Hawalli: The Village of Tranquility and Entertainment
A small book with a profound impact remains one of those gestures that make you feel friendship is sometimes the most beautiful gift, offering knowledge. My friend, researcher Hani Al-Asseiri, gifted me an old copy of the book “Hawalli.. The Village of Comfort and Entertainment,” by the late Ayoub Hussein Al-Ayoub. I extend my deepest gratitude and appreciation to him for this gesture, which transported me, even if only for a few hours, to a time I did not live through, yet while reading its pages, I felt as though I were there, walking through its dusty alleys and smelling the aroma of food wafting before noon.
For those unfamiliar with researcher Hani Al-Asseiri, he is not merely a reader of heritage but a creator of it. He has dedicated himself to serving his nation’s legacy through a long career of research and exhibitions held both within and outside Kuwait, even establishing a personal museum housing rare and unique heritage artifacts, which has become a landmark and refuge for researchers of Kuwaiti heritage.
At its core, “Hawalli.. The Village of Comfort and Entertainment” is not just a dry historical account of a village whose landmarks were erased under cement and urban sprawl. Rather, it is an attempt to rescue memory from oblivion, written by a man who lived through that era himself and traveled back more than forty years in his memory. In his preface, he humbly admits that he did not fully do justice to the subject, and that what he wrote is merely an individual effort driven by love, not by a claim to knowledge. It is precisely this humility that lends the book its credibility. The author writes not from the position of a professional historian, but as a son who fears his village will dissolve from the memory of future generations, just as its mud walls dissolved under rain and time.
What stands out in this work is that it does not merely describe Hawalli as a geographical place, but reconstructs it as an emotion. He speaks of its sweet water, discovered in 1906, which gave the village its name and fame, inspiring poetry and competitions among poets who praised and mocked it. He also describes its bitterness when its taste changed years later, rendering it suitable only for agriculture and watering livestock. He writes about sidr (lotus) trees and their thorns, from which hair medicine and washing water for the dead were extracted, as well as simple mud mosques whose doors were never locked because they had no doors at all. He mentions a small school established in a modest house, where boys sat on mats learning letters amidst the smell of coal and cooking.
Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the book is its ability to evoke small details that create genuine nostalgia, not artificial sentimentality: the rooster’s crow announcing dawn, the barking of dogs in the last watch of the night, the scent of earth after rain, and that magical moment when storms sweep away footprints from the ground, only for life to gradually begin anew each day. This is not merely a collection of memories, but a philosophy of life based on contentment and simplicity.
The book also touches upon Bayan Palace, Al-Shaab Palace, and the Naqra Dam, as well as Hawalli Street, which served as an evening retreat for residents. Much of this is based on oral testimonies collected by the author from elders and respected Kuwaiti historians, resulting in a work that blends personal memory with collective documentation, giving it added value as a primary source for anyone seeking to understand how Kuwait was before its villages transformed into neighborhoods and suburbs within a major city.
In conclusion, reading this book is not a passing cultural luxury, but a small act of resistance against forgetting, and a reminder that the urban development and congestion we see today were, in the recent past, virgin land, and that behind every street and building lies the story of a village that once pulsed with life in its own unique way.
Adnan Abdullah Al-Othman
