Issue 9917 – Friday, June 3, 2016 (27 Sha‘ban 1437 AH)
By Abdullah Al‑Madani
If the first Saudi physician from the Eastern Province was Dr. Yusuf bin Ya‘qub Al‑Hajri, whom the late King Saud appointed as Minister of Health in the government he formed in 1962, then the first Saudi physician from Najd was Dr. Hamad bin Abdullah bin Hamad bin Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al‑Bassam (Abu Najeeb)—a man who distinguished himself not only in medicine and surgery, but also in commerce, literature, and poetry.
As his family name suggests, Abu Najeeb belonged to the well‑known Al‑Bassam family, whose members are spread across Najd, the Hijaz, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. Many of them even traveled to India in search of livelihood, knowledge, or both. The Al‑Bassam family hails originally from ‘Unayzah in the Al‑Qassim region of Najd and traces its lineage to the Tamim tribe, descending from ‘Uqbah bin Rayyis bin Zakhar, whose ancestry goes back to Nizar bin Ma‘ad bin Adnan.
Among the notable figures of this family are:
- Hamad bin Ibrahim bin Abdullah, the family’s founder, who came to ‘Unayzah as a merchant from Sudair in 1762 and died there in 1792, leaving six sons: Ibrahim, Abdulqadir, Mohammed (the great‑grandfather of Abu Najeeb), Suleiman, Abdulrahman, and Abdulaziz.
- The renowned judge of Al‑‘Uyaynah, Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Abdullah Al‑Bassam, who moved from Ushayqir to Al‑‘Uyaynah in 1606 and died there in 1630.
- The merchant Saleh bin Abdullah bin Hamad bin Suleiman Al‑Bassam, who founded the trade of the famous red “Bassam Shemagh” in the Gulf in 1928 with his nephew Mohammed bin Ali bin Abdullah bin Hamad Al‑Bassam.
- Hamad bin Suleiman bin Hamad bin Suleiman Al‑Bassam, father of the well‑known Bahraini merchant Suleiman bin Hamad Al‑Bassam.
- Mohammed Abdullah Al‑Bassam, owner of the Nairn Transport Company, which operated the Baghdad–Damascus route in the 1930s.
- Abdullah Abdulrahman Hamad Al‑Bassam, the first to bring the Barhi date palm from Basra to ‘Unayzah in 1893, from where it spread across Saudi Arabia.
- The merchant Abdullah Abdulaziz Al‑Bassam, who chaired and helped establish Bank Al‑Reef in Lebanon.
- Retired Air Force Colonel Abdulmohsen Hamad Al‑Bassam, who accompanied Prince Sultan bin Salman on his space mission as a backup astronaut and later served as military attaché at the Saudi embassy in London.
According to the book “Rihlat ‘Umr” (A Journey of a Lifetime), compiled by the children of Dr. Abu Najeeb about their late father—and which we rely on here as a primary reference with some additions—the family of Dr. Hamad lived modestly but peacefully in ‘Unayzah until tragedy struck: their great‑grandfather Mohammed was killed in the Battle of Al‑Matar between the people of ‘Unayzah and Imam Abdullah Al‑Faisal. He was in his forties, and his eldest son Hamad (grandfather of Abu Najeeb) was only sixteen.
Since the deceased left no wealth to support his family, the elders of Al‑Bassam gathered and collected money to help the bereaved household. But young Hamad refused, saying he did not want to grow accustomed to others’ charity. Under pressure of need, he eventually accepted—but only as a loan he vowed to repay.
Soon after, Hamad surprised his mother, Ruqayyah Othman Al‑Khuwaytir, by announcing his decision to travel to India in search of livelihood, promising her that he would work tirelessly to make the Al‑Bassam home the finest in ‘Unayzah. Indeed, he traveled to India in 1864, passing through Bahrain before arriving in Bombay at the age of seventeen. There, he worked as a clerk for the Al‑Ghanim trading family, who were then based in India.
Thus, Hamad became the first Al‑Bassam to travel to India, working day and night, living frugally, saving every rupee, and enduring the pain of separation from his family.
After three years of hard work, he saved enough to start his own independent trade in spices and grains. In his fourth year abroad, he returned to Najd to visit his mother and siblings, bringing them gifts and enough money to repay the loans he had taken after his father’s death.
In ‘Unayzah, Hamad gathered his younger brothers—Abdulaziz, Abdullah, and Abdulrahman—and encouraged them to follow his path of travel, trade, and ambition. When they agreed, he took Abdulaziz to Iraq and then to India to teach him the trade. Later, he did the same with Abdullah.
While Abdulaziz became a merchant in India like his brother, Abdullah focused on agriculture, literature, and history. He eventually returned to ‘Unayzah and used the wealth he earned in India to establish a large farm known as Al‑Muhairiyyah, which became a residence for him and his brothers. There, he hosted scholars, writers, princes, and Western travelers. This environment nurtured his historical talent, and he became one of the five most important historians of Najd in the 12th and 13th Hijri centuries. Before his death in 1927 at age 69, he completed his famous work “Tuhfat Al‑Mushtaq fi Tarikh Najd wal‑Hijaz wal‑‘Iraq.”
