Al-Dakhul wa Hawmal
Al-Dakhul wa Hawmal
Two sandy ridges immortalized in the opening verse of Imru al-Qays's mu'allaqah, located in dispute between the al-Tisiyah area east of al-Qassim and the highlands of southern Najd, with Hawmal known today as Irq al-Hamil.
Plan your visit
Practical information verified separately from the historical record.
Before you go: Check with the operator or a local guide before departure; field access details have not yet been verified.
Why visit?
Seek the sand ridges named in the most famous opening lines of Arabic poetry and debated by classical geographers of the Jahiliyya.
Imru al-Qays opens his celebrated mu'allaqah with the lines: "Stop, you two companions, and let us weep for the memory of a beloved and a dwelling / at the worn ruins between al-Dakhul and Hawmal." The two place-names flowed so naturally in oral tradition that they became among the best-known locations in all pre-Islamic poetry.
Al-Dakhul is a sand ridge, and Hawmal, modern Irq al-Hamil, is a parallel ridge between which lies the break in the Dahna sands called Siqat al-Lawa. Al-Bakri noted that Hawmal was a sand stretch ridden by the qiff near the edges of al-Shaqiq and the al-Hazn district, associated with Banu Yarbu and Banu Asad. Geographers have disagreed on the precise location, with one school placing the pair near al-Tisiyah east of al-Qassim and another in the highlands of southern Najd.
Whether or not a single valley can be fixed on the ground, al-Dakhul and Hawmal remain essential literary coordinates, drawing students of Jahili verse to the red sands Imru al-Qays chose as the threshold of memory and loss.