by Tahir Shah
The morning after my arrival in Doha, a sleek black Mercedes pulls up at my hotel and whisks me down avenues lined with whitewashed date palms. We drive due west from the capital. The city’s skyscrapers and luxurious villas die away as we enter the pancake-flat expanse of desert. The only road signs warn of wandering camels. After thirty minutes we veer off the highway and are soon poised outside a high wall.
As if by magic, the steel gates slide open electronically.
We have arrived at Al Wabra, Sheikh Saud’s desert retreat. It is here that he holds court, plans projects and enjoys some of the treasures he has bought. A flock of pink flamingos and grey pelicans preen themselves on the manicured lawns. Peacocks can be heard screeching in the distance. Sprinklers are working overtime to ensure the grass is kept alive in the scorching desert climate. Behind the pelicans stands a gleaming white building.
An aide runs up and ushers me in.
The audience hall is lit by three crystal chandeliers, its walls hung with Islamic textiles, and the floor covered by oriental rugs. At the far end of the hall, a slim man in Arab dress is hunched forward, his fingertips pressed together in thought. It’s Sheikh Saud. His features are prominent, piercing eyes radiating a calm confidence. A wisp of moustache hides his upper lip, mirrored by a hint of beard on his chin. Kafir and agal, the traditional headdress of Qatar, obscure his hair, and a finely woven white cotton robe runs down to his sandals, its French cuffs pinned neatly with small diamonds. The sheikh rises to greet me, welcoming me with a smile to his country and his home.
Miniature glasses of sweet tea are brought, and I enter the mysterious world of Sheikh Saud Al-Thani. At his feet a dozen catalogues from international auction houses are scattered, their pages marked thickly with yellow Post-it notes. Each is a sale of the superlative: ‘Important’ furniture, ‘Fine’ jewellery, ‘Exceptional’ carpets, ‘Rare’ clocks. There are loose colour photographs of valuable objects as well, offered by dealers from around the world.
The collections he has put together encompass many quite different and wide-ranging areas. Although each is important in its own right, the Islamic collection stands out as the most remarkable – virtually unequalled in terms of quality. Even so, it’s just one of several diverse collections.
The sheikh has assembled a comprehensive assortment of antique photographic equipment as well, and an astounding collection of photographs. The natural history collection comprises rare fossils, dinosaur skeletons, minerals and taxidermy; and the military collection boasts early cannons, muskets, armour and Napoleonic uniforms. The furniture covers a wide range of eras and styles, including Louis XV and Baroque, Regency and Art Deco. As well as the main collections, there are textiles, wrist-watches and woodworking tools, jewellery, glassware, statues and sculpture.
The sheikh leafs through auction catalogues and piles of photographs as he talks, sometimes stopping in mid-sentence to stare sharply at the picture of a particular object. An assistant in orange overalls staggers in under the weight of a wooden crate. He prises off the lid and removes its contents, a piece at a time. The first object is a narrow black leather shoe.
‘Look at this,’ says Sheikh Saud enthusiastically. ‘It was worn by Napoleon III. Can you see his monogram and the eagle crest on the sole? I bought the pair from one of his descendents living in Switzerland.’
Half a dozen more wooden crates are ferried into the meeting room. The sheikh’s latest acquisitions are unpacked and presented. There are early botanical illustrations, dervish hats and headdresses, an assortment of Leica cameras and glass mosque lamps, aspidistra stands, Ottoman textiles, fossils and uniforms, sporting trophies and dozens of antiquarian books.
‘Money isn’t everything,’ he says, sipping his tea. ‘The problem is getting extraordinary pieces: you see, the greatest objects are already in museums. And museums or entire collections rarely come up for sale.’
