Al-Balad: The Coral City and the Gateway to Grace

To walk the narrow, winding alleys of Historic Jeddah is to step through a veil of time. Here, the air itself feels ancient, scented with the lingering ghosts of frankincense and sea salt. This is Al-Balad, which simply means “The Town,” a name spoken with reverence by those who know its story. It is more than a district; it is the historical heart of Jeddah, the womb from which the modern metropolis was born. Its story is not one of kings and grand battles fought on open plains, but of faith, commerce, and the ceaseless tide of humanity that has flowed through its gates for over a millennium, all drawn by the gravitational pull of Mecca, the holiest city in Islam.

The Sands Before the City: A Pre-Islamic Dawn

Long before the first minaret pierced the skyline, this stretch of the Red Sea coast was a quiet witness to the rhythms of the desert and the sea. The land was harsh, a canvas of pale sand and rugged terrain, but the water was rich. Small, scattered settlements of fishermen from the Arabian Quda’a tribe dotted the shoreline, their lives governed by the tides and the seasonal bounty of the sea. They cast their nets into the turquoise waters and sought shelter in humble dwellings, their world largely untouched by the great empires rising and falling far beyond the horizon. This was not yet a city, not even a town, but a place of subsistence, a tranquil anchorage whose true destiny lay sleeping, waiting for a call that would awaken it and forever change the map of faith.

Life was simple, bound by tribal customs and the unwritten laws of the peninsula. The sea provided sustenance, and the occasional passing caravan offered a glimpse of the world beyond. But this coastal outpost, known then for its natural deep-water bay, held a geographic advantage it was not yet aware of. It lay in wait, a perfect harbor on the cusp of history, a few dozen miles from a valley where a man named Abraham was said to have built a sacred house of worship centuries before.

The Gateway to Grace: Uthman’s Decree and the Birth of a Holy Port

The turning point, the singular event that elevated this humble fishing village into a city of global significance, arrived not with an invading army but with a quiet, strategic decision. In the year 647 CE (25 AH), the third Caliph of Islam, Uthman ibn Affan, stood looking out at the Red Sea. The community of Muslims was growing, and with it, the number of souls yearning to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. The existing port, Al-Shoaibah, to the south, was proving inadequate.

With foresight and wisdom, Caliph Uthman designated the fishing settlement of Jeddah as the official seaport for Mecca. It was a decree that would echo through the ages. In that moment, Jeddah was reborn. It was no longer a mere collection of huts but the consecrated gateway, the Bab Makkah, for the entire Muslim world. Its destiny was now inextricably linked to the spiritual heart of Islam. This transformation was profound; it infused the very soul of the place with a sacred purpose. The city was no longer just a place to live, but a place of transition—the first step on hallowed ground for pilgrims who had crossed oceans and continents.

The Pulse of the Pilgrim Road

From that day forward, the rhythm of Jeddah became the rhythm of the Hajj. Ships began to arrive from every corner of the known world: from the Swahili Coast of Africa, the Malabar Coast of India, the gilded ports of Persia, and the fertile lands of Egypt. Their sails, full with the monsoon winds, were like prayers on the horizon. The harbor bustled with a diversity of faces, languages, and cultures rarely seen in one place. The air, once filled only with the cries of gulls, now rang with a hundred different tongues, all united by a single phrase: “Labbayka Allahumma Labbayk” (“Here I am, O God, at Your command”).

This influx of people brought with it a torrent of commerce. Jeddah blossomed into a vibrant entrepôt, a crucial node on the spice and incense routes. Its souqs, or markets, became legendary. Imagine the scene in Souq Al-Alawi, the city’s oldest marketplace: merchants haggling over the price of Gujarati textiles, Yemeni coffee beans, Sumatran pepper, and lustrous pearls harvested from the Red Sea’s depths. It was a place where goods and ideas were exchanged with equal fervor. A pilgrim might arrive with cloves from the Spice Islands and leave with a deeper understanding of Islamic jurisprudence learned from a scholar from Damascus he met in the shade of a mosque courtyard. Jeddah became a crucible of culture, a place where the Islamic world met, prayed, and traded, enriching the city with a cosmopolitan spirit that endures to this day.

Walls of Coral, Windows of Wood: A City Forged by Trade and Faith

The wealth generated by this spiritual and commercial traffic gave rise to a unique and breathtaking architectural style. As centuries passed, the humble dwellings of the fishing village gave way to magnificent tower houses, reaching four, five, or even seven stories into the sky. Their construction was an ode to the local environment, a testament to the ingenuity of their builders. The very walls were born of the sea, built from blocks of coral stone, known as mangaqa, quarried from the coastal reefs. This porous stone, studded with the fossilized patterns of marine life, had the remarkable ability to breathe, absorbing the day’s heat and releasing it into the cool night air.

