At-Turaif District
Interesting facts
- In November 1803 Imam Abd al-Aziz bin Muhammad, the second ruler of the First Saudi State, was assassinated in the district's main mosque while leading the afternoon prayer.
- Najdi chroniclers date the founding of Diriyah to 1446–47, when Mani' al-Muraydi, an ancestor of the House of Saud, settled here with his clan from Qatif.
- The First Saudi State grew from a pact of 1744, when the emir Muhammad ibn Saud took in the religious scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
- The 1818 siege is estimated to have cost the Egyptian army about 10,000 men and the defenders some 1,800; the victors also cut down the palm groves.
- After 1818 the townspeople moved away, mostly to Riyadh, and the ruins stood empty for generations; the writer Robert Lacey compared them to Pompeii.
- Excavations beneath a small 20th-century mosque revealed the large 18th-century hypostyle mosque of Imam Mohammad bin Saud, which was then rebuilt in traditional form.
- The courtyard of the Saad bin Saud Palace, one of the largest residences in the district, was used as a stable for horses.
- The guest house and bath house were supplied from a well in the wadi, and the bath shows how Najdi builders waterproofed rooms with different plasters.
- Old Diriyah had three hilltop districts, Ghussaibah, al-Mulaybeed and Turaif, and Turaif stands highest of them above Wadi Hanifa.
- A large, detailed scale model of the historic town is on display at the National Museum of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.
Why it is worth it
At-Turaif is the citadel of Diriyah, the mud-brick town on the north-western edge of present-day Riyadh where the House of Saud began. Founded in the fifteenth century on a spur above Wadi Hanifa, the valley whose palm groves made life possible here, it became the seat of the First Saudi State and its capital from 1727 until 1818. What stands today is the most complete surviving ensemble of Najdi architecture, the earthen building tradition of central Arabia: thick walls of sun-dried brick and plaster, small high windows, timber roof beams and geometric ornament, all shaped to keep out the heat of the desert.
The heart of the district is the Salwa Palace, a sprawling residence of five main sections built over successive generations and rising to four storeys, probably completed under Imam Saud ibn Abdul Aziz in the early nineteenth century. Around it lie the Imam Mohammad bin Saud Mosque, further palaces such as that of Saad bin Saud, guesthouses and houses packed along narrow lanes, all within a fortified outline of about 29 hectares. Across the wadi lies al-Bujairi, the religious quarter of the old town, so that the two banks face each other across the green of the oasis.
The town's golden age ended violently. In 1818 an Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pasha, acting for the Ottoman sultan, besieged Diriyah for months, and after its fall ordered the town demolished and burned. In 2010 the district was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and from 2018 an extensive restoration programme has turned it into an open-air museum, known as the At-Turaif Living Museum. Walking the lanes at dusk, when the walls turn from ochre to rose, is the best way to see why this architecture is admired.
Getting there
At-Turaif is in Diriyah, about 4 km from the centre of the old town and on the north-western outskirts of Riyadh. The nearest airport is King Khalid International Airport (RUH), about 28 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
At-Turaif is a historic district located in Diriyah, north-west of Riyadh. It is regarded as one of the more important political and historical sites in Saudi Arabia, as it represented the capital of the early Saudi kingdom. It was the original home of the House of Saud and was the country's first capital from 1727 until Ottoman conquest of the area in 1818.
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