This may be true, but Saud has sometimes managed to use his position in the market to buy entire collections. His photography collection, for example, has been built by acquiring two extremely important groups. The first, the Bokelberg Collection, was amassed over more than twenty years by one man, the German Werner Bokelberg. The collection is not large – no more than about 150 images – but it is improbable that there is another that charts the history of photography so accurately, through such perfect and rare images. It includes the very best examples of Fox Talbot’s work, as well as some of the finest prints by Man Ray. Among those is the famous 1920s image of Man Ray’s mistress, Kiki de Montparnasse, with an African mask. The print, complete with Man Ray highlights, was the one originally made for Vogue.
Sheikh Saud added to the Bokelberg photographs by buying the key works from the Jammes photographic sale in 1999, which included a number of pioneering images by Gustave Le Gray, taken during the 1850s. The photographs are complemented by a dazzling array of rare cameras, many acquired from the Spira collection, itself regarded as one of the most comprehensive collections of photographic equipment in existence.
Photography, which Sheikh Saud so admires as an art form, may have been the inspiration behind his dream in the first place.
A few years ago he saw a photograph of an Indian prince taken by Man Ray. The prince, Rao Holkar, the former Maharaja of Indore, bore a striking resemblance to the sheikh.
An aesthete, and great collector in his own right, Holkar commissioned the German designer Eckart Muthesius in the ’thirties to build his new palace, and decorate it with Art Deco furniture and works of art. Some have suggested that the Maharaja’s photograph started off the sheikh’s quest for a complete artistic lifestyle.
While Holkar was photographed by Man Ray, Saud has sat for Henri Cartier-Bresson and Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, David Bailey and Bruce Weber.
Whenever he is in Qatar, Sheikh Saud spends the scorching afternoons on the desert estate listening intently as his assistants’ report. Every detail of every project is cleared by him directly just as he selects each item to buy himself.
At the far end of the estate stands a pair of giant steel-sided warehouses, easily mistaken for grain silos or barns. But as you draw closer to the compound, you see the high wall, the razor wire, and the reinforced gate, which rolls back automatically as you approach.
Behind these walls another team of men in overalls is unpacking more wooden crates, hauling out statues and carved stone blocks. Some of the stones have already been reassembled, forming elaborate porticoes, marble fountains and an entire terrace replete with balustrades.
An Indian curator begins the tour of the treasures, kept in the cavernous, air-conditioned warehouses. Most objects still have their auction lot numbers attached. The curator points out the most unusual pieces. First there’s a pair of immense eighteenth century globes by Coronelli, sitting on carved walnut bases. They stand more than fifteen feet tall and five feet wide. Beside them is a Louis XV gilt wood screen and next to that is an Italian Baroque-style throne, painted gold.
We walk on past an Italian crib carved in the shape of a gondola, a clutch of mammoth tusks, a long narwhal’s tusk and skull, and a shoal of prehistoric fish. Next come petrified tree trunks from the Upper Triassic period, a complete triceratops dinosaur skeleton (labelled ‘Willy’), dozens of insects trapped in amber, and ‘an extremely rare nest of raptor eggs’.
We push ahead through a maze of bookshelves filled with oversized leather-bound volumes, all in mint condition. Sheikh Saud has a great interest in the large folio of works of natural history produced in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He has assembled a complete set of John Gould’s works on ornithology. Numbering more than forty volumes, they include some three thousand hand-painted lithographic plates. Saud has also acquired the Marquis of Bute’s copy of Audobon’s Birds of America, described as ‘a monumental masterwork’; as well as his personal favourite, Les Roses, the late eighteenth-century volume of floral prints by Pierre-Joseph Redoute.
We car
ry on, past marble benches and more fountains, carved alabaster panels from Mughal India and a set of massive wrought-iron gates with matching urns. And on again, past a giant silver birdcage, dozens of muskets, pouches of mammoth fur and a fossilized walrus skull found in a cave in Alaska.
Then we cross the courtyard into the second hangar-like warehouse. Inside it is a whole variety of different forms of transport. There is a magnificent Louis XV carriage with original lacquered paintings on the exterior panels, numerous three-wheel Messerschmitt cars, as well as E-type Jaguars, a Jaguar racing car and a 1911 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. The warehouse is packed with bicycles, too, including some of the rarest ever made: such as the ‘Hobby Horse’, a bike with a solid wood frame from 1820, and a four-seater model from about 1910.
