Hofuf

Al-Hofuf (Arabic: ٱلْهُفُوف al-Hufūf, sometimes spelt Hofuf or Hufuf), also known as Al-Hasa or Al-Ahsa is the seat of the Al-Ahsa Governorate, and the second-largest city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, after the capital, Dammam. With a population of 729,606 (as of 2022), it is the 6th most-populous city in Saudi Arabia, and the second-largest in the country to not be a provincial capital. It is known for being one of the largest date producing areas in the world, and for its old markets and palaces.

Overview

The city proper has a population of 150,000 and is part of a larger populated oasis area of towns and villages, with a total population of around 600,000. It is located inland from the Persian Gulf, southwest of Abqaiq and the Dhahran–Dammam–Al-Khobar metropolitan area on the road south to Haradh. It is the closest city to the famous Ghawar oil field, one of the world's largest conventional (land-based) fields.

Legend places Hofuf as the burial place of Laila and Majnoon, the star-crossed pair of the most popular love story in the Arab and Muslim world. The Queen of Sheba is also fabled to have visited this city from her kingdom in South Arabia. German explorer Hermann Burchardt photographed the city in 1904.

History

Hofuf was originally a Twelver Shi'a strongold, being majority Shi'ite and producing much, if not most of the Shi'ite scholarship of the Gulf. It also served as the headquarters of the Ottoman administration since 1871 when it was captured by the Ottoman Empire. It remained under Ottoman control until 1913, when it was captured by members of the Wahhabi movement, under Ibn Saud. In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded and the city took the name Hofuf, which has been among the kingdom's major cities since. Today, it remains only about half Shi'a, with the other half being Sunni Maliki, mostly from the same migrations as those to Bahrain and Kuwait.