In a time when Samuel P. Huntington’s doomsday prophecy of a “Clash of Civilizations” seems more plausible than since the time of the Crusades, it helps to take a deep breath, count to 10 and begin to try to understand the opposing civilizations.

It is nearly impossible for a non-Muslim person to enter the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia unless he has official business. On assignment for the U.S. Army, I had such official business to conduct in the Holy Land. My maroon U.S. passport had the word “Official” embossed in gold, right on the cover.

Nevertheless, I spent most of my time in the kingdom “on lock down,” at “ThreatCon Charlie” (the highest threat condition level), to use military jargon. We had orders to travel for military business only, nothing else. U.S. Central Command put this restriction in place for two reasons: Ariel Sharon’s visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in September 2000 had inflamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and shortly after, terrorists bombed the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. Speaking on behalf of my military colleagues, we all had a healthy fear for our safety. We were infidels, and as Mr. bin Laden has said, we were unwelcome guests in the holiest place on Earth.

In fairness though, U.S. military personnel are not and were not the largest group of Westerners in Saudi Arabia or its Eastern Province, home to much of the world’s proven oil reserves. The city of Dhahran–about a five-minute drive from Al-Khobar, now infamous for the 1995 Khobar Towers terrorist attack, which killed 19 U.S. airmen–established roots in 1933 when the Arabian government granted an oil concession to an American company, California Arabian Standard Oil Company, which the Saudi government later took over and renamed Saudi Aramco. Since 1933, Dhahran has been home to increasingly larger numbers of Westerners in the oil industry, in effect making it one of the kingdom’s most pro-Western cities.

Because the area’s population is relatively accepting of its non-Muslim visitors, Westerners in Dhahran are not on high alert for possible violence. Nevertheless, Westerners cannot completely let down their guard; periodically, anti-western terrorists do attack individuals and small groups.

When leaving Dhahran, however, Westerners accept that they must adhere more closely to Islamic traditions and dictates and also be vigilant not to become terrorist targets.

Eventually,Central Command downgraded the threat level from “ThreatCon Charlie” to “ThreatCon Alpha” (the lowest level). Translated from military jargon, we were free – free to visit friends in other parts of the city and free to simply explore. Yet, most U.S. personnel were not curious about Arabia–the forbidden birthplace of Islam – its history or the land they had the privilege to visit.

I, however, appreciated the chance and took it. Although Saudi law forbade me to visit Mecca or Medina, I was free to travel most other places. Fortunately, I had met an English nurse named Kay, who had lived in Saudi Arabia for seven years and had traveled the desert kingdom extensively. While discussing what there was to see, she mentioned the town of Hofuf in the Al Ahsa oasis, one of the world’s largest palm oases. Al Ahsa is reputedly visible from space. It was settled. We would go there. I would drive my U.S. government-issued Chevrolet Caprice and, as Saudi law forbids women to drive, she would navigate.

The road to Hofuf is long and unbending with red sand extending seemingly forever into the distance. Al Ahsa’s remote location shelters Hofuf from Western influence. Therefore, the area’s residents follow Wahhabism (a strictly fundamental form of Islam) with much greater zeal than followers in Dhahran or even Riyadh. Therefore, out of respect for Islamic customs and for her and my safety, Kay wore an abaya (a black robe-like garment that covers a woman from neck to ankles).

Later, following Islamic dictates, we ate in the “family section” in the restaurant we went to. Wahhabist strictures forbid women to eat in the same room as single men. Women cannot eat at restaurants without “family sections.” At any rate, we ate ghuzi (barbecued mutton on rice with nuts), couscous with sweet, cooked, green grapes and flatbread. These and several other dishes all served family-style.

Upon arrival in Hofuf, we asked a few people where the oasis was, yet none could say. We asked our waiter, and he seemed to have no idea either. It so happened we were in the oasis, but didn’t know it. Then, while eating, I looked to my right and saw a mural depicting green palms and blue water. I explained to our waiter that the place in the painting was the place we wanted to go. Eureka! We finally understood each other. It turned out we were looking for the palm date farming region at the heart of the massive oasis.

Near the middle of our meal our waiter came to our enclosed booth to say that he had arranged a tour of the farms and a trip to a place called Judas’ Cave. We didn’t know what he expected of us, who would lead the tour, if it cost money or if we should trust our guide with our safety.

After our meal, despite a language barrier, our tour guide and I agreed that I would follow him in my car while he drove his own car through the farms to the cave. As we left Hofuf’s small downtown with its dusty pavement and short, squat, sun-baked buildings, and then passed the main water pumping station -- which seemed to be violently thrusting thousands upon thousands of gallons of water per minute from a colossal “spring” in the desert sands into a collecting pool – we began to see vast tracks of date palms. It is difficult to describe my surprise and wonder. What knowledge we had about oases was derived from cartoons and old black-and-white movies I watched as a kid. An oasis was usually portrayed as a remote, small pond or large puddle with a handful of palm trees scattered here and there. This notion of an oasis was completely misconceived. Contrasted with the surrounding desert, its lushness and density seemed otherworldly.

Once we left the farming area, we traveled a few miles through a village within the oasis before we arrived at Judas’ Cave. From a distance, the rock formation that constitutes the cave appeared like a rough-hewn, smaller version of Australia’s Ayers Rock, but more as an island surrounded by a sea of palms.

The cavern went far into the orange rock, and in many places, it was so tall that sunlight came in through cracks in the rock ceiling above. The cave had many branches and was about nine stories tall. Where the light did creep in, it shined only soft and diffused, transforming the space into a kind of primitive temple. It was sublime. It was mostly dark and silent inside the cave, with only our voices and those of another small group of Saudis bouncing off the rugged, stone walls.

Our guide patiently waited for us outside the cave. When we came back into the sunlight, he signaled us to come to the top of the cave where he stood. Kay and I scrambled up and stood atop the rock. Without words, our guide traced the horizon as he pointed out across the oasis to the desert floor below. There were palm trees almost as far as the eye could see, only to be gilded in by an orange halo of sand and rugged rock formations -- a view impossible to forget.

At the end of our tour I tried to pay our “tour guide” $20 U.S. To me, it was a paltry sum for the amount of effort he spent showing us Al Ahsa. Lacking a shared verbal language, he firmly grabbed my wrist and assertively pushed it and the money away.

Only later did I discover that our “tour guide” was the restaurant’s delivery driver. He simply took time out from his deliveries to show two blue-eyed infidels what there was to see in a place he probably referred to as al-Ard al-Muqadassa – the Holy Land.