Sheikh Saud suddenly whooshes in on an early form of penny-farthing, his robes billowing out behind.
‘I will show you some of the animals,’ he calls, cycling over to a chauffeured Mercedes.
He enjoys his antiques, but you get the feeling his real passion lies with the thousands of rare and exotic creatures which live on the desert estate.
The Mercedes limousine crawls out of the warehouse courtyard and on to one of the tree-lined paths. The driver is cautious: if he goes too fast the sheikh’s tumbler of iced Pepsi might spill on to the cream suede seats.
Even though he may be a man of few words, you can always sense Saud watching everything. He watches the peacocks as they scurry into the shade, and the migrating hoopoes in the alfalfa grass, the pens of long-horned gazelle from the Hindu Kush, and the cheetahs pacing in their pens. He watches the birds of paradise, too, and the Peruvian cocks-of-the-rock in their air-conditioned cages. He pauses to ask the team of German zoologists a few technical questions. As with his other collections, the sheikh likes to be well briefed. He can name many of the estate’s 1,700 species by their Latin names, and is a recognized authority on the gazelle: Al Wabra has about twelve hundred species of them alone.
‘We are keeping the genetic species apart as much as possible to avoid mixed breeding,’ he explains as the car rolls ahead at walking pace.
‘Soon we’ll start building a modern animal hospital here, complete with operating theatre and quarantine unit. Our target is to play a part in taking rare animals off the endangered list.’
There is a staff of more than twenty looking after the animals, the bulk of the feed is shipped in from Germany every few months, and the zoologists here share their research with San Diego Zoo and other major animal centres worldwide.
We roll on past a colossal flight cage for cockatoos which, when finished, will have a computerized watering system. Next stop is a series of large conservatories where the Sheikh is nurturing dozens of species of rare palm trees.
Far from the trees and rare animals of Al Wabra, Sheikh Saud’s most important project is gathering pace. The jewel in Qatar’s cultural crown will be the Emirate’s new Museum of Islamic Art. When he was initially approached to design the complex, I. M. Pei declined, explaining that he had retired. But Sheikh Saud who had been greatly impressed by his Miho Museum in Kyoto, decided he would do all he could to talk Pei into accepting the commission. What finally convinced Pei was when the Sheikh showed him some of treasures to be kept in the museum.
Before Pei began the designs, he spent months studying the region’s culture and its own Gulf architecture. The result is a unique blend of traditional and contemporary styles, which will be set out in the water and overlooking Doha’s corniche. The museum will house some of the world’s most important objects of Islamic culture.
The collection was founded with a rare bronze fountainhead in the form of a hind, crafted in tenth century Cordoba. The piece, described by dealers as ‘massively important’ established Sheikh Saud and Qatar as key players on the world art scene. All the major areas of Islamic art are represented in the collection, which contains treasures such as the fourteenth century glass Cavour Vase. Once owned by Count Cavour and Queen Margaret of Italy, it is considered to be the best piece of Mameluk enameled glass known. The ceramics include a spectacular tenth century epigraphic dish from Nishapur (in what is now Iran), inscribed with a proverb in Kufic script.
Among the scientific instruments, there is one of the two most important astrolabes in existence, dating from tenth century Baghdad. There are early illustrated Islamic texts, too, such as the Book of the Fixed Stars, by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, one of the eminent Arab astronomers of the early Islamic era. The armoury has the yataghan of Sultan Bayazid II (the earliest Imperial Ottoman sword of its kind), which is regarded as one of the greatest pieces of Islamic weaponry in existence. The metalwork collection boasts a unique pair of door knockers with interlacing arabesques, from a thirteenth century Iraqi mosque; and among the Mughal treasures there’s a rare jade huqqa (water pipe) base, set with rubies, gold and lapis lazuli, once owned by Emperor Quinlong of China. When asked if he has enough pieces for the Museum of Islamic Art, Saud replies with characteristic tenacity,
‘We are not filling the shelves of a supermarket,’ he says. ‘A single outstanding object would be enough.’
