A Tour in Sheikh Salama

 Bin Rashdan Al Jihany Museum for The old Heritage

Museums represent a great civilized phenomenon as they convey a lot of any nation’s heritage and the creative aspects of its culture. They keep that heritage and present it to the successive generations to give them a tangible opportunity to set their eyes on the antiques left by their forefathers and their creative gifts and this will lead them to stick and adhere to their roots and will make them proud of their ancestors. For  this reason , most governments in the developed societies are very keen on setting up museums, spending generously on them, employing experts in them and welcoming individuals as well as non-governmental organizations to establish art ,science and professional museums such as wax museums, car museums flower museums ,popular heritage museums and the like.

In Europe and the US, there appeared a lot of local museums established by individuals or companies specialized in specific arts and activities, most of them succeeded in attracting visitors either citizens or foreign

However, the non-governmental museums in these societies are very few and even rare with the exception of Egypt and Lebanon so it is difficult to find remarkable museums there. The reasons for that are numerous; the high cost to establish museums; difficulty in finding valuable and distinguished artifacts that attract the visitors and above all the ancient artifacts are mostly banned to be possessed by individuals in all our societies and unless you deliver them to authorities as soon as u find them, this will be a crime by the law.  Transporting or leaking these valuable artifacts is another crime not lesser than drug or weapon trafficking.

Therefore, it is not possibly practical to establish museums with remarkable artifacts even if you lawfully buy them. Nontheless, it is possible for anyone to establish museums of arts, plants, handicrafts and many other creative activities. With lack of public awareness about the importance of these museums, you can find very few specialists and amateurs who are used to visiting these museums.

Establishing museums is a risky and a dangerous business for those businessmen who can afford the costs and operating them. Moreover, the investment companies also avoid establishing museums because of their discouraging economic and financial revenues.

If that’s the real conditions for establishing museums and the Arab and Islamic societies, there remains the psychological factor for any individual or non-governmental organizations to set up a private museum. That psychological factor starts as an urge and an attitude to being attracted to old artifacts, then it grows greater and greater till it becomes an adoration and real affection that don’t put into account any loss or profit but it becomes a message that takes a lot of effort and money to develop it and to communicate it to the largest number of people.

Therefore, and as an exception to the rule of scarcity to own a local and private museum in the Arab an Islamic societies, there appeared in Al Madinah Al Munwarah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , a prominent phenomenon that astonishes all those who hear about it and distinguished as it is a bold individual adventure and astonishing as it is void of any propaganda and out of the media limelight ,the museum of sheikh salama rashdan al jihany for the old heritage.

No one knows about it except for very few people who are close to the owner.
Some people underestimate and don’t like to call it a museum because they r putting into their consideration the famous museums in the Arab and international capitals. Anyway, it is those people, who know the private museums and the difficult circumstances around them in our societies, will never hesitate to call them museums if only they put into their considerations the continuous efforts done by their owners to develop them and the great cultural messages they convey to the visitors.

Sheikh salama bin rashdan al jehany museum for old heritage
It is one of the biggest private museums with the most cramped collection of heritage artifacts. It is located in the north-western side of Al Madinah al Munwarah, about seven kilometers from the Prophet’s Mosque in the Al Azizyah district, in a big building considered as the largest Wedding Hall in Al Madinah.

On the south-western corner of this Wedding Hall, there is a noticeable signboard that says ‘’ Welcome in Qimat al Madinah Museum” and on a top corner of the wedding hall another signboard says’’ Qimat Al Madinah Museum for Displaying various Heritage Artifacts”.” Founded by Sheikh Salama Rashdan Al Jihany.”

Under the signboard, there is a pictorial model scene depicted from the Bedouin life representing a Bedouin in his traditional clothes, a camel, a tent house, incense carriers and some tools from the Bedouin daily life.

The building of the museum occupies an interior corner of the wedding hall wall. The wooden door of the museum will give you the sensation that you are going to enter a heritage place. The door was simply made as those doors of rural houses. Simpler than that is the ornament on it as it is just four wooden rods fixed to shape a diamond.

The building consists of two perpendicular halls. The first one extends from the east to the west and the second one extends for the south to the north and a spacious hall is created at the meeting point of the two perpendicular halls.

