Page 34 - UAE Truncal States
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                                                Geographical Condi lions
         deep into the airspace over the Peninsula; on the other hand, it causes
         some of those clouds to rise and deliver the rain over its peaks. The
         run-off water from the range is the only source for the replenishment
         of the underground water table almost as far west as Dubai. The local
         economy has nearly always been totally reliant on the availability of
         this water.
           The very rugged nature of the mountain range made it a perfect
         refuge throughout the ages, and was at one time a particularly
         important factor in preserving the independence of the Ibadi State in
         neighbouring Oman from the time when it broke away from the
         mainstream of the Ummayyad Caliphate at the end of the 7th
         century. The inaccessibility of its peaks and valleys is a factor that
         plays an important part even in modern strategic deliberations, while
         it is also responsible for the isolation in which some remote com­
         munities have lived until very recently.4
           Although only a stretch of about one tenth of the Hajar actually
         forms part of the UAE territory, this mountain system, which as a
         whole covers some 35,000 square kilometres of south-eastern
         Arabian territory, has been the economic backbone and the political
         nerve-centre throughout much of the history of these States, which
         used to be called locally Sahil Oman (Coast of Oman) and were later
         generally known as the Trucial Coast.

         The desert
         Another geographical feature which exerts an equally vital influence
         on the day-to-day life in the UAE is the desert. More than two thirds
         of the territory of the seven States is taken up by tracts of mostly
         sandy desert with varying amounts of sparse seasonal vegetation.
         What contributes to the formidable nature of this desert is the fact
         that it forms part of the 800,000 square kilometres of desert called the
         Rub' al Khali.5 This sea of sand and gravel plains has always
         separated the Gulf Coast from the nearest areas of settled habitation
         such as Hadhramaut, Yemen, or Najd, more effectively than an
         ordinary sea. Communications along the fringes of this desert were
         maintained throughout the history of population movements in the
         Peninsula. Some migratory tribes customarily cross the desert to the
         south of the border of the UAE. Inhospitable as these particular
         waterless tracts of desert are, they afforded refuge for tribal beduin
         groups who, although mostly roaming the borderlands between the
         desert and the settled areas, were able to survive in the Rub’ al Khali
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