Dates – their importance in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, and to Arabic culture cannot be overstated.

The ancient historical relationship between people and date palms has fostered a rich cultural heritage passed down through generations – an inheritance so vital that date palm knowledge, skills, traditions, and practices are recognised on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

The date is a staple food in the Arabic world, and not without reason. Not only is the environment very suitable for the palm tree – it needs hight temperatures to thrive– but the fruit is also very nutritious. It is a great source of energy due to the sugars it contains, and it is high in dietary fibre as well as a good source of antioxidants. And that’s not all: it also contains Vitamin B, C and no less than ten minerals.

It makes sense that people often break their Ramadan fast with a date: it quickly replenishes your energy and provides some much-needed nutrients. And it’s not just the date that the date palm provides: every bit of it is used in the communities that cultivates them.

The heart of palm –or jummar– for instance, is a delicacy that is harvested by cutting down a palm tree and harvesting the inner core from the trunk. 

But the date palm is not just a nutritional marvel, a yummy snack or a cultural phenomenon. It is also a historical and agricultural singularity. The palm tree has a long history in the Arabian Peninsula. Evidence has been found in the AlUla oasis which indicates that humans have cultivated crops there – among which dates– since around 4,600 BCE.  The fertile volcanic soil and the availability of water –springs and wells– gave the local population the possibility to grow crops, among which date palms.

The importance of the date palms is also reflected in inscriptions found in the ancient kingdom of Dadan, whose capital city was here in AlUla, particularly amongst the rock formations of Jabal Ikmah. Dadan apparently was an important religious centre during the first millennium BCE, where the most important deity worshipped was Dhu Ghabbat.Some of the inscriptions found at Jabal Ikmah include references to ceremonies or offerings to this deity, for instance those asking for protection or success of crops and agriculture.

Necklaces made from dates were discovered during excavations of ancient tombs at the site of Hegra – Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site that once was a vibrant city inhabited by the enterprising Nabateans.  These necklaces highlight just how important dates were to the civilisations who built those famous tombs.

How many dates per year?

Saudi Arabia is famous for its dates – today, there are as many as 300 different kinds grown in the Kingdom, with different colours, sizes, and tastes – about 33 million trees in total. The AlUla oasis alone grows about 2.3 million trees of over one hundred and twenty varieties, of which the most popular palm is the sweet Red Helwah.  In AlUla, more than ninety thousand tonnes of fruit are produced every year.

Histories and Memories

The date palm’s long history in the AlUla region has been well recorded. Ibn Battuta, an explorer and scholar of Berber descent from current Morocco who lived in the 14th century CE, travelled throughout the Muslim world as well as Asia and recorded his experiences in his book Tuhfat al-nuzzar fi gharaʾib al-amṣar wa-ʿajaʾib al-asfar, more commonly referred to as The Rihlah.

He wrote the following about his visit to AlUla during his Hajj (pilgrimage) in 1328 CE: “AlUla, a large and pleasant village with palm gardens and water springs, lies half a day’s journey or less from al-Hijr. The pilgrims halt there for four days to provision themselves and wash their clothes.”

Five hundred and sixty years later, when English explorer Charles Doughty visited AlUla, the orchards of AlUla still were an extraordinary sight. Doughty wrote about it in his book, Travels in Arabia Deserta: “The orchards of palms and sweet lemons are very well husbanded.

The higher grounds of the shelving valley side are dug out deeply, to the irrigating spring level; so that the public paths seemed to be raised as wide walls which divide those plantations, and the beautiful spreading heads of palms, not here tall-growing, appear as rising from the floor of the ground.”

Of course, the oasis also produces many other types of produce like citrus fruits and wheat, but dates have always been its signature crop: significant to and valued by local society. They were so such a fundamental ingredient in everyday life that they were even used as currency until the 1970’s.

Abdul Rahman bin Muhammad Al-Mutair Hamid, the owner of the Abu Raed Museum of Heritage remembers how in childhood, he would gather dates and use them as a currency: “When we were young, we used to gather dates – like AlHelwah and Albarni and other types of dates – on the ground that had fallen from the palms due to the strong winds. We collected the dates, and exchanged them for things like food, or dry fish.  I would take the dates to one of the sellers, and she would weigh them with a bucket, and tell me what she would give me in return”.

The Tree of Life

However good the dates, the fruit is not the only thing the date palm offers. It has so many uses that some people call it the tree of life. Some examples: the roofs of summer houses in the Oasis were constructed with date palm branches and palm trunks are used for the roofs and doors of houses. Sometimes, palm trunks were hollowed out and used to make water channels leading the water from a well or spring to the neighbouring farms.

Palm leaves are made into mats, tree fibres are used to make rope and local craftsmen fashion many household products such as fans and baskets from the palm fronds. And – much more environment-friendly than plastic – older generations remember playing with toys made with palm tree materials. Locals also recall making shoes with palm fronds when they had no real shoes and collecting palm fronds as fuel for fire. You can see that the palm tree has been, and still is, very much a part of daily life.

That is even more true for date farmers, of course. Harvesting dates has been an important part of the lives of AlUla’s residents for as long as any can remember.

Dates are harvested from June to November every year – as not every date will be ripe at the same time. Ask any local about harvest time, and most will remember being children and running to pick up the dates when the strong summer wind made them fall down.

Some dates are harvested from the trees just before they’re ripe, when the fruits have turned red or yellow. They are arranged under the hot sun and covered with a layer of hot sand.

After about three hours they are removed. This process ripens them early and darkens the colour of the dates, which are called Al Ghamaq.

But not all dates are harvested. In every orchard, a couple of the trees are left unharvested so that the naturally ripened fruit can be picked by the farmers – to eat for their lunch. Apparently, the dates are so good, one can never quite get enough of them.

For those who live in the oases of AlUla, Tayma or Khaybar, date palms play an undeniably important role in life. 

The very houses people used to live in were built with them – whomever you speak to, they will always have memories involving date palms.

And why wouldn’t they? They eat them, sell them, barter with them – they are often their very livelihood. In this region, people’s lives have been entwined with the date palm for thousands of years.

And now that you know all this, perhaps next time you eat a date, you will appreciate its sweetness even more. 

Anne de Bruijn    |   Date:21 Apr 2023

Anne de Bruijn
Anne de Bruijn is a contributing writer for The Living Museum and regularly writes texts and
audio guides for museums. She also co-authored Don’t Buy This Book – Entrepreneurship
for Creative People and its predecessor Don’t Buy This Book – Time Management for
Creative People. She loves art, languages and history and bakes her own bread.
Follow her on Instagram for art and food photos @Acertainmissbrown.