At the corridor of the museum lobby, there is a reception desk where you are warmly welcomed by the receptionist. At the reception desk, the artifacts are cramped in its three walls, on the floor and the ceiling around the little desk. These displayed artifacts are varied and give a brief outline about the contents of the museum. You can find home cooking pots, a gramophone near them, a wooden box used as wardrobe to keep clothes, a very old wooden door that belonged to a very old house, teapots, some old lock; one of them is very remarkable and the host tells you how creatively it was made and that it even exceeds the new-tech modern locks ,its copper surface is covered with some carved drawings and you will never miss it belonged to a wealthy man or a jewelry shop.

In this brief outline at the reception desk, there are wooden and stony antiques, an old iron heated by coal, a small pair of scales hanging on the wall, stamps, an old coin , and a woman’s jewels from the past century, this varied collections  will make you puzzled to which one you should set your eyes on first and they will make your mind confused to pick out their denotations. However, your mind will just repeat what is written on the signboard which says: ’’a varied collection of different types of heritage artifacts”

A very long hall follows the reception desk and it is divided into small rooms, each one has three walls. On these walls, there are wooden sideboards with glass fronts at the height of three quarters of a meter and rising high to more than a meter. In the empty space underneath them there are lots of artifacts and antiques; some of them are placed on small tables or on the floor. Above the sideboards, there are many antiques and artifacts fixed directly on the walls or on an open shelf.

Inside the first sideboard, there is a collection of home copperwares from the middle class houses and on the floor lies a collection of clayware that is different in size as if they are just lifted from the charcoal burners as they are covered with black smoke reaching above their middle . On a small shelf above those clayware pots lies the stony piece that was long used to ignite fires for centuries ago. In the corner, lies a decorated mirror. 

Above the wooden safe, there are very old pistols that were loaded with gunpowder and some little statues.

In another room, there are coffeepots in different sizes and kinds and are placed on broad shelves and on the second wall there are rifles of different kinds and with different lengths and the most modern one dates back more than a century ago.

In another room, there is a collection of copperwares with ornaments on the outside surface; some of them were used as food containers as plates, trays, ladles and some others

were used for drinking and washing. On the floor, lies a set of wooden weights that were used for measuring different kinds of grains.

In the next room, there is a collection of weapons in various sizes and types such as ; the long nozzle pistols and different guns are lined on the walls. Under them lie a set of the first model dressmaking machines that date back more than a century ago.

What is really remarkable in this room is a home ware collection made from the wood and was used by the Bedouins. They were cut out from medium sized tree trunks and they are very light in weight, very consistent and without any cracks despite being very old. The host will explain their importance to the Bedouin family. One of these wooden pots was dedicated to the she-camel milk, another for the dough, a third for keeping some kinds of grains, a fourth for keeping fluids and liquids and a fifth for the cooked foods. In the way the wooden wares met the needs of the Bedouin wife as they were very easy to carry when the tribe moved to another pasture. These wood wares are in different sizes to be fit into one whole piece.

On another part of the wall, a collection of the Bedouin man clothes are hanged and it includes: a thobe with sleeves as large as the thobe itself and it was worn on special occasion. As for the Bedouin woman clothing; there is a dress that is decorated with golden and silver strings that seem to be one of the weeding parties dresses; there is also a headless animation wrapped in Bedouin woman clothing. Actually, the streamline of the nomadic life prevails in this hall such as weapons, clothes and even the wooden Howdah and the carpets made from camels’ fur and wool of sheep.

In the plaza where the two perpendicular halls meet, there are glass fronted safes and other safes standing on upright legs and rising a meter high. On the floor lie a lot of items, or lean on the walls. Those piled artifacts give you the sensation that you are in a huge compound for displaying heritage properties as the weapons, the utensils and kettles can be seen again, whereas large and varied collections of jewelry are arranged according to the parts of the body where they can be worn , the broad silver bracelets occupy more than one corner or safe. The examiner of these bracelets will find simple shapes of decorations and the ankle bracelets that were once worn by women to adorn their feet are varied in shapes and some of them have small closed bells and others have small coins.

In middle of the plaza and on it floor, there are safes that contain samples of manuscripts and documents from the philology of Islamic books that were handwritten and some of them are colored with black and red ink writings and one of them contain blue circles that have not been changed by the long past years.

A remarkable parchment among those documents that can be represented by a big book , is a family tree lineage written on stages with a lot of signatures and stamps to show the long period of time that lineage and their branches registered in it. the host tells us that  this family tree contains the names of some prophets , their sons ,grandsons and the descendants  till the Ottoman Monarchy period. This document needs a careful study by a specialist scholar. There are also some small documents including contracts and compromise ones and etc.

It takes us a long time to tour the long hall if we just examine the walls, the floor and the ceiling as there is no empty space in it. you can find hanging properties either from the past or from the present.

