Rub' al Khali or Empty Quarter is the largest sand desert on earth. Other historical references in the eighth and 12th centuries place it ‘between Shisr and Sanaa’ or ‘between Hadramawt and Subub’, and in the 11th century the Arab historian Nashwan bin Said al-Himyari describes Ubar as ‘the land which belonged to the ‘Ad in the eastern part of the Yemen today it is untrodden desert owing to the drying up of its water’.Īll of these are broadly in the southern part of the Empty Quarter and in southwestern Oman, inland from the area where frankincense was produced, a highly-valued incense which was grown along this coast and traded with the countries to the north via camel trains across the Empty Quarter. The earliest mention is in Ptolemy’s Guide to Geography of 150 AD in which he lists the tribes living in Arabia as including the Iobaritae or ‘people of Ubar’ and locates them in the Empty Quarter. References to Ubar pre-date the Arabian Nights however. A similar story is mentioned in the Quran, where it is said that the city of Iram lies in the region of Ubar and was built by the ‘Ad tribe, but that it was destroyed by a violent sandstorm after its people rejected the message of Islam brought to them by the prophet Hud. It is the City of Many-Columned Iram, built by King Shaddad of the ‘Ad tribe at great expense over many years, but when he came to occupy it he was struck dead by Allah as a warning against pride. Where lies the mysterious lost city of Ubar? ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ), ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) Deriv He gathers up as much treasure as he can carry (fortunately he had found his camel to help him), and later discovers the story of the city. One of the stories is about a man named Abdullah bin Ali Kalibah who goes out into the desert one day to search for his lost camel and finds a magnificent abandoned city decorated with pearls and precious gems, and lofty towers that seem to hang in the air. Illustration from "One Thousand and One Nights" ( Public Domain ) The Original Lost City Eventually after a thousand and one nights, the king spares her life and they live happily ever after. Thus starts a series of nightly stories, every one of them ending on a cliffhanger, a sort of medieval forerunner of the weekly TV series. Scheherazade finishes the tale…but then begins another. In the morning, curious to know how the tale ends, Shahyrar spares her life in order that she can finish the story that night. Eventually he marries Scheherazade, who on the night of their marriage begins to tell him a tale, but does not finish it. He then marries a succession of virgins, but because of his anger over his first wife’s infidelity he has each one executed in the morning before she has a chance to dishonor him. The basic premise is well known: A Persian king Shahyrar discovers that his wife has been unfaithful and has her executed. The stories proved so popular that it was translated to English two years later and has been in print ever since. In 1704 it made its first appearance in Europe when it was translated into French, and at that time even more tales were added including some of the best-known ones such as Aladdin’s Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor. In the 13th century more were added from Egypt and Syria. Over time it grew, perhaps in an attempt to bulk up the text to reach the number of tales promised in the title, with stories added in the ninth and tenth centuries from Iraq, including many about the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, the fifth Caliph who lived in Baghdad in the late eighth century.ĭuring the reign of the Harun al-Rashid, the city of Baghdad began to flourish as a center of knowledge, culture and trade. The earliest version is thought to have been based on folk tales from India and Persia and was probably written in the ninth century in Syria. One Thousand and One NightsĪlso known as The One Thousand and One Nights, the story of the book itself is almost as much of a tale of mystery as the stories it includes. The myth of the Arabian ‘lost city of the desert’ can be traced to a book of bedtime stories dating from the early ninth century, which was largely responsible for the European romantic perception of Arabia as a place of harems, flying carpets, genies and miscellaneous magic of all kinds – the Arabian Nights. 28 Jan Atlantis of the Sands and The Lost City of Ubar: Lost, Found, and Lost Again
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