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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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