The properties from the present include: a collection of alarm clocks, hand phones, wooden radios in different sizes, small sized radios to be considered from the earliest generations of radios that run on small batteries, different car –number-plates from the earliest generations of Madinah cars. A lighting collection that contains glass lamps and kerosene ones, that are called Al trek by people in Madinah, which were used directly before electricity. In the exhibition, there are lots of Altreck samples with its accessories and some pottery heads that carry the ignition bag (the chest) and small loose pieces that give you the feeling that you are in a maintenance workshop. There is also the old kerosene lamp that was once considered the master of the kitchen as it came after the the charcoal burners and they might be still used in some rural areas. Then it was replaced by the gas stoves and modern electric lights.

The properties from the past include: millstones in different sizes, woodenwares, different types of swords, gazelle horns and skins of hunted animals, some mummified domestic and wild animals like easels, snakes, eagles and antelope heads and handmade fans from the palm trees food sheets and some large baskets.

A collection of old dinars and its coins are in another upright safe. These dinars are from different ages starting from the Abbassyid era through the last period in the Ottoman Empire. In another safe beside that one, there are banknotes that are greatly varied as they are from Arabian, Persian and Turkish as if it were an exchange office near the prophet’s mosque. There is also another collection that contains all the currencies that were issued by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia from its early beginning till the present time.

A noticeable collection of old photographs for the old houses and districts of Al Madinah that do no longer exist because of the modern constructions.  Some of these photos are copies of rare photos taken by travelers and pilgrims who came to Madinah a century ago. Others were copied from the western travelers’ books then they were carefully magnified.

There are also photos of some kings and rulers of al Madinah from many several decades and a big signboard entitled “ from the memory of history” that contains photos of different landscapes in Madinah that became really part of the past history.  Also there are old photos of the prophet’s mosque before the Saudi expansion and some books for the old Madinah.

A big and old censer and a wooden door from a rural house are in the long hall.

Thus, the properties are accumulated but they are carefully labeled with their names, dates and kind. The visitor will have the sensation that he is in a compound of museums because of the large piles of collections from the urban and nomadic places though the nomadic are prevalent and abundant.

We can find an explanation for this intended abundance in the owner of the museum speech and his assurance that his affection for popular heritage artifacts is still driving him to possess as many as he can.

In a long recorded interview with the owner of the museum about his biography and the museum, he said:

In 1358 H, he was born in Yanbu al Nakhil area where his family wandered from  one place to another to find grazing lands for their livestock and camels – called Al Halal by Bedouins- that were one of the main  living sources besides the fertile lands in the country as Yanbu is a good example of it . Farming palm trees and grazing livestock may be combined at the same time to be living earner for the family or the tribe. So they settled in pastures and near water sources for a time and look after their palm trees as needed to collect its dates. Sheikh Salamah’s family was one of those families who combined grazing their livestock and farming palm trees.  His father was a herbalist as alternative medicine was the only available one at that time for the Bedouins.

Sheikh Salamah was taught the spelling and the recitation of the Holy Quran under one of the sheikhs. In 1375 H, He finally settled in al Madinah. That transfer from the village and Bedouin life had great effects on his self reliance to develop himself and to adapt to the new environment. It was a great change in his life from being a herder of sheep in the country to being a repairman in a bicycle shop in Madinah. He got a lot of experience and decided to start his own business and opened his own workshop for repairing bicycles. He started to study in the evening classes. He made use of what he learned from his father as a herbalist and began to prescribe some herbs to people around him till his fame as a herbalist began to grow better. That kind of medicine still has its pioneers until the present time.

His economic, educational and professional conditions began to improve as he went to schools in the evening but in the morning he worked on bicycles and the alternative medicine.

Next, he changed his career as a bicycle repairman to be a clerk in Bab Asslam Health office. That job added much more to his experience and gave him ample time to read more books in using herbs. His schooling ended at that third intermediate school year. His schooling converted into reading the books he had bought. In addition, he was very keen on collecting scarce herbs as he went to the wild and climbed high mountains to pick them up. He got a great benefit from the old Arabian physicians’ books. He succeeded in diagnosing the illnesses of hi patients and became well known herbalist in the whole Madinah as his patients started to visit him in his home. As the numbers of patients grew larger, he opened his private clinic and he used all the methods of alternative medicine from using herbs to cauterizing and coagulation of blood (Hijamah).

