A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1039 entries
sarha
A walk or wander that leads to some kind of revelation or spiritual renovation. Not aimless — purposefully open. As a noun, it means a roaming walk with no particular destination — young men would go on a sarḥa into the open hills, disappearing for a day, sometimes weeks. To go on a sarḥa was to move freely, at will, without restraint.
Etymology
Arabic: سرحة (sarḥa), from the verb سرح (saraḥa) — to let cattle out to pasture early in the morning, leaving them to wander and graze at liberty. The word comes from Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks, where he uses it to describe his walks through the landscape of the West Bank.