Information AboutHail |
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Ha'il () is an Oasis city in Nejd in northwestern Saudi Arabia and is the capital of the Ha'il Province . The city has a population of 267,005 ( 2004 census). Traditionally Ha'il derived its wealth from being on the Camel caravan route of the Hadj . HISTORY Ha'il was the center of the Rashidi Emir s from 1836 until 1921 . The first Ibn Rashidi emir, Abdullah bin Rashid, took power with his brother emir Obaid and their far cousin and close friend emir Zamil(1st) Al Sabhan in 1836 from the former ruler of Hail, Mohammad Ibn Ali, who was a fellow member of the Jafaar linage of the Abde section of the Shammar tribe. Abdulla bin Rashid continued constructing the Barzan Palace in Hail which had been started by Mohammad Ibn Ali. After the death of Abdullah bin Rashid (in 1847 or 1848) his son and successor, Talal (or Telal), completed the palace. During the ibn Rashid period many foreign travellers visited Ha'il and the ibn Rashid emirs, and described their impressions in different journals and books, including those of Georg August Wallin (1854), William Gifford Palgrave (1865), Lady Anne Blunt (1881), Charles Montagu Doughty (1888), and Gertrude Bell (1907). The Rashidi emirs were considered relatively tolerant towards foreigners, including traders in Ha'il: "Many of these traders belonged to the Shiyaa sect, hated by all good Sonnites , doubly hated by the Wahabees . But Telal affected not to perceive their religious discrepancies, and silenced all murmurs by marks of special favour towards these very dissenters, and also by the advantages which their presence was not long in procuring for the town". William Gifford Palgrave, 1865. The opening of the Hejaz Railway between Damascus and Medina , together with new inexpensive steamship routes to Jeddah , undermined the traditional camel caravan economy of Ha'il. The last Rashidi emir was ousted from power by Ibn Saud Of Saudi Arabia in 1921. Ibn Saud then gave orders to destroy the Barzan Palace and also ordered the Rashidi leaders to move from Ha'il. After this Ha'il fell into steep decline, as witnessed by E. Rutter in 1931: "Hail seem like a city marooned among the sand...the population of Hail was plainly in decline. Numbers of houses in the northern quarter of the town were in ruins...many people of Hail had fled to the comfortable realms of King Faisal Of Iraq ..." Today Ha'il is the center of Saudi Arabia's agricultural program, and most of the Wheat crops of the kingdom come from the area surrounding the city. REFERENCES
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