A lot of his patients got recovered from their aches and illnesses so lots of patients either from Madinah or from other cities and even from the Gulf States came to him.

As for his own interest in heritage, it started about 43 years ago as he told me. he noticed the fast development of modern life and the appearance of modern inventions and tools day after day and he saw that people were quitting and deserting the old ones and that made him feel very sorry to see old things are thrown in streets with the trash. It came to his mind that the rising generations will be ignorant about their past old style of life. That made him to think about the wider gap between the past and the present times.

Therefore, he decided to collect samples from the old artifacts to make them available for the new generations to watch and see. He started collecting these artifacts and accumulated them simply because their owners were no longer interested in keeping them. However, when he finds something valuable, he quickly buys it whatever its cost.

His improving financial conditions helped him a lot to make this hobby develop faster till he had piled a lot of properties and artifacts that filled the pace he assigned them to.

He was deeply fond of collecting manuscripts particularly the Holy Quran ones that were owned by some families and individuals. He also admired books, contracts and compromises as he said he loved their introductions that were written in wonderful styles with a lot of figurative phrases. He also was deeply interested in the Bedouins documents and contracts as their styles were very old and inherited through generations and were written by a special kind of ink which they made on their own from the black trees and they extracted their dark red inner tissues and mixed them with ground burned coffee. This special kind of ink color  is permanent and successive years never changed it on the documents that were written by it as shown in Sheikh Salama museum.

Undoubtedly, Sheikh Salama upbringing in the Bedouin environment and his living in it for a period of time during his youth greatly impressed him to keep its manifestations and tools. That is the reason that explains why he put a model of a Bedouin house consisting of a tent, camels and coffeepots at the entrance of his museum. He told me with a little bitterness a lot of his memories about his Bedouin life and also about it s basic tools such as the water pots, the milk pots, the butter pot and the honey pots and a very long list of home wares that can occupy a long shelf in the kitchen of today. He talked about the

(Zend) that is placed at the front of his museum. It was the Bedouin’s companion and that it could have been bought with the price of one sheep or two. The Zend is made from a special kind of rock treated by a specialist who boiled it in some water; some salt and some sheep wool till it illuminated and sparkled when it was rubbed by any hard thing.

Sheikh Salama witnessed the Zend period in his early childhood and part of his youth. He also used it and realized its importance and wanted to convey a documented image of it to the rising generations.

Then, we come to the rifle which he calls the Bedouin’s permanent companion. He knew the rifles known as Um Alfateel and the Hindyah and even the most modern ones. However, when he moved into the urban life, the companionship of the rifle became something from the past. Therefore, he began collecting various types of rifles  that you can even think , he collected all models that were used by the Bedouins and amasses a large number of them because his financial conditions were improving specially when he took up only the alternative medicine and managed his own business.

In 1417H,He is still telling us he set up an investment project (the Wedding Hall) which he named it ”the Qimah Palace” and on its south western corner he built the museum hall to be the first private museum open for the visitors and to keep the heritage that he lived through part of it, loved it and was very keen not to be forgotten or neglected by the new generations who never witnessed it.

Sheikh Salamah refers to an important side which had a great effect on establishing the museum which the care given by the official authorities to heritage and awareness spread among citizens to take care of it, beginning with pop poetry that found care from some magazines and newspapers till the care of the ancient buildings and monuments.

Sheikh Salamah praised the encouragement given to him by the officials who visited his museum especially His Royal prince Mikrin Bin Abdel-Aziz the Prince of Al-Madinah who recorded additional word in the guest book of the museum. And also some of the officials and reporters from different magazines and newspapers and other mass media who spared no efforts to write about the museum and over praised this pioneering idea made by Sheikh Salmah, the owner and efforts made to bring it to reality.

He is optimistic about the future of the museum because of the great care and encouragement and the attendance. He invites the new generation- the secondary school and university students- to visit it to have an idea about the generation which gave them or their parents care and be in touch with their heritage. He sees that their visit will add to their knowledge and will provide them with information which they may not find in books.

Sheikh Salamah hopes that his museum be close to the centre of Al-Madinah and be available to its people and visitors who find it difficult to get to the museum and they may not know anything about it. He submitted a request to official authorities to give him investment land inside Al-Madinah and he voluntary will build it at his own expense to be a museum for pop heritage full of exhibitions and he also hopes to give a part in the big museum which will be inaugurated in the rail way station to be as a gift for the people of Al-Madinah .

 
Dr. Abdul Basit Abdul Razaq Badr
General Manager
The Research Center of Al Madinah Studies