In short, Hamad bin Mohammed Al‑Bassam (grandfather of Abu Najeeb) transformed his family’s misfortune into prosperity. He opened the doors of India to his brothers and later to his cousins, who established major trading houses there and earned a strong reputation among Indian merchants and Gulf traders residing in India.
He also convinced his brother Abdulaziz to manage the family’s trade in Basra, then a fertile city rich in palm groves producing the finest dates. Abdulaziz excelled in the date trade and in grains shipped from central and northern Iraq to Basra’s port. This elevated the Al‑Bassam family’s commercial standing in Iraq, Najd, the Hijaz, Bahrain, the Levant, and beyond.
This prominence prompted King Abdulaziz—may God have mercy on him—to summon the Al‑Bassam family to Riyadh and honor them, especially after the Battle of Al‑Sareef (1901), in which the forces of Ibn Rashid defeated the army of Kuwait’s ruler Mubarak Al‑Sabah in Al‑Qassim. According to pages 28–29 of Rihlat ‘Umr, King Abdulaziz hosted the Al‑Bassam leaders for a period of two to fourteen months to assess the situation in Al‑Qassim after the battle and understand the positions of its influential families.
He later allowed them to return to Al‑Qassim after mediation by the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al‑Thani.
Some members of the family chose to visit Qatar first to thank its ruler; others traveled to Bahrain and then to India for trade. Among the latter was Hamad, who returned to Bombay before planning a final return to ‘Unayzah via Basra. However, he died in Basra in 1906 at age 59 and was buried in the Al‑Hasan Al‑Basri Cemetery in Al‑Zubair, leaving behind a legacy of hard work, honor, and five children—one of whom was Abdullah bin Hamad Al‑Bassam, father of Abu Najeeb.
What about his father, Abdullah bin Hamad Al‑Bassam?
After his father’s death in Basra, Abdullah traveled to Bombay in 1907 to take over the family business, leaving behind in ‘Unayzah his patient and intelligent wife Noura Al‑Bassam, and his daughter Hessa (mother of former Saudi Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Abdulrahman Aba Al‑Khail). In India, Abdullah earned a strong reputation in the commercial community, inherited from his father. He frequently traveled between Bombay and ‘Unayzah, sometimes via Bahrain and sometimes via Basra.
He had his son Hamad in 1910, and his daughter Mudhawwi (later the wife of Suleiman bin Ibrahim Al‑Bassam) in 1912.
Abdullah lived in India until his death in Bombay in 1943, where he was buried. His younger brothers, Suleiman and Abdulrahman, succeeded him in managing the family’s business.
Before his death, Abdullah had built a three‑story mud house in ‘Unayzah, where his wife Noura lived until she passed away at age 102. His daughters Hessa and Mudhawwi also lived there before their marriages.
As for his son Hamad, he learned reading, writing, and the Qur’an, excelled in Arabic, and mastered beautiful calligraphy. He became a distinguished writer and poet, especially since he lived in the Al‑Muhairiyyah farm, which housed a rich library of manuscripts and books on poetry, literature, and history. He also gained knowledge from his father and uncles, and from the culturally open environment of ‘Unayzah, which attracted many foreign travelers such as:
William Palgrave, Carlo Guarmani, Edward Nolde, Barclay Raunkiaer, Harry St. John Philby, Dr. Louis Paul Dame, and the Lebanese‑American writer Ameen Rihani, who famously described ‘Unayzah as “the Paris of Najd.”
After ensuring that his son Hamad had mastered Arabic, literature, religion, and history, Abdullah encouraged him to join him in India to acquire modern knowledge and experience life in the developed world.
Thus, Hamad traveled to India for the first time at age fifteen with his uncle Abdulrahman. Their journey began with a long camel caravan to Al‑Zubair, 800 km from ‘Unayzah. After resting in one of the Al‑Bassam homes there, they continued to Basra, which captivated Hamad with its greenery, orchards, rivers, markets, and lively atmosphere.
A month later, they boarded a British India Steam Navigation Company ship from Basra’s Al‑Ashar port to Karachi and then to Bombay, stopping at Gulf ports such as Manama and Muscat. The voyage lasted about two weeks.
Hamad arrived in Bombay in 1935, the jewel of the British Empire, the busiest port in India, and the hub of Gulf merchants and migrant families. For decades, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula depended on Bombay for rice, sugar, tea, spices, textiles, and furniture.
His father Abdullah welcomed him warmly to their home behind Chakla Street, near the furniture market. Within days, Abdullah hired a tutor to teach him English in preparation for enrolling him in Indian schools.
Over the next forty years that Abu Najeeb spent in India, he mastered three foreign languages and several local ones. He completed his pre‑university education at the missionary Saint Mary’s School, graduating with distinction despite the difficulty of its language, science, and mathematics curriculum.