Cities Of Salt

Cities of Salt is a novel by Saudi novelist, Abdul Rahman Munif, first published in Beirut in 1984 and later translated into English by Peter Theroux. It is the first of a quintet of books that tells the story of the discovery of huge oil reserves under a formerly idyllic oasis on the Arabian peninsula, and how the stores of valuable oil changed the political and social environment of the country. It was followed by The Trench, Variations on Night and Day, The Uprooted, and The Desert of Darkness, although the final two novels were never translated into English. Exploring themes of wealth, colonialism, and the conflict of rural people versus global interests, Cities of Salt was immediately acknowledged as one of the defining works of modern Arab literature, although it was deeply controversial in Munif’s homeland. The quintet was ranked as the seventy-first greatest novel of all time by literary critic Daniel Burt.

Cities of Salt begins with the discovery of oil in the Arabian Peninsula, although the kingdom it takes place in is never specified. The cities of Harran and Muran, although fictional, represent the major Saudi Arabian cities that developed after the discovery of oil in the early 20th century. Volume one takes place between World War I and the early 1950s. The kingdom is ruled over by Sultan Khuraybit, a fictional parallel to the founder of the Saudi Kingdom, Sultan Abd al-Aziz. The focus in the first volume is on the transformation of the desert oasis into a bustling metropolis due to the arrival of three American oil engineers. The indigenous Bedouin population views them with suspicion as they search for oil, but their presence begins to take on a more permanent nature as they build houses, install drilling equipment, and import modern supplies to make their residency in the kingdom more like their American way of life. When it becomes clear that the outsiders are not leaving, the locals become more hostile. The patriarch of the oasis, Mut’ib al-Hadhdhal, attempts to persuade the king to exile them but fails. One day, he rides his camel into the desert and disappears, becoming a symbol of resistance that inspires the Bedouins to strike against the oil company and leads to a massive oil fire that destroys the camp.

The focus then shifts towards the city of Harran, built around the oasis as Khaz’al, son of Khuryabit, ascends to the throne. He represents King Saud. This new city consists of a cluster of palaces, as the royal family takes full advantage of the new oil revenues and become among the wealthiest people in the world. The Sultan’s palace houses a massive harem and becomes the locus for the action of this volume. Although the Sultan is isolated, he has a few close advisors, none closer than his personal physician Subhi al-Mahmalji. Although the physician is not a member of the royal family by blood, he is in many ways the actual founder of the kingdom. He creates the government institutions and offices that transform the desert oasis into a fully functioning nation-state. Chief among his innovations are the secret service and the propaganda department, through which the Sultan creates a powerful cult of personality around himself. The physician wants his contributions to be immortalized, and plans to write a memoir and book of philosophy about his experience in the service of the Sultan. He becomes consumed with his dreams of grandeur, and neglects his duty. This opens the door to manipulations by Hammad, the head of the Sultan’s secret service who is secretly a CIA asset and has designs of his own for the kingdom.



The physician’s lust for financial and political power blinds him to everything else, including the emotional and sexual needs of his wife, Wadad. Feeling angry and left out, she has regular affairs with a number of her husband's employees and business partners. As the physician’s lifelong goal to become the Sultan’s exclusive advisor seems to be getting close, events take an unpredictable turn that upend his entire life’s work. The aging Sultan marries the physician’s teenage daughter, giving the physician the access he has always desired to the royal family. As soon as the Sultan returns from his honeymoon in Europe, the physician will be part of the kingdom’s inner circle. But before he can return, the Sultan is deposed by his ambitious younger brother Khaz’al, who wastes no time in purging the remnants of his brother’s regime. This includes the physician, who finds himself exiled from the kingdom as the book ends.

Abdul Rahman Munif was a Saudi novelist, best known for the Cities of Salt series. He was the author of fifteen novels in all, with four novels and a memoir being translated into English. Although he was one of the first Arab novelists to attain global renown, he was so controversial in his homeland that many of his books were banned and his Saudi citizenship eventually revoked. He lived Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq during his life, and was strongly active in Iraqi politics, both as an opponent of Saddam Hussein’s regime and of the US invasion.