Saudi's Bab Samhan Hotel & Charmaleena Craft a Locket for Qays & Laila

One of the oldest love stories in Arabic poetry has been recast in gold and diamonds. Bab Samhan, the first luxury hotel to open in the historic heart of Diriyah, has partnered with the Saudi fine-jewellery house Charmaleena on a limited-edition piece called The Locket of Love, inspired by the story of Qays and Laila, the Najdi lovers whose story has been recited across the Arab world for more than a thousand years.

There is a reason Bab Samhan chose The Locket of Love as its first cultural collaboration. Built within a cluster of restored Najdi houses as part of Marriott's Luxury Collection, Bab Samhan was named after one of Diriyah's historic gates and reconstructed using reclaimed clay, timber and stone from the site itself, preserving the architectural language of old Najd.

"Bab Samhan is a gateway into the culture, bridging the past and the present,” says Fabrice Ducry, the hotel's General Manager. "This is our Northstar and what guides our every decision."

That connection even runs down to the names on the doors. The hotel's 134 rooms and suites are each named after spaces within a traditional Najdi home, from Seffah, where families gather, to Jal, a room with a view, and Liwan, the shaded semi-open room overlooking a courtyard. The same Najdi details that shape the experience of Bab Samhan also seep into the locket.

Part of Charmaleena's signature Tales & Treasures collection, The Locket of Love is crafted in 18-karat gold and diamonds and engraved with a line of poetry. Its surface borrows the geometric language of traditional Najdi doors and homes, and it is made to be personalised, engraved with two names.

To Leena El Khereiji, the owner of Charmaleena and its co-founder together with her sister Hala, this task was a question of bringing two distinct identities together. "From the moment Bab Samhan reached out to us, I started researching how to bring together the identity of the place with the identity of Charmaleena," she says. In the end, she decided to “tell a new story drawn from our heritage, our poetry, our culture and our homes."

The story she settled on is among the most enduring in Arabic literature. Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and Laila al-Aamiriya grew up together in the same desert settlements of Najd. Forbidden to marry, Qays poured his longing into verse and earned the name by which he is still known, Majnun Laila, Laila's madman. "I drew on Bab Samhan itself for the face of the locket. From our homes and from our poetry, an eternal love story was born, one that reminds us that places draw their beauty from the people we love."

That idea is carried by the verse engraved into the piece, which Qays is said to have composed for Laila:

وما حبُّ الديارِ شغفنَ قلبي … ولكن حبُّ مَن سكَنَ الديارا

"It was never the dwellings that held my heart, only the one who lived within them."

The verse sits remarkably well with its new home, one that draws its meaning from the people, rituals and forms of hospitality that bring it back to life. Where Qays sang of dwellings and the people who filled them, the hotel is itself those homes with weathered walls and unscathed tamarisk-beam ceilings. At Taleed, the Michelin-starred chef Michael Mina folds Hejazi flavours into a Mediterranean menu, while the signature restaurant Jareed serves the food of Najd. The Courtyard, open to the sky at the centre of the hotel, gathers guests like old homes once did.

For Ducry, that shared reverence for the place shaped the choice of collaborator; Charmaleena is a homegrown house, firmly rooted into the region. "Working with partners who share a genuine connection to the region, and who better to interpret its heritage than those who have dedicated their craft to celebrating it?"