Defallah Atieq - an obituary
Defallah Atieq very sadly died in mid June 2011. He was a key man in the discovery and development of climbing and trekking tourism in Wadi Rum. He was also a very special person, a great friend, and a proud family man, highly respected in the village.
When we first went to Jordan in 1984 people at the Tourism Ministry in Amman advised us not to go into Wadi Rum without someone to introduce us to the Bedouin but we went anyway. Defallah was the first person to come to meet us. He was then a young man, in his early twenties, with swashbuckling good looks, long black hair, and a knife in his belt, the epitome of the classic Bedouin, straight from the pages of Thesiger and Lawrence.
He asked why we had come to Rum and invited us out to the desert camp of his father, Sheikh Atieq, where we were made welcome in true Bedouin style and invited to stay the night. Grinning, he gave us some good Bedouin advice, “If you are hard with us, we will break you. If you are soft with us, we will squeeze you. If you are straight, you will be our friends.” And we have been friends ever since.
With their father’s approval Defallah and his brothers offered to help us in our planned exploration of Rum’s climbing and trekking potential and welcomed the suggestion that others might come to enjoy Rum’s spectacular mountains and deserts. Defallah told us that they had climbed most summits whilst hunting ibex or collecting herbs. They wondered why we had brought climbing equipment and ropes when they climbed alone and with nothing, sometimes soloing (as we were soon to discover) up to grade 5+ moves whilst high in the mountains.
In the first weeks of our visit, Defallah and his brothers took us around the whole area, pointing out their hunting routes and naming the mountains and key features. They were fully supportive of us writing a guidebook and looked forward to welcoming others into their homeland. Over the following years, based on their input, Rum became known as “the world’s best desert climbing area”, and the Bedouin hunting routes were given the accolade of “amongst the world’s best mountain adventures”.
None of this would have happened without the approval and help of Defallah and his family. It was Defallah who took us out to see the now famous Rock Bridge of Burdah in 1984. He wondered “if it might be of interest”. A few years later he identified Jebel um Adaami as Jordan’s highest summit climbing it with us and his brother, Sabbah Atieq, who is now Rum’s most experienced and respected mountain guide. Reaching the tops of these mountain features is now on every climber's and trekker’s itinerary, as is doing a Bedouin route.
We have been welcomed into Defallah’s home every year since we first met and even though he was ill when we last met in April, it was a great shock to receive the following email from Wadi Rum about his untimely death two months later: “Defallah was very important to many people. Hundreds have come from the villages, from Amman and Saudi. He has been sick for a long time with stomach problems but he never put himself first, always feeling responsible for others. He died with his family around him, at home and in peace, he knew it for a long time and he had prepared himself. So many people have come, sons, brothers, cousins, nephews, friends, a true Bedouin family, his sons stayed with him all night. We will mourn for three days. He was a special person to so many… but he is with Allah now and in peace.”
We, and all those who have visited, climbed or trekked in Rum are indebted to him.

Top Defallah with his father, the late Sheikh Atieq

Left Defallah was the first Bedouin to abseil, seen here near the school in 1984

Below left Defallah (right) with his brothjer Sabbah and Di Taylor on the summit of Jebel um Adaami

Below right at home with his children

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