This vertical city was built within a fortress. In the early 16th century, a new threat appeared on the horizon: Portuguese carracks armed with cannons, seeking to dominate the Red Sea trade routes. To protect the vital lifeline to the holy cities, the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri ordered the construction of a formidable defensive wall around Jeddah. Built with the same coral stone and reinforced with watchtowers and cannons, this wall encircled the town, its gates—like the famed Bab Makkah leading east toward Mecca and Bab Jadid facing the sea—becoming the thresholds between the outside world and the protected sanctuary of Al-Balad.

Within these walls, the city’s neighborhoods, or harat, developed their own distinct characters. There was Harat Al-Yaman, named for its southern orientation, Harat Al-Sham, facing north towards the Levant, Harat Al-Mazloum, site of an ancient legend, and Harat Al-Bahr, the sea quarter that looked out upon the harbor. Life unfolded in these shaded alleyways, too narrow for carts, creating an intimate, pedestrian-scaled world where community and faith were the cornerstones of existence.

The Roshan: Eyes of the City

The most iconic feature of Al-Balad’s architecture is undoubtedly the roshan (plural: rawashin). These are not mere windows but elaborate, projecting wooden screens and bay windows that adorn the facades of the tower houses like intricate lacework. Carved from fine teak or javan wood, they are masterpieces of joinery and design. The rawashin served a dual purpose, blending practicality with profound social and cultural values.

Functionally, they were a brilliant adaptation to the harsh climate. Their latticework broke the direct glare of the sun while capturing and cooling the sea breezes that drifted through the alleys, creating a natural form of air conditioning for the home’s interior. Spiritually and socially, they were the veil between the private, interior world of the family and the public life of the street. They allowed the women of the household to observe the comings and goings in the alley below without being seen, preserving their privacy in accordance with Islamic tradition. The rawashin are the eyes of Al-Balad, silent observers that have watched centuries of history unfold on the streets below.

An Ottoman Bastion in a Changing World

Following the Mamluks, Jeddah came under the stewardship of the Ottoman Empire, which recognized its immense strategic and religious importance. The Ottomans reinforced the city’s defenses, garrisoned troops, and added their own architectural layer to the urban fabric, building mosques like Masjid al-Hanafi and administrative structures. For four centuries, the Ottoman crescent flew over the city, and Jeddah continued its sacred role as the port of the pilgrims.

It was during this period that some of the most famous houses were built, becoming landmarks in their own right. None is more celebrated than the Nassif House. Completed in the late 1800s, this grand residence stands as a pinnacle of Hijazi architecture. Its most famous feature is not its majestic roshan, but its wide internal ramp system, built so that camels could walk up to the highest floors to deliver goods and water. It was a house built for a merchant prince, a symbol of the city’s prosperity. In 1925, this very house played a role in the birth of modern Saudi Arabia when it hosted King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the founder of the kingdom, after he unified the Hijaz region.

The Echoes of Al-Balad: A Living Legacy

The 20th century brought changes more rapid and dramatic than any before. The discovery of oil transformed the Arabian Peninsula, and Jeddah exploded in size, growing into a sprawling modern city. The old coral houses, once the pinnacle of urban living, were overshadowed by concrete and glass. In 1947, seeking to accommodate this rapid expansion, the ancient city walls were dismantled. For a time, it seemed Al-Balad might be lost, a relic of a bygone era destined to crumble into dust and memory.

But the soul of a place like this does not die so easily. A new awareness dawned—a recognition that Al-Balad was not an obstacle to modernity but a priceless, irreplaceable treasure. A concerted effort, driven by both the government and proud Jeddawi families, began to preserve and restore this historic heart. In 2014, this effort was globally recognized when Historic Jeddah, the Gate to Makkah, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Today, to wander through Al-Balad is to hear the echoes of its past in a vibrant, living present. The call to prayer still spills from the ancient minaret of Masjid al-Shafi’i, a structure whose foundations were laid in the time of the Caliphs. The scent of oud and spices still drifts from the storefronts of Souq Al-Alawi. Artisans are once again carefully carving the intricate latticework of a new roshan, using techniques passed down through generations. The city is not a museum; it is alive. It is a place where history is not just remembered, but felt in the texture of the coral walls, heard in the murmur of the alleys, and seen in the proud, watchful eyes of its wooden windows. Here, in the heart of one of Arabia’s most dynamic cities, the timeless story of faith, sea, and civilization continues.