Qualla: Hejaz https://qualla.com/hejaz en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hejaz https://qualla.com/hejaz Hejaz: Introduction https://qualla.com/hejaz/ Photo credit Hejazi Israeli, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name itself describes the land. Hejaz comes from an Arabic root meaning "to separate," and the region does exactly that, a long spine of mountains and coast dividing the high inland plateau of the Najd from the Red Sea. But geography is the least of what makes this stretch of western Arabia matter. Within it stand Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, and from its towns and tribes came the faith that would spread across continents. To travel the Hejaz is to move through the birthplace of a religion followed by nearly two billion people, across ground where the sacred and the historical have been braided together for fourteen centuries.

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Image: Hejazi Israeli | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/sujj-hejaz-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hejaz: The Holy Heart https://qualla.com/hejaz/ Photo credit Al Jazeera English, CC BY-SA 2.0. Mecca is the spiritual center of Islam, the city Muslims face in prayer five times a day and the destination of the Hajj, the great pilgrimage that every able Muslim aspires to make. According to Islamic tradition the prophet Muhammad was born here, in a city held to have been fo...

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Image: Al Jazeera English | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/sujj-hejaz-the-holy-heart.mp3 0:06 2 full Hejaz: Layers Beneath the Sand https://qualla.com/hejaz/ Photo credit Virtakuono, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before Islam, the Hejaz was already old. The Nabataeans carved their southern city of Hegra here, a place the Qur'an associates with the vanished people of Thamud. The Midianites of the Bible are placed in this land, in the area around modern Tabuk. There are even fainter tr...

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Image: Virtakuono | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/sujj-hejaz-layers-beneath-the-sand.mp3 0:06 3 full Hejaz: The Iron Road to Medina https://qualla.com/hejaz/ Photo credit Telfah ahmed, Public domain. In the early twentieth century the Ottoman Empire drove a railway south through the Hejaz, aiming to link Damascus to Medina and ease the long, dangerous pilgrim journey. The Hejaz Railway was an extraordinary feat for its time, and it carried enormous symbolic weight as a connec...

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Image: Telfah ahmed | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/sujj-hejaz-the-iron-road-to-medina.mp3 0:06 4 full Hejaz: Revolt in the Desert https://qualla.com/hejaz/ Photo credit royal story, Public domain. In 1916, Sharif Hussein bin Ali of the Hashemite family, custodian of Mecca, launched the Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule. His son Faisal led fighters in the field, joined by the British officer T. E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia. Their strategy turned on mobility...

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Image: royal story | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/sujj-hejaz-revolt-in-the-desert.mp3 0:06 5 full Hejaz: Becoming Saudi Arabia https://qualla.com/hejaz/ Photo credit Radosław Botev, CC BY 3.0 pl. The independent Kingdom of Hejaz did not last long. After a series of wars with the rising house of Saud, Sharif Hussein surrendered in December 1925, ending both his kingdom and the centuries-old Sharifate of Mecca. For a few years the Hejaz and the inland Najd were ruled togeth...

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Image: Radosław Botev | CC BY 3.0 pl

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/j/j/hejaz-wp/sujj-hejaz-becoming-saudi-arabia.mp3 0:06 6 full