinai Mountains of Egypt that are just 10 kilometers to the west. From the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed the sunsets above the edges of the Sinai that fall into the Red Sea are particularly stunning.

The large bay on the south west has a peculiar sight, the wreckage of a PBY-5A Catalina, an American military seaplane from the 1930s. It has laid on the beach since  22^nd March 1960, when the retired American businessman Thomas Kendall landed near the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed for a stopover during this trip around the world with his children and his secretary. They spent the night there but the next afternoon they were attacked with machine guns and automatic firearms by Bedouins who believed it was an actual military attack! Mr Kendall tried to start the Catalina but only succeeded to move it over about a kilometer where it ran aground on a coral reef. After more than 30 minutes of intense shooting (300 shots hit the aircraft!) and about 4000 liters of fuel poured into the Red Sea, the whole crew was captured by the Bedouins.

​They were brought to Jeddah but the damaged seaplane was abandoned on the beach, where it still lays but more and more damaged by the weather and people who dismantle it to take a souvenir (which shouldn’t be done of course!).

​How to visit the Ras Al-Sheikh Hameed

​It is allowed to swim and camp along the beach but Border Guard that patrol day and night will check ID’s and may ask people to move to a place that is visible from the post guard.

​If people want to swim they must first respect the dressing rule of Saudi Arabia and do it at their own risk as they are no life guards. The first hundred meters are usually very shallow but it is not advisable to swim far away from the shore because of the currents and winds.

​A mountain like no other in Saudi Arabia

The Jebel Al-Lawz, whose name means the almond mountain in Arabic, is one of the most mythical mountains of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most people think that Saudi Arabia is just a vast extent of sand dunes but with its summit at 2 549 meters above sea level Jebel Al-Lawz is the highest mountain of Tabuk Province. Indeed, it is still lower than the 3000 meter Jebel Sawdah in Aseer Province and many other peaks in Bahah, Jizan, and Makkah Provinces that range between 2 600 and 3 000 meters. But the Jebel Al-Lawz has other assets.

First it really has a mountain shape with a high summit dominating the whole province, whereas many other higher peaks are in fact the highest point of a cliff along the Sarawat range. As an example, the highest point of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Jebel Sawdah, is in fact a low hill that lays on a plateau already 2 900 meters above sea level. On the contrary the majestic silhouette of the imposing Jebel Al-Lawz is visible dozens of kilometers away from all directions.

Secondly the Jebel Al-Lawz is probably the only place in Saudi Arabia where snow falls nearly every year. As surprising as it sounds Saudi Arabia does have regular snowfalls thanks to its many mountains above 2 500 meters. But as the Jebel Al-Lawz is the highest mountain in the north of the country and it is located beyond the northern tip of the Red Sea and its warm waters, this mountain is more exposed to low temperatures and sees snows more often than any other area of Saudi Arabia.

Jebel Al-Lawz is in the ancient land of Madyan where the Prophet Moses lived for ten years with his father-in-law the Prophet Shu'ayb and where he brought his people that fled Egypt. Some consider Jebel Al-Lawz to be the real Mount Sinai where Moses had a mythical experience with God, as mentioned in the Holy Quran.

​How to visit Jebel Al-Lawz

Jebel Al-Lawz is visible from many places but there is only one road that leads to the top. Unfortunately there is a military base that doesn’t allow access to the very top of the massif. The last viewpoint on the road is slightly below 2 100 meters and offers some stunning sights on eastern side of the massif over Jibal Hisma in the distance.

There are numerous valleys and tracks that lead towards the center of the massif but it is important to note that access through these tracks is restricted and local Bedouins may ask travellers without special permission to go back to the road.

The valley of Moses

Tayeb Al-Ism is one of the magical natural wonders of Saudi Arabia that takes visitors by surprise. This incredible natural feature of Tabuk Province is located on the Gulf of Aqaba, just 15 kilometers north of the coastal town of Maqna.

When approaching by the road that runs along the turquoise waters and white beaches of the Gulf of Aqaba, what strikes people first is the imposing shape of the 600-meter-high granite massif of the Tayeb Al-Ism, whose sharp edges fall into the Gulf of Aqaba.

While getting closer to a nice little palm grove ornamenting the bottom of the cliffs, the mountain side that looks towards the Gulf suddenly reveals the stunningly high edges of a narrow canyon whose entrance is just few dozen meters from the sea. There the granite massif looks like it's been torn in two by a supranatural force.

From the bridge the Tayeb Al-Ism visitors see another marvel, a small stream of crystal clear water than runs through the gravel all year long. As a result, the wadi hosts numerous palm trees and reeds that create little oases surrounding by the vertiginous sides of the canyon.

The grandiosity of Tayeb Al-Ism has another dimension as it is directly related to religion. The territory bordering the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba is the ancient land of Madyan (or Midian) whose capital was probably today’s city of Bada’ where monumental tombs were sculpted in the rock later by the Nabatean people. Madyan is the land where Moses spent ten years in voluntary exile after fleeing from Egypt. It is believed that when later Moses brought the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea they reached the land of Madyan at Tayeb Al-Ism, the reason why it is also called the Valley of Moses. For the same reason the wells of the nearby town of Maqna are called the Wells of Moses.

How to visit Tayeb Al-Ism

The wells of Moses

Maqna is a charming coastal town located on the Gulf of Aqaba that faces Egypt and the Sinai mountains, clearly visible from it. But the town is famous for its wells that witnessed an important episode in the life of the Prophet Moses.

The territory bordering the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba is the ancient land of Madyan (or Midian) whose capital was probably in today’s city of Al-Bada’, where monumental tombs were later sculpted by the Nabatean people. Madyan is the land where Moses spent ten years in voluntary exile after fleeing from Egypt following an altercation with an Egyptian that was beating an Israelite.

It is believed that Moses crossed the Red Sea and arrived in Maqna and went to a well called Bir Al-Sa’idani to drink. There he saw two girls collecting water for their cattle and he offered to help. The girls reported this gentle move to their father, the prophet Shu’ayb, who went to meet Moses, recognized his pure soul, and decided to marry one of his daughters to him. Thus, Moses settled in Madyan and lived there for ten years with his wife and father-in-law.

Later when Moses brought the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea, they are supposed to have reached the land of Madyan at Tayeb Al-Ism which is located just 15 kilometers north of Maqna, and also bears witness to him, as it is called the Valley of Moses.

During the first years of Islam an important event took place in Maqna as it was there the troops of the Prophet Mohammed signed a treaty with the people of Judham, the tribe controlling this area that converted to Islam.

How to visit Maqna