The tradition of the museum will be balanced by the modern style of the Sheikh’s new villa. Before commissioning Arata Isozaki the distinguished Japanese architect, to design the building, Saud took him to India to see the great monuments such as the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri.
Isozaki is responsible for building the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Disney Building in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and the New Tokyo City Hall. After discussing the way the Mughal architects used empty spaces within buildings, they used similar techniques as they collaborated on the design for the villa. The residence will exhibit work by prominent artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Antoni Tapies and Anish Kapoor. The bathrooms are being designed by Philippe Starck, and Saud has commissioned architect Santiago Calatrava to design a special set of cutlery for the house.
Spend a little time in Sheikh Saud’s company and you wonder what drives him. Some say members of his family die young, that the source for his restlessness is a desire to fulfill his dreams while there’s still time. As those who know him confirm, he’s not interested in the price he has paid for a work of art itself. Whatever fires him, Saud is a collector on a grand, Victorian scale. He has grown up with great wealth, but seems not to be obsessed by money. Some of his offices and private apartments are decidedly modest.
In any other country, Saud’s buying potential would probably make him far more conspicuous, but Qatar is a land where vast personal wealth is not rare. Many young Qataris are preoccupied by the latest mobile phones, foreign sports cars and drive-in fast food restaurants. They relish a lifestyle that their nomadic ancestors would have found bewildering. Most of Sheikh Saud’s peers seem perplexed by his collecting. They don’t understand what he is doing. When the subject is raised the young Sheikh answers,
‘We are trying to create collections that will last and will add to the heritage of Qatar. What we are doing here may not be understood for generations to come.’
TWENTY
In Cambodia’s New Killing Fields
LYING ON HER STOMACH with her legs spread far apart, Sokha Tun gently probes the clump of tall grass before her, using the blade of a bayonet.
With a fixed stare of concentration, as beads of sweat run down her face, Sokha cuts the grass away a stalk at a time. Clothed in a navy blue Kevlar bullet-proof vest, with a steel helmet protecting her head, she takes a long, deep breath in the suffocating humidity. Then, wiping the perspiration from her right hand, she pauses for a moment. At the base of the tuft of grass, six inches from her visor, sits a green plastic disc – no larger than a hockey puck.
The disc, a 72B type Chinese-made landmine, designed to maim rather than to kill, will explode if tilted through more than ten degrees. Sokha cautiously checks for booby-traps wired into the base of the mine. One careless movement, and her arms will be blown clean off.
Widowed four
years ago, when her husband stepped on a landmine in the fields nearby, Sokha lives with her mother and three young children in Battambang Province, western Cambodia. With her husband dead, Sokha and her family had faced starvation. The choices for the region’s thousands of widows are stark: sell vegetables in the market, resort to begging, or turn to prostitution.
But eight months ago, as the future looked increasingly hopeless, Sokha got a job with a British-based organization. Now, together with a small team of other women, she clears landmines for a living.
This time last year, she was barefoot, dressed in rags, and had no home. With her children huddled around her, she slept in a doorway. But a year on, and her life has changed for the better. Sokha now makes $160 a month – an enormous wage, when compared with other local salaries in rural Cambodia.
Sokha, who has rented a large house in an affluent part of Battambang, can suddenly afford to ride to work on her new Honda motorcycle. She and her children are dressed in clean new clothes and, next month, she plans to buy the ultimate status symbol – a colour TV.
Once regarded as among the most fertile farmland in the Far East, Cambodia’s rural areas became known as the ‘Rice Bowl of Asia’. But two decades of conflict have left the nation’s fields, forests and hillsides, desperate and depleted of vegetation. The war with the Khmer Rouge may be over, but the enemy is still there, invisible and ever-present. For the people living in Cambodia’s countryside, simple daily tasks – fetching water and firewood, or planting rice – constantly expose them to the hidden foe which awaits them in the tall grass.