Al-Qarah Mountain (Saudi Arabia)

About

Al-Qarah Mountain or Jabal Al-Qārah (Arabic: جَبَل ٱلْقَارَة), also known as Al-Shabaab Mountain, is a mesa of 75 metres (246 feet) in Al-Ahsa, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. This mountain counts as one of the most important natural sights in Al-Ahsa, and was registered in the UNESCO world heritage center's list in 2018, after the inclusion of Al-Ahsa Oasis. It is located 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) to the northeast of Al-Hofuf. Some of its caves, such as "Al-Nashab", have moderately steady temperatures throughout the year.

The mountain is named after the village of Al-Qarah. It is also sometimes called "Al-Shaba'an", because it is situated among palm trees and rivers, and it has wild high caves which are cold in the summer. It is likely that the first inhabitants of Al-Qarah village were a pre-Islamic tribe who were skilled at archery. However, it appears from the site's landform that it was referred to as a "black, small, single, round and high mountain." Moreover, some historians and travelers stated in their books that the mountain was called "Al-Mushaqqar". However, in his book "Geographical Dictionary of Saudi Arabia - Eastern Province - Section Four", the historian Hamad Al-Jassir mentioned different opinions about the location of Al-Mushaqqar, with some having said that "Al-Mushaqqar" was in Al-Hijaz, in the valley of Eja'a, one of the Tae'a Mountains, or in a Bahraini fort, and the last one is most popular. While Abdul-Khaleq Al-Janbi confirmed that Al-Qarah was named by that, because its south is connected to a huge, strange shape, and a hill formation with caves of various sizes, there is also a big rock above it, and it is carved in an unusual way. In total, it has three heads, the first one is to south, and it looks like a woman's head. The second one is to the north, and looks like a man's head. The third one between them looks like a lion. This part of the mountain is called "Ra'as Al-Qarah", as mentioned by Arabic geographers. Al-Janbi said in his book that it was "a divine formation", which was not influenced by human activity. "Al-Mushaqqar" was also mentioned in the fourth section of "Mou'jam Ma Esta'ajam", a dictionary by Abu Ubaid Al-Bakri. Ibn Al-E'erabi said "Al-Mushaqqar: a great ancient city, has a fortress in the middle, on Al-Qarah called Attalah, and on the top of it, there is a well that has a hole, until it gets to the ground, so it is absorbed by the ground. All Hajer water is excluded in that well, in its increasing ..."

The mountain is located in Al-Ahsa Oasis, between four villages: Al-Qarah, At-Tuwaitheer, Ad-Dalwah and At-Tihemeah.

The mountain's base area is about 14 km2 (5.4 sq mi), and consists of reddish colored sedimentary rocks. Also, the caves' temperature is semi-steady and moderate along the year, hovering around 20 °C (68 °F), accompanied by a gentle and cool airflow from the cave's interior to its exterior. It is also consisted of limestone, sandstone, marlstone and siltstone, while the uncovered base of the mountain is composed of a thin layer of marlstone, topped with a layer of Breccias rocks, up to 17 m (56 ft), followed by limestone and sandstone with a thickness of 18 m (59 ft), after which there is are 75 m (246 ft) of sequential layers of grey crumbling sandstone, with intermittent layers of red marl and marl-alluvial, and it ends up with a cover of 2 m (6.6 ft) of limestone. Several types of the mountain's caves extend in a form of ribbed grids of cracked ground, while the others are cavities due to chemical weathering, the process of abrasion, and collapses.

There is a popular belief that the caves in the mountain formed as a result of tides, based on a study that was done in 1978, however, in 2006 another study denied this allegation. There are 3 types of caves in the mountain:

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.